#and what benefit do you get when you address the root cause anyways? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yanderechuu · 3 years

Text

Short-winded

yandere!Class 1A x fem!reader

[3K]

Summary: You are being forced out of your shell by your classmates, but now it seems more for their on benefit than that of your own.

Warning: anxiety, stalking

│

For someone who resented public attention, it came with shock when you announced you had wanted to become a hero.

You were the definition of social anxiety, often finding solace within the four corners of your room, and if not, then the kitchen of your house would do. So the worst form of betrayal your guardian could ever do to you was to send you off to U.A. dorms, practically miles away from the comfort of your own home. In the worst attempt to guilt-trip them, you claimed they were disowning you; still, they were adamant of the opportunity that you’d ease on socializing.

What you didn’t know was that your guardian had warned your homeroom teacher of your current ‘predicament’ (they’d call it a predicament; you’d call it your own nature), and requested if possible that you’d be compelled to engage in social interaction until you were comfortable with it. Aizawa agreed, seeing to it that if your own guardian personally addressed it to him, then it must really be a matter not to be taken lightly of. He had seen your tendencies, too - like when you would be called out for recitation, always having the answer at the tip of your tongue, wanting to roll it out so you could sit down. In the end, you would never find the courage to respond, and your classmates would assume that you didn’t know the answer to the question, while only you and your teacher would know otherwise. You were silent about your opinions during group hero training, only ever abiding whatever your classmates’ plans were, despite the little hiccups and uncertainties you would recognize in secret (but they were rare, anyway, as most of the time you only heeded those of Bakugou’s or Midoriya’s or Yaoyorozu’s).

Only when your guardian had approached him did Aizawa come to realize that, oh, he had never really heard you speak. Now that he thought about it, what did your voice sound like? The last time he heard it was when you had asked an incoherent query after homeroom lessons regarding hero laws. He had asked you to repeat it again, and again, and again, until when he had said, “sorry?” you bore this flushed, troubled look, raising your hands in front of you and waving them, exclaiming, “n-nothing, never mind. Sorry.”

He never understood what you were supposed to say, that was until he rectified the short essay quizzes held by the end of the period, where you got less than half percent correct. You had a different perspective of the hero law discussed, and Aizawa was willing to bet that your attempted question was about the lesson prior. Ever since then he took it as a habit to ask if you - specifically - had any questions regarding homeroom discussions. You would cower in embarrassment, knowing that the root of his habit came from when you had asked him something he couldn’t even hear, nevertheless you found it in yourself to respond by nodding. At least now you didn’t have to muster up the courage to approach him since he would approach you instead.

Anyway, it was already much apparent to him that you had a dilemma with your social life (if you ever even had one), and so he addressed this to the class once when you were called to the faculty to ‘discuss’ things with Present Mic, your English teacher (Aizawa just told him to keep you busy as he spoke to his class).

Most expressed their concern, especially when he said that this could affect your hero affiliation in times of inevitable joint cooperation or recruiting of sidekicks and whatnot. It was not necessarily their responsibility, Aizawa expounded, but if possible, then they should get you to interact with them as much. Mina was most resolved in getting to befriend someone like you, a little bit ahead of Izuku, who wanted to befriend you partly due to his curiosity of your quirk. The rest thought of this as a casual ordeal, and a few saw to it as a bothersome matter that could be handled by the social butterflies of the class.

Well.

Being approached by Izuku and his friends was the least of your expectations when recess began. Usually, you’d prepare your own lunch to prevent having to go to the crowded place, and eat in peace inside the classroom with Aoyama who normally paid you no mind. He would give you a cheese or two, but it was nothing that you couldn’t deal with. Besides, the cheese actually tasted delicious.

Izuku insisted you come with them to the cafeteria, and when you gave him only an anxious and weirded-out look, Uraraka saved you both from awkwardness by pushing you out of the classroom door - to which her touch you quivered at. In the corridors, Iida gave a lecture about how being with friends helped with your general health - you didn’t know whatever the hell he meant by that, because you weren’t even friends with them. Shoto kept giving you glances from time to time, and when you both met eyes, you were the first to break contact; he found himself smiling lightly in amusement. You ransacked your brain for excuses to avoid being around them, but before you knew it, you were urged to sit down on their usual table, where also Jirou, Momo, and Hagakure sat. You were on the corner of the table - across Izuku and beside Uraraka - overwhelmed and irate by the abrupt proceeding of things. This was coercion - they didn’t even ask if you were okay with it - and, quite frankly, a burst of your own personal bubble. You wanted out, but how could you, when you couldn’t even find it in yourself to stand up?

Their conversations were sundry; in any of them, you engaged in none. Even Shoto was more participative than normal in attempts to get you along. It was then when they realized they had not a single information about you. Hagakure didn’t even know your first name, as Aizawa only ever called you by your last, and when the rest of your classmates clarified it was ‘(y/n),’ she complimented it, as if it would help you be at ease around them.

“Oh, what a pretty name!” She exclaimed. “It kind of fits well with... (n/n)[nickname]. Can I call you (n/n)-chan? Like Tsuyu-chan!”

“...well,” you voiced out in the most minimal volume, and their happiness upon hearing your voice was sickeningly evident. You sighed, “sure.”

Even Iida dedicated himself to calling you that. That was okay, you thought, because it wasn’t like you would be spending almost all the time with them. Right; this was a one time thing. Never gonna happen again. You’d commit unalive before it could.

But you didn’t commit fast enough.

By the time dismissal came you rushed out of the classroom and to the restroom to avoid meeting with Izuku and his friends just in case they also had plans on robbing you of your personal time in dismissal. You went to a restroom that was not on the floor level of class 1A - you were sure your female classmates would spend minutes upon minutes in there - and waited for thirty minutes. You literally counted 1,800 seconds in your mind as it was the only way to withhold the bubbling anxiety inside you without looking like an oddball, doing box-breathing techniques alone and all that - though some students from different classes were wondering why you remained on your spot in that restroom.

Upon mentally saying the last second, you dashed out of the restroom and to the school building entrance, passing by your homeroom teacher on the way but not bothering to spare him a greeting. You hoped he would assume you just did not see him as you were brisk-walking. He would later on probably ask why you were still in school thirty minutes past dismissal.

U.A. dorms came to view and never had a bigger wave of relief washed over you. Today had been a hectic day, and you congratulated yourself for enduring the school hours that included socializing; perhaps you deserved a reward after all this. There was a quaint café a couple of minutes away from U.A., beside a convenience store; maybe you should try the sweets there on the weekend. No one knew about it, as it did not look like one, but that was why you decided to try it out. Small, tranquil, and picturesque - exactly what you needed.

Quietly, you opened the entrance door, and slipped in headfirst to see if you could go inside undetected. Unfortunately for you, you came in unexpected eye contact with Denki.

“(Y/n), hey!” He called from the dining area, smiling brightly. That was weird; you didn’t remember being first-name bases with him, and were disarrayed with the fact that he just greeted you when he normally wouldn’t. “Where’d you come from that you returned this late?”

“U-um, uh,” you looked down, “I... walked slowly...”

“Well you sure took your time. C’mere, Bakugou’s cooking.”

“I’m only doing it ‘cause you won’t shut up unless I do it, damn Pikachu!” Yelled the cook.

This time, you just had to refuse. “N-no thanks, I’m... I’m busy.”

Just as you proceeded to stroll your way to your room, you came into an abrupt halt by Kirishima, who was sitting on the common room, waiting for Bakugou’s cooking.

“Busy with what?”

“Huh?”

“We have no homework given for the weekend.” He explained, looking at you from over the sofa. “So... what’s keeping you busy?”

At this point, not only was he the one to stare at you, but so were Denki and Bakugou, who skeptically raised a brow in anticipation of your answer; in anticipation of your presence in the common room, as if he was expecting that you’d try out his cooking, too. Shoto and Izuku ended their conversation at once upon seeing you by the dorm elevator, halted and wide-eyed, like a deer caught on headlights.

For your small, silent, anxiety-stricken self, this was too much.

“C-can you...” you pleaded, voice scarcely above a whisper, “can you not...”

You wanted to voice out if they could stop looking at you like that - surely they could, couldn’t they? You felt supremely inferior to their stares and it didn’t help that most of them were deemed a few of the strongest in the class. It felt like they were going to use their quirk on you and, against them, your quirk was rendered futile.

You ran to the opposite hallway, opting to walk the set of stairs to your dorm level in lieu of using the elevator. You heard Kirishima’s yell of your name - “(y/n), wait!” - but made no attempt to slow down for him to catch up to you. He didn’t follow you, anyway, only abruptly standing from the cushion when you made a run for it along the hall, then falling back down in defeat, with a sigh escaping his lips.

“Man, she’s like Amajiki-senpai but kind of worse.”

“Well?” Denki queried. “Aren’t you gonna go after her?”

“I want to, but I feel like she’ll just... ignore me.”

Denki sighed. “And you say you’re a man.”

“Hey, I am!” He slumped on the couch. “I just know the right timing, which isn’t now. Probably later, or when Mina’s around. Maybe she’s more comfortable with girls.”

That was a funny joke, because your anxiety doesn’t discriminate, and you were uncomfortable around boys and girls and nonbinaries and basically everyone and everything in and beyond the gender spectrum either way.

You didn’t think of going out to fill your stomach before going to sleep, fearing the tension between you and your classmates who had witness the small encounter prior. By the time evening came, though, a knock was heard on your room’s entrance. You opened it begrudgingly, and in front of you appeared the face of the pinkette. Beside her was Kirishima.

“Hi, (y/n)!” Mina exclaimed brightly, much like how Denki had a few hours ago. “I know you haven’t eaten dinner yet. Come on!”

You were about to decline such a generous offer, but just then, your stomach churned in agreement against your will.

“...fine.”

As you three walked the corridor towards the stairs, Kirishima sauntered beside your form.

“Hey, uh, sorry about a while ago. I knew you weren’t comfortable with us but I still persisted with asking.”

He appeared to be genuinely sincere with the apology, with his palm on the back of his neck and eyes averting to everywhere but you, and the faint red on his cheek made him look less intimidating.

“It’s... it’s fine, you know.” Again, your voice was practically just an exhale. You turned the other way. “I’m sorry for running away like that. It was rude.”

Because of your consideration to apologize on your behalf, he found the confidence to grin at you without guilt. “It’s completely fine! At least now we’re on good terms, yeah?”

“Mm.”

This interaction didn’t stop you from preferring to be alone in your room. But you were hungry, and your stomach wasn’t relenting. As you sat on the corner of the sofa in the common room, Sero, with a grin, handed you your plate of [favorite dish].

“It’s your favorite food, right? Bakugou insisted to make it just for you.”

You slightly smiled at the thoughtfulness.

Then your face dropped in shock.

And so did the others’.

You blinked once, twice, then slowly looked at him in unnerved suspicion. “How did you know?”

“You sound like a stalker, Sero!” Denki whined abhorrently. “Freaking creep. Trust me, (y/n), it’s just that we noticed you always pack that for lunch. I got to say, though, I don’t blame you for liking [favorite dish].” He took a piece from your plate.

Alright, that sounded reasonable. Anything to keep you from the aching paranoia that they were actually watching what you did.

“And here I was trying to start things pleasant with (y/n).” Sero dramatically heaved, though somehow he still exuded this chilling vibe. It barely helped you with having to be around all these social butterflies.

From the other side of the common room were Momo, Jirou, and Hagakure, who played with a bunny borrowed from Koda. It didn’t help you at all that they spotted you from your place in the sofa.

“(N/n)-chan!” Along with your gaze, the rest of your classmates with you looked at them. “Wanna hold Koda’s pet rabbit? Right here!”

“No!” Yelled Mina right beside you, bringing a faint ring to your ears. You weren’t used to noise, having been always keeping to yourself. She brought you into a tight side embrace, and although she felt you tense under her hold, she ignored it for the sake of saying, “(y/n)’s staying here.”

“Unfair! You’ve had your share of time with her,” what? There was a planned time of when you were supposed to hang out with one group and the other? “now it’s our turn!”

“Please, you’ve had your time during recess! The rest of the night, she spends it with us.” Mina explained, nodding in agreement to herself. Her friends within her clique seemed to like the idea. Oh no. You did not want to spend the rest of your night with people you barely even knew. What would they do to you? Why were they being so revoltingly clingy all of a sudden?

Again, you wanted out, pleading yourself to convene the courage to say that-

“No, I don’t want to hang out with you, I just want to go back to the solace of my own room, just watch or read or sleep or anything else that won’t have anything to do with socializing with you all!”

Unfortunately, that was all just in your head.

“I don’t mean to intervene personally, but,” Momo started, promptly leaving her cup of tea on the table, “during recess, she talked mostly to Midoriya and Uraraka. I think it’s about time I get to be with her.”

“But I didn’t get to be with her at all.” Sero counterargued. “Therefore, she’s staying right here.”

Jirou derided, “As if she wants to get along with you. (Y/n), you wanna pet this rabbit or not?”

“Don’t bribe her with something that isn’t even yours!” Exclaimed Kirishima.

“Well, is she yours?”

“N-not at all, but neither is she yours!”

“(N/n)-chan, come here, pretty please?”

“I’m telling you! She's already comfortable here. See? All snug and comfy in my arms.”

“You’re not giving her a chance to decide where she wants to be!”

“Shut the hell up, you damn extras.” Bakugou’s voice, albeit neither soft nor strong in volume, was the loudest of them all. His presence was also the strongest and most intimidating, and you were unable to suppress the reflex to recoil when he leaned on you from behind the sofa, breathing practically against your neck. “(Y/n) stays here.”

The decision was determined from then on. Frustration was prominent on Momo and Jirou’s countenances, and Hagakure was silent for the rest of the night, going back to Koda’s room in order to return his pet rabbit. Mina moved you to the center of the couch so Bakugou could sit on your other side, and when he did, you felt the strong radiance of heatwaves from his body. He would be a perfect cuddler for the winter season. It always felt too cold or too hot whenever you were with people, but you refused to make a personal heater out of him.

“Alright!” From beneath you where he sat, Denki exclaimed. “Who’s up for a horror movie?”

It was not like you had much of a choice, anyway. Whether you loved it or not, a horror movie was being played in the common room’s television, and you had to sit throughout the whole two hours of it with all of Bakugou’s squad hovering around you. You weren’t sure what was scarier; the film, or the fact that discourse broke just a few minutes ago regarding whom you were ending up with. But if anything, you’d rather watch this alone than with these outlandish people claiming to be your friends and acting as if they didn’t ignore you and tend to their own business just yesterday.

1K notes · View notes

dollslayer · 3 years

Text

Pull

Sam Wilson x f!Reader

Summary: A brief interaction in the hallway with Sam leads to a mischievous moment between friends with benefits.

W/C: 1,693

Warnings: Smut, deepthroating, face fucking, hair pulling

A/N: In honor of Sam's birthday and @whisperlullaby 's 700 challenge (Congratulations!! I'm so soft for you Sam fics so I thought I'd roll with it!) I present you this!! This is my first Sam fic so I hope you guys like it! I know that descriptors of hair can make fics not always the most inclusive but I tried really hard to make this so that anyone could read it. If you feel like there's anything I can do better to make my fics more inclusive please please just message me and tell me! I want my fics to feel like they're made for everyone! p.s. - If you haven't already feel free to check out my other fics! If you liked this fic let me know! Cheers!

Main Masterlist

____

You’d always kept your hair short, it was just easier. When you were young you didn’t want to deal with the trouble of caring for it and now it would just get in the way when you’re out in the field. The last thing you need is hair in your eyes messing up your shot or it getting caught in the various straps on your uniform.

You’d missed two hair appointments before leaving on a month-long mission and came back to a mountain of paperwork. Before you knew it another month had passed and then you spent another two just catching up on the rest of your life. Getting another appointment crossed your mind but you kept pushing it off and you didn’t trust yourself enough to take clippers to your own hair. I’ll call tomorrow became a regular note to yourself, just not one that ever got addressed.

It wasn’t until you were getting ready to head to the gym that you looked at yourself in the mirror and realized how much your hair had grown even in just that short time. Sighing, you searched for something to hold it back with so it’d stay out of your face. After wrestling with it for a minute, you had enough to make a small ponytail. Okay, for real I’ll call tomorrow. You set off towards the gym.

Making your way down the hallway with your headphones on you hadn’t heard Sam calling your name. He jogged to catch up to you and pulled you back by the ponytail to get you to stop walking. You felt your stomach drop a little bit as a jolt of surprise went straight to your core. Your hair had always been too short to put up, let alone to grab.

The look of surprise must have made it to your face because Sam immediately let go. He took a step back and moved to apologize after he let out a nervous laugh.

“I-I uh, sorry I don’t know why I grabbed your hair. It looks good though!” Sam said reassuringly, “Have you been growing it out? Um, sorry, anyways, I just wanted to make sure you were still down for later.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Yeah, yeah I’m game for that. Just text me the details.” You replied slowly.

With a lop-sided grin and a nod Sam turned on his heel and walked the other way. As you pulled open the door to the gym you replayed the moment when he grabbed your ponytail in your head. Images of him holding your hair tightly in his hand while you went down on him flashed through your mind. What if he just pulled a little harder? Quit it, just get through the workout. You needed a cold shower.

___________

You did end up taking a cold shower after your workout, unable to stop thinking of the feeling of Sam’s hands in your hair. You two had been maintaining a friends with benefits relationship for a few months and tonight you were going to hang out.

You really enjoyed Sam in bed and as a friend, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to blur the lines. He was on the month long mission with you and you had gotten to know him so much better. You’d found that underneath his cocky and joking attitude was a good man that cared deeply for the people in his life. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t want what you and Sam had to be more.

As you got ready for the night in you tried to decide what to do with your hair. Even though you hated it getting in your eyes you couldn’t deny it looked kinda cute when it was down. You set your hair free from the ponytail and let it fall around your face. You admired it in the mirror and set to work on your makeup.

__________

It had apparently been a rough day of training recruits for Sam, which meant it was likely going to be a rough night in store for you too. Not that you minded, Sam always pushed your boundaries but he also respected them so you never worried when he was a little bit more rowdy with you.

Much to your surprise and slight annoyance Sam was soft tonight. Normally this would make you swoon but if you were being real, you just wanted him to rail you and grab your hair again. Before you realized your feelings for him you were able to be a little more demanding in bed. Now that you were aware you were slowly falling for him you had become suddenly shy when it came to vocalizing your wants, almost afraid that you might let it slip that you wanted him in total.

As he kissed your collar bone you thought of ways to get him to do what you wanted without coming out and saying it. You suddenly pushed on his shoulders and flipped him so you were the one on top. You made your way down his body leaving trails of bites and kisses that had soft gasps escaping him. You took off his boxers slowly and maintained eye contact.

Finally his cock was free from its confines and it was hard as a rock. You smirked and took it in your hands, feeling the veins throb under your touch. You started pumping your hand up and down his length and let out a moan that gave you all the encouragement you needed.

You looked up at him and smirked. Showtime. You stuck your tongue out to taste the dab of precum that gathered at his tip while you dipped your tongue into his slit. He jolted upwards in momentary shock and gasped again. You could see he was trying to hold his hands at his sides, let you take your time. You could also see he was hanging by a thread already.

You took the tip of his cock into your mouth and let your tongue set his nerves ablaze. Slowly inching more of him into your mouth and using your hand on what you didn’t take. Until you didn’t. You took a breath and removed your hand, swallowing his length in one go. Sam let out the low groan that had you moaning in return. The vibrations of your voice caused him to involuntarily buck his hips upwards.

“Baby… oh my god, what on Earth are you doing to me?”

You just smiled to yourself and kept going. Sam gave into his instincts and brought one of his hands to your head, fingers tugging on what he could gather of your hair. He didn’t grab it like you’d hoped he would, just rooted himself in it and guided you gently. You looked up to find his other hand grasping desperately at the sheets with his spare hand. Okay, now do that to me You thought desperately.

You decided to double your efforts to see where it got you. You gagged as you tried to breathe through your nose while you bobbed up and down on his cock. His hips were bucking even more and you could tell he was getting close.

With no warning both his hands latched onto your hair to hold your head in place while he started to fuck your face. You were taken by surprise, even when Sam was at his roughest he’d never done this. You had to admit it was hot to see him lose control like this. You shuddered as he gripped your hair even tighter, reliving that feeling from earlier in the day. You clenched your thighs together and felt wetness stick to them as you kept your focus on breathing and getting him to cum.

Your plans were interrupted abruptly when his hands pulled you up by the hair off of his cock. You tensed in pleasure at the feeling, the tension pulling at your roots and the intense eye contact you made when he brought your head up to meet his eye. His chest was heaving, his cock pulsing and tensing from the near-orgasm.

“That was, Oh my god. I don’t even know what that was” He said as he exhaled. “Sorry I’m pullin’ on your hair again”

He untangled himself from your locks and pulled them just a little bit more in the process. You clenched your thighs again at the feeling and bit your lip to keep from moaning. Sam noticed this and his signature smirk graced his face.

“Unless… you like that?” He questioned knowingly “Does that turn you on? When I pull your hair?”

You felt heat come to your cheeks and you held back a coy smile as you looked away. You were almost too dazed and cock-drunk to feel humiliation but it still crept its way into your brain. Why am I embarrassed? He already knows. What the hell is this man doing to me?

Apparently you took too long to answer because one of his hands caught the hair at the back of your neck and forced you to look at him.

“Answer me, baby. Does it make you wet when I pull your hair?” His hand crept down your body and he swiped your folds. Bringing his hand up in front of his face so you both could see the way your slick dripped down his fingers. He smacked his lips and then sucked his fingers clean.

You could only whimper and nod when his grip tightened. His grin only grew wider watching you squirm.

“Is that why you took me so well just now? You wanted me to grab you? Wanted me to fuck your face?”

Good lord, the mouth on this man. He moved around you so that he was on top of you, lips almost brushing with yours.

“Bad girl, keeping things from me. Think you need to be punished?” he teased. His cock was still hard and you could feel it between your thighs rubbing between the mess you’d made.

“Yes, please”, You moaned a little at the feeling and nodded. This is going to be a long night.

#whispers700challenge #sam wilson x reader #marvel x reader #marvel fic #smut #mcu fic

133 notes · View notes

mbti-notes · 3 years

Text

Anon wrote: Hi. I hope you had/are having a great summer break. I (INTP) am hoping for some perspective about an issue. Recently, my mother, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, became incredibly frustrated that I corrected her with an alleged “I know everything” attitude.

It’s an issue of concern because she revealed that I always do this. I guess this was the straw that broke it, especially given that what we were discussing was very trivial. (Maybe the frivolousness of the subject is precisely what made my correction seem more pedantic, unnecessary, arrogant.) She says that my attitude disregards her long life experience, and that if she were a stranger, she would think of me as a “snot-nosed brat who knows nothing about life” instead of as a “wise young person”, which is the viable alternative. She said that I am closed-minded and that I shoot everything down. (The problem of small-mindedness is what you addressed the only other time I wrote to you.)

I don’t know why I come off as arrogant. I’m sure that I’m not. I asked my mother what it was that made her think that, which she thought was a silly question because what she sensed was a general demeanor rather than specific behaviors. In the end we were only able to establish that my lack of eye contact was one of those factors. I can work on that, but surely that’s not determinant. What makes people think of others as arrogant? Should I stop correcting people? I don’t correct others in order to feel superior to them. I do it because I like to debate, in order to keep my thinking sharp, and because there is something painful about friends/family having false notions. I think it’s fair to say that my intention isn’t rooted in arrogant soils.

Granted, my suggestion of stopping correcting people is black-and-white, given that there is the grey option of changing the *way* I correct people. I’m just wondering if it’s an unhealthy habit in the first place. But given how prevalent a thought process it is (i.e. questioning people’s statements and finding faults), the process of getting rid of it may be akin to self-directed psychological violence. I mean, this is the same mode of being that makes me good at what I’m good at. (There’s also the option of keeping the thought process, but not correcting people aloud, but I don’t know what else there is to talk about other than analyzing ideas and their faults. Maybe I should analyze ideas for their strengths too, and express that side more than the faults.)

So anyway, let’s go with grey: So far I’ve tried thinking of an arrogant person that I know in order to understand my behavior, but I can’t think of anyone. Also, no matter how hard I try to put myself in someone else’s shoes in order to simulate an interaction with myself, it doesn’t really work, and I can’t see the arrogance, except if I were to just tell someone “that’s wrong” without any explanation. (I wonder if that’s what went wrong in the conversation with my mother.) Either way, this whole issue boils down to the fact that I’m not arrogant by any reasonable criteria that I found online, but that I come off as such. This was longer than intended. Thanks for your kindness and help.

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

Here are some questions for you to reflect on. They are meant to increase awareness of your underlying assumptions, beliefs, and values. Answer honestly:

Do you care about your mom? Do you care about how she's faring, what she's experiencing, what she's thinking or feeling, what she needs and desires, what she hopes for or aspires to, etc?

If you care, how do you SHOW your care to her?

If you don't care, how does that affect your behavior toward her?

Do you believe that the mother-child relationship only goes one-way? (Is it the mom's job to do for you but you owe her nothing?)

You say you like to debate to sharpen your mind. Innocent enough. I like to roller skate to keep myself physically fit. In an ideal world, I would never take my skates off. Does my enthusiasm for roller skating mean that I slap my skates on anywhere, any time? No. Surely it is inappropriate to skate around a hospital or the supermarket. Not only could I seriously harm myself, I would also be exhibiting flagrant disregard for the safety and well-being of others.

What you like to do for yourself sometimes comes into conflict with other people. If you care about people and hope to have healthy and happy relationships with them, you have to take their needs and wants into consideration in every interaction. You have to abide by ethical rules and principles that allow your needs to be met without neglecting the needs of others or interfering with their ability to get their needs met. Without ethics, society wouldn't be able to function, because it would just be a free-for-all.

You mention small-mindedness. It is quite small-minded to walk around the world only thinking about what you need/want. In the best case scenario, you are completely oblivious to others, and they will perceive you as clueless or self-absorbed. In the worst case scenario, you only interact with people for your own personal gain, and that would make you an exploitative or even abusive person. Is that the kind of person you want to be?

Do you basically treat people as though their sole purpose on earth is to debate you and help you sharpen your mind - to serve you? Do you launch into debates with people without asking for consent or checking to see if they want to be corrected? If you do, they will call you arrogant, not because you've put yourself on a pedestal and call yourself superior like an evil cartoon character, but because you are communicating to them that your needs/wants are most important AND you don't give a damn about theirs.

Webster's definition of arrogance: "an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people". You believe that you know better, otherwise, you wouldn't grant yourself the social authority to intrude on people's boundaries, invalidate their experience, and correct them uninvited. You believe that you are smarter, otherwise, you wouldn't automatically assume the dominant social role of corrector. You behave as though you are the more important member of the relationship because your main priority is YOUR need to feel better (about your skills or about what others believe) while overlooking the other person's needs. Seems like you fit the definition quite well.

Despite that, I wouldn't call you arrogant because I understand that small-mindedness is a difficult problem to overcome. I see the effort that you're putting in to understand it. I'm charitable because I'm not the one who was hurt by your behavior. When people feel hurt, they often have difficulty expressing it. Maybe it comes out clumsily or they aren't able to explain their hurt without hurting you in return. Expressing one's true feelings is to make oneself vulnerable. If someone doesn't trust you to understand and validate their feelings or, worse, they believe that you will attack them for their feelings, they will not be completely honest with you. Your mom is trying her best to give you the benefit of the doubt by saying "if you were a stranger...", but she doesn't feel comfortable enough with you to express her hurt fully and explicitly as it happens. Why? Because the very reason she is hurt in the first place is that you have shown very little regard for her feelings. Following from the previous post of yours, the root of the problem is that you have such a poor understanding of feelings to begin with that you view them as inconsequential in yourself and others (very immature Fe).

I believe you have no ill-intent. I have said before that the typical Ti dom never sets out to hurt people on purpose. Rather, they hurt people unintentionally because their perspective is too small: 1) they don't grasp that other people's needs may be very different from their own and thereby fail to consider them, 2) they don't know how to empathize with different perspectives and validate them, and/or 3) they don't understand that SHOWING love and care is necessary for people to justify continued investment in the relationship.

In other words, Ti doms tend to hurt people out of negligence or acts of omission. Some of them get frustrated at not being able to solve their relationship problems. They might try to convince themselves that doing nothing means that no harm can be done, so they adopt a passive stance in the relationship and perhaps even train themselves to keep their mouth shut (self-violence). They fail to understand that there's more than one way to cause hurt. Instead of learning better relationship skills, they check out mentally and emotionally. Being checked out only makes it worse because you hurt yourself and you keep hurting others by being even less attentive to their needs.

The foundation of meaningful relationships is showing care. In a healthy relationship, people trust you to care for their emotional needs and not violate their personal boundaries. If you only attend to your own needs/wants in social interaction, you are signalling that you don't really care about the other person. This problem with your mom shows that you give little to no consideration for emotional needs and personal boundaries. If you don't want friends, it's entirely your choice to be alone for the rest of your life, pretending that you never leave any footprints behind you. If you want friends, you'll have to put out more effort to be a better friend, by paying more attention to the consequences of your behavior.

Doing things that violate trust and boundaries, even if unintentional, causes hurt. When people feel hurt and don't feel safe to express the hurt, they are liable to say/do negative things. To have good emotional intelligence is to see past the surface of their negative words/behavior and grasp the underlying emotional needs that were unmet and/or the personal boundaries that were violated. Only then can you be a morally responsible member of a relationship, in terms of owning all the ways that you impact people, both positively and negatively.

Arrogant people don't care about the social impact they produce. As long as they get what they want and don't lose anything, the existence of others is of little importance to them. If your mom is important to you, then learn how to show it better by listening to her when she tells you about her needs/wants. You hyperfocus on the literal meaning of the word "arrogant" and whether it is true/false of you, as though proving it false means that there's nothing wrong. You need to listen to the people you have hurt, if you want to understand why your behavior is hurtful. Alternatively, you need to educate yourself about emotional needs, interpersonal boundaries, and what constitutes un/ethical behavior and why.

#intp #intp relationships #inferior fe #arrogance #small minded #communication #social skills #people skills #emotional intelligence #relationships #ask

41 notes · View notes

juniorgman187 · 3 years

Text

Love & Other Drugs (Spencer Reid Imagine) Part 1

*not my gif

Summary: Toxicologist Reader meets her match in the ever intriguing Doctor Reid. Category: Fluff Couple: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid Content Warning: drug addiction, love addiction, neglect Word Count: 4.1k

This is going to be a two-part series.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Love is an addiction.

Not only is there behavioral evidence that suggests love can be addictive, but thanks to recent studies, we also have neurochemical and neuroimaging evidence to support the theory. Multiple feel-good chemicals are released when we are in love. These include dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin.

The roots of love addiction extend back to early childhood. A history of abandonment, neglect, or inadequate/ inconsistent nurturing can lead to a love addiction. Like other addictions, a love addiction is often the result of insecure attachment patterns.

It may sound strange to equate love with addiction. After all, love is perhaps the most positive of emotions; it results in many health benefits and has life-lengthening effects. It may only be, then, that a dysfunctional relationship to love is necessary in order to consider a person "addicted."

Love is like a drug and we don't care about the long term side effects; we just care about how high we can get.

So with that being said . . . how high could I get?

A question that I would soon find the answer to following a visit from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.

“I’m Agent Hotchner. We spoke on the phone briefly.”

The dark-haired man with the gentle eyes and dimples greeted. I recognized his voice, despite it being deeper in person. No complaints, though.

“So what was it you needed a toxicology report on?”

Fully expecting the same gentleman to respond, a younger man behind him cut into the conversation, answering for the agent.

“This cloth,” He dangled the evidence bag in front of my face and practically let it drop when I took it from him, rather than making sure the bag landed safely in my hands like he should’ve given the fact that this was something vital to their case. So valuable, even, they requested to have the results expedited.

“I suspect it’s chloroform, but they said we should bring it to a professional to be sure.” He finished his statement by pursing his lips into a thin, straight line, which oddly enough, I think was his version of a smile, and a not very agreeable one at that.

Simply by the way he handed me the evidence bag and the tone of his voice as he said, “professional,” like the word stung his tongue and tasted like acid, I knew he was offended that he wasn’t deemed fit to analyze the chemical on the cloth. He surely thought of himself in the highest regard and to ask for help from someone else, much less a woman, was insulting to him. I was certain that he wasn’t doing this out of his own will, but that his superior most likely assured him it was just a precaution so as not to bruise that fragile ego. I had a feeling the only person he would listen to was a male superior, most likely from the absence of a proper one. A father.

I could be a profiler, too, you know?

“Great. I’ll let you know what I find when I’m done.”

“I’ll come with you.”

I should’ve anticipated he’d have the audacity to invite himself as if this was a social gathering of some sort, which it was most certainly not. If anything, it was degrading to me that he insisted he come. Like he didn’t trust me to be on my own, like he was doubting my intelligence. I didn’t need a babysitter, chaperone, or supervisor, and I was going to make sure he knew that.

“What’s your name again?” I asked, merely as a subliminal reminder that if he had said his name, I forgot it within seconds because he was that forgettable.

“Dr. Spencer Reid.”

He didn’t ask for my name in return, and I had to ponder if it was his way of saying that he just didn’t care. How classy of him.

Two can play that game.

When he stepped foot into my beloved lab, or my lair as I liked to call it, I could feel the environment being tainted with his passive-aggressiveness, and I almost wanted to push him right back out the door so the dark cloud in the room would leave with him, but I settled for a kinder approach, politely asking if he could wear the appropriate protective gear if he insisted being so close to the chemical - the chemical I was to inspect. Again, the chemical I was to inspect - me. Not him - me.

“No, it’s alright. I’ll just be right here.”

I suppose his refusal to abide by my simple precaution of wearing a coat, goggles, and gloves was made up for by his promise to maintain a distance away from me, so I didn’t push the topic any further out of fear that he might change his mind and come closer and meddle with my space. I had my own personal bubble around me and I would go feral if he invaded it, whether it was knowingly or unknowingly.

We’d spent probably two hours or so there in silence, which I quite liked, but I couldn’t help but notice how often he’d excuse himself to leave for the bathroom. I let it slide since I was too busy with my toxicology report anyway, and why would I complain about those few extra minutes of peace I got when he was away?

“This is so old fashioned,” I said in sheer awe as I inspected the small square of fabric that had clearly been doused with a euphoriant. “I haven’t seen this being used as a sedative since like the 1920s in those soundless black and white movies.”

I was too engaged with the findings of my microscope to pay attention to the “info-dump” that was brewing from the lanky doctor so it came as a shock to me when all that I had said in light of the situation would be refuted with facts.

“Actually, Chloroform was a popular anesthetic from the mid-1800s to around 1900, mostly around the time of the Civil War - not the 1920s.”

I pulled my eye away from the lens of the microscope to inspect the speaking specimen. He looked quite proud of himself for knowing and saying what he did, and for that, I was almost perturbed all the more by his bravado, but given his physical stature, I suppose the skill of his brain was how he compensated for what he lacked in appearance, so I let it pass to boost his ego.

“Yeah, I was never really a history buff. I guess that’s why I got degrees in Chemistry and Toxicology instead.” Hitting him right back with that pursed-lip smile at the end, mirroring his own.

My comment didn’t settle well, and I could tell from the way he scratched at his arm like my words were making him itchy as they seeped into his skin. But I liked to make people uncomfortable, as awful as that sounds. Yet I had a sneaking suspicion, I wasn’t the true cause for why he was itching his arm.

“But um, you . . . you were actually right about the silent films. Those were exceedingly popular in the 1920s.”

His sheepish words seemed to suggest a surrender. As if he was giving me the satisfaction of knowing I was right about something so that I might not be closed off to him entirely, which I was most certainly not, even if it seemed like it. He might have aggravated me slightly with his coldness, but he was arguably the most interesting character out of that team, and I had a feeling he didn’t usually act like this.

Antsy, fidgeting.

Unkempt in appearance.

Often lost in thought.

Depressed breathing.

Pinpoint pupils.

The signs were all there, but that wasn’t what surprised me. I was just surprised that in a team of profilers, no one else seemed to notice him and his addiction, and if they did - they just didn’t care.

“What drugs are you on?”

I asked bluntly with a slight head tilt to deepen the notion of my harmless curiosity to which he definitely misinterpreted as a harmful curiosity. I was never one to address things with subtlety and grace, but it seemed like a waste of time to approach this situation with any other attitude than candidness. If my intuition was correct, which I knew it was, he was months into his substance abuse and at this rate, if he wasn’t receiving any help, he’d need to soon.

“Excuse me?”

“I may not be a profiler, but I’m a toxicologist and I can tell when someone’s on drugs in the same way you can tell when someone’s lying - through studying their behavior. And so far, I’ve noticed that the left cuff of your shirt is unbuttoned, which makes sense considering you’re right-handed, giving you easier access and making it faster to inject whatever it is your taking, but I should warn you - you’re not fast enough. Even though your ‘visits’ to the bathroom have shortened minute by minute, I haven’t been blind to the fact that you’ve gone there at least five times since you’ve been here, and don’t even bother lying. I know you aren’t peeing because you haven’t touched that cup of coffee or the bottled water whatsoever. So let me ask you again - what drugs are you on?”

From the baffled look on his face, I could tell he had never met his match.

Not until now.

His eyes were narrowing in on me darkly, and I feared to see his “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” duality, but I was also curious if the oncoming switch in personality would reveal anything more to me about what he was using. However, that was quickly cut short by his sudden burst out of the room, giving me no opportunity to see his fit of rage unfold, and I had to believe that he knew if he stayed a second longer, I would’ve easily been able to distinguish the drug he was on. I wouldn’t put it past him, he was smart enough, that much I could admit.

I followed him with my eyes as he flew out of the lab, dodging the stupefied Agent Gideon.

“Reid?” Gideon called out to him, as if he was a dad checking on his hormonal teenager, but neither I, nor the agent, heard a response back.

Now, turning his attention back to me, Agent Gideon entered the lab, clapping his hands together and rubbing them together in anticipation, completely disregarding what happened only moments ago. It wasn’t even like he was truly uncomfortable and trying to brush it aside so that I wouldn’t be uncomfortable, it just genuinely seemed like he didn’t care. He didn’t feel the need to bring any more attention to the situation, but judging from his reaction, I had doubts on if there had been any attention being paid to the doctor’s drug addiction - ever.

“So, what do you got for me?”

“Two things - first, this is clearly Deuterated Chloroform, which is an isotopologue of Chloroform with a single deuterium atom. CDCl 3 is a common solvent used in NMR spectroscopy-” I paused when I realized my toxicology jargon was flying right over his head. “So in other words, this type of Chloroform can daze or knock out people even when it's consumed in small doses.”

“And the second thing?”

Without missing a beat, I asked, “What’s up with that guy?”

His hands unfolded to reach out on either side of him in a shrug as a sign of incomprehensiveness. “Spencer?” He finally pointed with his thumb to the door, which Dr. Reid had just stormed out of.

I nodded.

“Ehh, I prefer to leave it alone.” He threw his hands up in surrender, but I wasn’t about to let him maintain his attitude of ignorance.

“Why? Isn’t it better if he talks about it? I mean, it’s obvious there’s something going on. He’s clearly displaying habits of an addict.”

The room was shot dead with silence. I could tell he couldn’t believe I’d just said that so bluntly, addressing what I assumed he had yet to even come to terms with.

“Agent Gideon, I mean this as no insult to you, but I’d surely hope that, even as someone that analyzes behavior for a living, you were sincerely unaware of his addiction and not deliberately avoiding addressing it only because it makes you uncomfortable. Addiction is a very common thing, more common that people would like to believe, and I would hate for Dr. Reid to feel that he’s alone in a room full of people that could help him - that should help him. Or that he can’t turn to any of you without being treated like he's a victim in one of your cases.”

I wasn’t exactly sure which of my words was the one that crossed the line, but I knew, as a whole, I ventured far beyond the boundary. He didn’t even answer me verbally, but his body language did the talking, and if I heard it correctly, he was dumbfounded by my audacity.

“You have a good day, Miss.” He finally said with a forced smile, while snatching the evidence bag from my hand.

Amicably, I had to let it go the minute Agent Gideon left my lab. I shouldn’t care more about the doctor’s wellbeing than his own coworkers, than his own team - than his own family. And even though I was incredibly passionate about proper drug use, I couldn’t be too invested in the care of Dr. Reid. At least not until he started caring about me, too.

After my minor back-to-back confrontations, I was more than ready to go home. Once I cleaned my station and removed my gear, I was out the door. When I got to the parking lot, I saw that on either side of my car, there were two black SUVs I’d never seen here before. The government license plates were all that I needed to see to come to the conclusion that they belonged to the BAU. Having just instigated something with both Spencer and Agent Gideon, I knew I had to leave before they did, otherwise I might risk running into them, which would’ve been utterly humiliating.

It was the sudden chirp of familiar voices that caused me to bolt into my car and try and start it, but naturally, buried somewhere within the Bermuda Triangle that was my purse were my keys, and I couldn’t find them in time.

“Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys later.” I faintly heard from behind me.

Keys! Keys! Keys! Where are you?

With animalistic speed, I rummaged through my purse, literally starving for the feeling of my fingers touching the jagged metal and the remote of my keys before I’d have to -

“Looking for these?”

I tore my eyes away from my purse to peer up at the sound of my jingling keys as they hung from the index finger of the man I shouldn’t care about. I wryly chuckled, taking them with a goony smile when he handed them to me with much more caution than earlier when he handed me the evidence bag.

“I saw you left them behind in the lab and I figured you might need those. Especially if you’re trying to run away from me.”

“I’m not trying to run away from you.”

My words were unaffecting, only leaving him with more reason to doubt me, evidenced by his deadpan stare.

“Really! I wasn’t!” It was beyond me why I thought speaking more loudly would make him digest my words any better, but at any rate, it did.

“Okay, okay, relax. I believe you.”

We shared a brief laugh, the euphoria of which was fleeting, and then, we were right back to where we were before. Back to square one - not knowing what to say. The uncomfortable silence pressed me to leave, but he must’ve registered my sudden movement as a tell that he needed to say something so captivating, so shocking, so bewitching, that would stop me from leaving.

“Thank you.”

To say that I was baffled would be a gross understatement. I was in complete awe and disbelief. Hearing those words from his lips was enough to stun me, but even more so because of how sincere it sounded.

“I was going to come back and apologize when I overheard you and Gideon talking about me. You left before I got the chance to thank you for what you said back there. So . . . thank you.”

And yet again, he thanked me, and surprisingly, it wasn’t any less pleasing to the ear.

“Yeah, of course. I was just worried about you that’s all.” Unknowingly, I revealed too much out of the blinding bliss of the moment.

“You were worried about me?”

His own question brought me to the realization of what I’d just said, and in his tone of voice, I also became aware of the connotation behind it. He already knew the answer and just wanted to hear me say it again, so I nudged him playfully to avoid reciting my confession.

“Actually, I take that back. Why should I worry over someone who didn’t even bother to know my name?”

He looked quite offended; his neck recoiled in distaste.

“I know your name.”

“You didn’t ask me for it.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t know it, (y/n).” Drawing out my name just to demonstrate his honest knowledge of it.

“Actually, it’s Doctor.” I corrected, earning a hearty laugh from him, one that made him throw his head back with an open mouthed smile.

In my playful jest, he was reminded of himself and his own uncannily similar humor. He could see himself in me. (Mind you, this distinction was completely unknown to me). It was only he that could see we were foils of each other - parallel lines that ran side by side, never fated to intersect but forging a connection in spite of that; a connection formed on the basis of close proximity and congruence in shape.

“Anyway, thanks for bringing my keys. I’ll see you later.”

Our goodbye was too quick, I knew that, but I couldn’t, in good conscience, keep talking to him and avoid bringing up the conversation of his addiction. I wasn’t nuanced like that. I was too eager to solve problems head on to keep my determination at bay. I couldn’t dance around the very thing that was killing him slowly. I just couldn’t. Had I drawn out our conversation any longer, I’d sooner touch that tender wound he restlessly picked at; a wound that might never properly or fully heal if he kept doing so. I knew he was too stubborn to let me clean it, so in favor of his pride, he insisted he could fix it himself and simply put a band-aid on it in an attempt to do just that, foolishly thinking it would be enough. However, like a real gash, tear, or cut, it may only be worsened by the lack of adequate disinfection. He could just as easily reap the benefits as he could suffer the consequences of the absence of a proper enabling agent that stings badly, but successfully targets the root of the problem. The choice was up to him. Would he suffer the consequences or reap the benefits? To be quite frank, there’s no way around that disinfectant. It’s that or nothing, and I found myself to be the confrontation to the problem that he lacked. So now that I’d addressed it, it was up to him to decide what to do. I had done all that I could, and I had to accept that.

Maybe a minute more of talking to him and I might’ve even seen that connection he was seeing. I assure you, a few more soulful glances was all it would take to kill me in cold blood. If you could get intoxicated on someone’s eyes, I’d be drunk on his. I saw worlds behind them - raging waters of words unspoken bursting from overflowing dams, calm seas of his thank you’s, maybe even lazy rivers of useless stored information and memorized book passages I could dawdle in forever. An overwhelming guilt consumed me when I realized I’d only been staring at them for as long as I had to probe further and satisfy my own selfish desires. I felt all the worse for the unsuspecting object of my gaze who was led to the hopeful, naive notion that I was looking at him out of admiration. He had no clue what I was really doing.

I was profiling him.

Earlier in the day, I would’ve gloated about my ability to use his own job against him by employing the skill of profiling, but now, it was different. He was different. The guilt was escalating quickly and I made haste to get in my car, not even waiting to catch his reply to my sudden goodbye before I shut the door. If I had to assume, he must’ve said something in agreement because the minute I turned on my ignition, he stepped out of the way, letting me leave with no protests. Quite haphazardly, I drove out of my parking spot, reducing him to just a blurry figure in my rear view mirror that would haunt my dreams at night and occupy my thoughts in the day. Consider it merely a precaution to part from him so promptly. I needed my distance before I did something we both would have regretted.

Before I started to love him.

. . .

“Positive for Alprazolam. Positive for Carboxy-THC,” I mumbled to myself while I jotted down the results of my preliminary toxicology report. You’d often find me in this state and by that I mean, it’s been more than one occasion where someone walked in on me talking to myself. I found that it was easier to make note of things when I spoke it out loud, even if just to myself in a hushed tone. “Negative for -”

“Am I interrupting you?”

I pulled my eye away from the lens and upwards to the voice beckoning me at the door. To my surprise, it was Spencer.

“No, not at all. What’s up?”

As he made his way to my station, I instinctively shot up in my seat to fix my posture into one more ladylike and graceful, pulling my shoulders back as if there was a string tugging at them. It was a stark contrast to my previous hunched over position that rounded my back out almost to the point of looking like a half-circle. It was the most natural position for me, and arguably more comfortable, too, but now in Spencer’s presence, I wanted to assume a more flattering position. For what reason? I didn’t know.

“I, um . . .” He cleared his throat and adjusted the collar of his shirt frantically. “I’m going to see a film tonight in Sky Meadows State Park. I was wondering if you wanted to come.”

It was easy to meet his eyes until he said what he did. Reflexively, I looked down at my microscope to shy away from his gaze so he might not see the color forming on my cheeks.

“That’s really sweet of you,” I began. “But I should probably get this report done first.”

I wouldn’t have noticed I was tapping my pen on my paper anxiously had it not been for Spencer’s eyes drifting to the motion. After consciously stopping it, he looked back at me, seeing that similarity again.

I was just as nervous as he was.

“Yeah, yeah of course. Next time, then.”

My heart sank at the visceral blow to his ego. I didn’t intend to shatter his confidence, but by the time he turned on his heels with his hands sheepishly shoved into his pockets, I knew it was not the first time someone declined an offer of his.

“Actually,” One word was enough to draw him in. “I can finish this up another time. I’d much rather catch that movie with you instead.”

I wish I could tell you that my intentions were pure. That I was going because I knew I would enjoy his company and he would enjoy mine, but that wasn’t it at all. It was that familiar itch again that made my ‘yes’ easier to say.

The itch to dig deeper and to know more.

“Great. I’ll wait outside for you.”

The rational part of me knew that if I couldn’t let his addiction go, it’d be the death of me. But if I did, it’d be the death of him. Literally.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

PART 2 HERE!

#spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds #spencer reid fluff #soft angst #love & other drugs

145 notes · View notes

peeterparkr · 4 years

Text

perfidy;tom holland|21

chapter 21: the film.

enemies to lovers au/enemies with benefits

chapter summary: The puzzle, and not being able to pretend anymore

pairing: tom holland x y/n

warnings: angst, fluffy angst, angst and more angst.

word count: 10.2 k

playlist(1: with song names)

playlist 2 (Spotify link)

Playlist: perf1Dy (one direction+solo songs)

social media before you read : Behind the scenes.

previous chapter Perennial-Prologue series masterlist

Hi :) thanks to @peachybloomss for being my beta reader.

Yes, this is the last chapter. No worries, Perennial is coming soon. (Next Friday!) But Here we go, anyways. Thanks for everyone who read this and for all the support. I hope you are as excited as I am for perennial, and well. Yes, I’m emotional you’ll be too. Cry with me.

Tom has cried with movies before. Most of us have. That unexplainable feeling that comes when watching their emotions, while rooting for the main character and seeing how it all tumbled down right before their eyes. You know, that cramp on your chest when the last hope dies, or that feeling when you don’t get a happy ending. But you know you couldn’t get one, and the bittersweet ending is the best you can hope for.

Yes, he’s cried with movies, not with movies like Titanic. No, no. Sure, it was sad. But not really the feeling they’d understand. He and y/n had talked about it, once, how neither of them had cried with that one. Even if they were so different, when it came to their emotions, they were very much alike.

And with movies, even if y/n could sometimes be one of those pretentious film students, if she enjoyed a movie, no matter how cinematically wrong it could be, she didn’t mind, she would cry. But Tom knew y/n was brilliant with emotions, she perfectly knew how to crush hearts with one sentence, with one idea for a scene. He’d seen her do it.

And that’s what led him there. Built-up scenes made to hurt him.

Tom had never felt this wrong. Like a dagger going through his chest. Dry mouth. Swollen lips. He’d swallowed his words. As if saying anything would rip off his throat.

He guessed it was his fault. Life paying off for crushing and loving his brother’s crush. It was a very complicated situation which he had yet to address with Harry. Yes, he had apologized. To his parents, to Harry, to Emma, well he had tried to, she hadn’t listened to him, and Emma’s parents. To Sam. Apologies for some sober thoughts that had accidentally transformed into drunken words.

He felt selfish, and he felt conflicted. If he’d done this to help Harry out, then why the hell did he feel so wrong?

But at least he had apologized. He had meant that apology. He was sorry, and he had said it.

Not to y/n, though. Not to y/n.

Did he have to? He probably did. Because he felt guilty because he knew that her words hadn’t been written in vain. She meant them.

He was too proud to admit that he missed her. That he’d gotten so used to waking up to her that now waking up alone made his stomach tie up in a knot. He had wanted to kiss her so badly his lips ached. He was too proud to admit that the nights were too long and that they arrived earlier, that the sun wasn’t coming out. Because he’d shown her his weakness and strengths. But it was just another story for her. A scene.

A movie he was crying with.

That’s the worst thing about heartbreak, the aftermath. Having to deal with the fact that she wasn’t there. Having to deal with the fact that no matter how angry, he still loved her. That’s the hard thing about heartbreaks. They hurt, but it’s harder to accept the fact that it probably won’t come back to what it used to be. The worst thing about heartbreak is that not even the pain can be able to take away your feelings; to think that he had the world and it vanished right in front of him, and think he had arrived at war with no weapons and she still had shot fire.

But he missed her.

And he felt it. And he was amazed by how well she knew the feeling. The heartbreak. A chest pain. An intermittent pressure in his chest. As if he couldn’t breathe. A void.

And it made him think. How she had gone through this kind of pain. How had she gotten up? How did she manage to get back around? How can you mend a broken heart? It’s impossible.

Because he remembered seeing her coming back slowly, and maybe it did make sense why when she was back on their family lunches and dinners, she’d have to excuse herself and her nose would be red when she came back. Or how she’d zone out. How she’d stay quiet, very very quiet.

Because words didn’t want to come out of his mouth. Because it had been a heartbreak caused by her. And caused by him. Now he regretted it. The damn morality speaking after drinking too much. And he shouldn’t have. He really shouldn’t have.

He’d heal. Not right now.

He couldn’t. He would, eventually. But not now. Or maybe he would if he saw her again. There was still that hopeful thought roaming around his mind. That they’d be able to work this out.

He wanted to.

He wanted to heal this, heal his sorrow. He wanted to live again, not like this. Not with this pain. How the hell had she done it? Live with the rain.

And maybe he wanted to forgive her. Because after all, she’d forgiven him.

But had she? If she’d done that, had she really forgiven him?

He needed answers.

God, not that, not even that. He just needed to see her, at least from afar. Or maybe he’d look out for her, kiss her one last time. Kiss her goodbye. Wake up from this nightmare.

He wanted this film to end already, he didn’t like it. He had cried with this one, even if he didn’t want to admit it out loud. Loving hurts.

This story was not the love story he thought he’d have with her. He needed another chance, even if they’d run out of them. What would he do if he never saw her again? What if they never had the chance to give explanations. Did she have one?

It wouldn't matter, she was home. And even if she’d hurt him, and even if he was bleeding, he knew he loved her, and he didn’t want to let her go.

And it seemed like fate had listened to his thoughts. He saw her car. And that old vintage car gave him hope, and it gave him memories, too. From their first breakfast together to when he believed it could lead somewhere. Loving can heal.

Was she in the same park as him? Was he looking for him? Maybe she was feeling the same. Maybe she too wanted to pause this for a little bit. He knew he did.

He was sitting down on a bench, Tessa running around, and back to him. He barely had any emotions and he wasn’t as cheerful to play with her. He felt numb. Yes, that’s it. Numb.

But he’d seen her car. She probably was nearby. Was she alone?

And what would he even say to her? Because he needed to apologize too. What kind of apology, he didn’t know, but he needed to apologize.

But he needed to see her, one last time. Even if it would hurt him, his last memory of her couldn’t be a picture of her on his phone. That’s not what he needed.

With pain, excitement, confusion and barely any hope of finding her, he started to look out. And he was expecting the worst. But he knew that she could mend his broken heart, and maybe it wouldn’t stop raining, but he’d enjoy it.

And maybe if someone had told him he’d regret it, he … probably wouldn’t, no, he would’ve searched for her anyway. Because maybe that was the only explanation he needed. As if he’d walked directly into a hurricane as if he was hit with a train.

He’d seen her, arms crossed as Harry was anxiously tapping his foot, avoiding her gaze. And maybe he should’ve run out right there, but he kept watching, because Tom was, beyond many things, stupidly stubborn.

She looked terrible, and that wasn’t normal of her. She looked grey, broken, weak. But she’d looked out for Harry, not for Tom. For Harry, maybe that was the explanation Tom needed. She wouldn’t look for him. And it hurt, because how many times had he not tried to call her these days, how many nights had he not craved the taste of her lips.

And she hadn’t looked up for him.

He couldn’t hear the conversation. He wasn’t close enough.

Harry was holding something, a bunch of papers. What was it?

They were angry, Tom could tell. Probably yelling at each other, their hands going up in the air, finger-pointing, fists, hands to the face. Harry stood back up, crossing his arms, Tom could tell his brother was angry, that his brother was exasperated. Holding his head, as y/n watched him and seemed stressed.

They were arguing.

But it seemed like a weird argument as if Harry didn’t want to hear what she was saying. Harry sat on the bench again as y/n moved her hands quickly, she didn’t know how to explain it.

And eventually, they both went quiet as they were both on the bench, Harry staring at the bunch of papers he was holding.

And then Harry was about to leave, and Tom saw y/n still had a lot to say so she followed after Harry.

But then, he saw it.

His world shattered.

Have you ever felt like the world is sinking? Have you ever felt the world spinning? And suddenly, he could hear every single noise. As if the city had suddenly decided to be loud, he heard car horns, children playing, couples arguing, alarms going off, every single noise getting louder as if someone was setting the fire, shooting. Too loud. The weather around him was getting so warm but he was only getting colder. His chest was shrinking, not leaving any more space for his heart, as it was pressed into a knot.

Tom was pretty sure he was about to faint.

Harry had his hands on her face and his lips on her. Harry had kissed y/n.

Harry was kissing y/n.

Harry and y/n kissed.

And he didn’t know how long it had been, but Tom felt like time had stopped for them and Tom, while the whole world was going too quickly. As if everything around kept going except for them.

Tom was sure he was hearing his heartbeat, a loud thud, his ears were buzzing.

He didn’t even notice he’d let go off Tessa’s leash, and he hadn’t even seen how Tessa had run to Harry, to interrupt the kiss. Harry’s hands had moved to her arms.

Y/N was terrified, she hadn’t moved, she had only frozen, didn’t even notice Tessa. Had she kissed him back? Tom hadn’t seen it. He couldn’t see anything. It was blurry.

She hadn’t kissed him again. And he hadn’t kissed her again. She was in shock, even… Shaking a bit. She didn’t even turn to see Tess.

Harry did, he turned to see Tessa, begging to be pet.she jumped to them.

Y/N shook her head, and turned back into reality, Tom could see she was breathing again. Both Harry and Y/N were in shock seeing the pup. It was going all in slow motion as if y/n and Harry both got the hint as they saw Tess. Y/N slowly looked up, and her eyes found Tom instantly, standing there. Weakly, he had just been shot and his knees were getting weaker by the minute, almost about to fall to the ground.

Y/N with Harry’s hands still on her arms tried to back away as she stared at Tom. She couldn’t map her emotions, that was clear.

Tom urged to rush, to leave. He couldn’t—get in their way.

He saw y/n opening her mouth to say something but he couldn’t hear about it. Everything kept going fast, and slow. Tom was going too slow.

But y/n walked out of Harry’s grip. Tom thought she would rush to him, she didn’t. She walked away from both of them, Harry stayed with Tessa.

Tom didn’t know how he managed to get back home, he didn’t know how he got there, he didn’t remember crossing any streets.

He had lost control, his heart was beating so fast, so loudly, it was going to burst out. He was barely breathing. He had to leave it all behind, that was the only answer he needed to any of the questions he’d asked in the darkness throughout these days and nights.

He probably shouldn’t have to live with it tomorrow, not with all this sorrow. Because that’s how it was supposed to be, right? Harry and her.

Though it hurt, he had to deal with it.

But had y/n kissed Harry back? Did y/n love Harry? Because y/n was an impossible case, and she probably didn’t even know it herself. That’s the problem with y/n, she never knows what she feels. She was never certain, she never did anything for the sake of doing it. She did it because she had a million reasons behind everything she did, she wasn’t spontaneous, she always loved to be premeditated. She always thinks about what she does, so that’s probably why she’d searched for Harry. Because she probably wanted to be with him. It had been her choice.

Tom got to his room, still blurry, he’d ignored Harrison, not because he wanted to but because he really couldn’t hear anything, his buzzing ears were not letting him. A headache was growing and he was slowly catching back his breath as he sat down on his bed. and when all his senses were coming back he saw an envelope.

The story had come alive. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Hadn’t he wanted all that his whole life? For his brother to be happy.

Then why the hell did he not want this? How selfish of Tom to be brokenhearted when he had no rights to. This was the way it was meant to be.

It would take him a few days, or months, or years even. He really didn’t want to see it. He needed to get used to the idea that Harry had kissed y/n. And he needed to get used to the idea of that. He knew he needed to get used to the idea that this was how it was supposed to be, the way it led there.

He saw his tv, paused on something. Maybe he had learned the wrong lesson. To fall into the shallow. But it didn’t make any sense. Harrison had told him she had been there before, had she been there to tell Tom how she was choosing Harry?

He shouldn’t have tried anything. Because his brother still loved y/n, if Harry had kissed y/n it had to mean that he still had feelings for him.

Nothing mattered, not even his heartbreak now. Because it hadn’t been Tom, y/n wasn’t supposed to love Tom. That’s a tragedy.

It’s clear they deserved each other, they were perfect together. Not Tom and y/n, no. That’s why throughout these years, they hadn’t worked out. Because they had always been at war, and they weren’t meant to be.

They deserved each other.

He stared at the envelope, ‘Tom’. That’s all it read. Her handwriting. He didn’t want to read it. A box, with his name.

The same box he’d seen in her room, the one box that he had wanted to open. But now he only wanted to throw it away.

How long had it been since their last kiss? It should’ve lasted longer, at least he would’ve made it worth it. It had been 16 hours, and three weeks, that’s how long it had been. But now it didn’t matter. Now he could be free knowing that she’d chosen him. Now he could ignore her, and now he didn’t need all the information she had from her.

He could stop pretending that he loved The Rolling Stones, and he could have dates that didn’t involve ‘a movie moment’, he could go out and have fun. He didn’t have to carry that stupid polaroid everywhere. He could go back to fancy restaurants, and not have to pretend he loved street hot dogs. And he could go back to not try and over analyse props on films, and he could go back to have it all simple. He didn’t have to remember the perfect pancake recipe, and he didn’t have to buy any more 80’s like clothes.

He didn’t have to pretend he cared anymore.

But he had to pretend he didn’t. Because he cared, and he did love all that stuff.

He looked up to his nightstand, yellow flowers and lavenders. And he thought about the ashes in his drawer.

He turned the TV off and opened the box. The first thing he saw was a bunch of papers. The script, printed. He picked it up and then opened his window, would he throw it all away? He gave it a second thought and then slammed it to the floor.

He sighed, took the flowers and then the script, he headed to the kitchen. He searched for a lighter and stared at the flowers and the papers, this probably was an inefficient way of accepting an apology. Maybe he was being cynical but he really didn’t want to see the flowers, and he knew that her apology wasn’t even real. He didn’t want to know what they meant.

He hated this. Because he shouldn’t be feeling this way, and though he wanted to be happy for his brother, Tom really wished it had been him. And he had believed it, that it would be them. And all he had to treasure now was New York.

And Rome. Rome.

Stupid to think that.

He wouldn’t do that again, because Tom was well aware of why he’d gone to Rome. Maybe he had been jealous, and selfish, and stupid. Yes, stupid. Because he had gone to Rome with a stupid excuse, a photoshoot. It wasn’t true. He had gone to search for her because she had been right, he couldn’t stand it, because he was arrogant and selfish and envious, and he loved her too much.

Rome had been a fairytale, even prettier than New York. So intimate, that’s probably when it should’ve started, it could’ve been prettier. Because somehow he had known that New York would be their downfall. In New York, they had touched their bodies, but in Rome, they had touched their souls. And they hadn’t even kissed. That’s how pretty it had been.

And it had all started as a dream.

Rome and New York were so different. New York was them trying to make up for all the times they could’ve kissed, and Rome felt like a summer breeze. And he still remembered that it was the time he knew he’d love her his whole life. With that pretty dress as she was holding her wine glass up, the sun hitting her face perfectly, with those red lips of her. Her laugh still echoed in his mind now and then.

A picture-perfect day. He knew that a polaroid of that day probably was hanging around her bedroom. In that alley, walls covered with plants build up until the roof with the chairs that never. A little restaurant, best pasta he’d ever had. The prettiest laugh he’d ever heard. But it had never been his.

He had been so selfish. Taking her away from Harry. And he wouldn’t do it again. No. Not again.

He needed to set it all on fire, the flowers and the script. He ignored Harrison again as he walked outside, ready to burn them. To erase the story, this was Tom burning their story. He didn’t want to read it ever again.

And he knew that it would leave a scar, and he knew that the ashes would stain, but they’d fade away with the wind. He’d had to wake up alone for a while. Did he have to do it now? Did he have to wait until he wasn’t as angry?

He sat in his garden, not ready to do it. He wasn’t ready to erase her. He didn’t want to.

But he picked up the first page, and he started to light it up in fire, seeing how it was dwindling.

“She didn’t kiss me back,” a voice said.

And Tom swore he had felt like a knife had been stabbed right on his back. He knew whose voice it was. He didn’t want to acknowledge he was there.

“Tom.”

Tom stayed quiet and then picked up the second page, but he didn’t light this one up. He saw Tess had approached him, she was back. And that only confirmed it.

“She loves you. You know?” Harry pushed again.

Tom pursed his lips, as he stared at the lighter. He kept quiet.

“Don’t burn it.”

Tom turned to his brother. How stupid it was they were fighting for a girl.

“And do you love her?” Tom asked.

Harry sat across him. “I don’t know.”

That was the answer he didn’t need to hear.

Tom looked up. He hadn’t really talked to Harry. They’ve said ‘sorry’, and then ignored each other. He knew his relationship with his brother was bruised forever. How would Harry forgive him? He probably wouldn’t. And could he forgive him for kissing y/n? But Harry didn’t have to apologize to him.

“I don’t know,” Harry repeated. “I thought….” He sighed. “All my life I thought it would feel different.”

Tom stayed quiet.

“Dunno why I did that,” Harry gulped her. “The worst thing that could happen to me was losing her and now I pushed her out.

Tom watched him.

“Now she’ll be a stranger, huh, we can’t fix this,” Harry gulped. “She gave this to me,” he said showing the same bunch of papers that Tom had received this morning. Harry took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

“What?”

“Kissing her. I guess I thought I would lose nothing. I knew I’d lost her already and I lost Emma.”

“You haven’t lost Emma.”

Harry smiled sadly. “She gave the ring back,” he shook his head. “I don’t blame her. I was still confused.” Harry scowled. “Well, I dunno. I guess Emma realized it, and I blame myself, I always did give it to Y/N. I know I always moved mountains for her, and I can’t blame Emma. And I can’t believe I made Emma feel less important, and I wouldn’t blame her. No, I can’t believe I let the love of my life go for something that I knew would never grow. And I didn’t… I didn’t do it for that, you know?”

Tom looked down at the script he was about to burn.

“But after years of loving someone knowing that at some point they loved you… It’s scary, and stupid and you hate timing, of course, I’d be confused. And It wasn’t like I wanted to be with her, you know? And I can’t believe I did that, because I want her to be happy, and I wanted you to be happy, hell we shouldn’t even have… I dunno, Tom.”

“I shouldn’t have dated her,” Tom said.

“No, that’s where you’re fucking wrong, Tom, when you love someone you do something about it,” Harry said. “You don’t--You don’t have to wait, look at the mess that comes when you don’t say what you really mean.”

“How do you really feel about her?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I always wondered how she felt about me. She always felt guilty, I know that, I could see it, how any time I tried to make a move, she’d feel guilty. Just like she did today as if she felt bad that she can’t reciprocate. I think she forced herself back before Rome, as if she was trying to accept it, it didn’t feel… natural. Not even for me, even today, when I kissed her it felt… Weird.”

Tom frowned.

“And we’ve made a mess, and… I don’t know.”

“How did it feel weird?” asked Tom.

Harry was sad, Tom could tell his brother was probably trying to hide away the fact that he probably was broken-hearted too. Somehow, he felt that his brother was lying. Tom knew his brother, and Tom knew that Harry didn’t mean what he was saying.

“It was gross,” Harry said after a while, probably trying to word it outright. Because he had seen Harry’s stress fade away when his lips had landed on y/n’s. Harry hid his hands in his pockets.

“What?” Tom frowned.

“I kissed her and it was gross,” Harry snapped, clenched his jaw. He fidgeted with his hand. “She didn’t kiss back and I have no…. Feelings for her. I know that. And she doesn’t love me.”

Harry was lying. Clearly.

Tom watched him and pointed at the script. “Read that.”

Harry shrugged. “I only read the ending,” He explained. “And judging by your reaction it’s exactly what you didn’t read.”

Tom crossed his arms. “She wanted it to be you.”

Harry shook his head. “But it isn’t.”

“And do you want to be?” Tom asked.

Harry shook his head looking down. “I know she wants it to be you,” He explained.

“But do you still love her?”

“I think I’m never going to stop loving her, really,” Harry said. “It’s been years for me, don’t know how long it’s been for you, but feelings never really fade away. They transform. I think… I don’t know, I’ve made a fool out of myself for her and I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to go. I don’t know. I’ve spent my whole life crushing on her eyes, and her smile, memorizing every single thing about her, her favorite songs, her favorite films. Knowing how to make her laugh, and knowing who made her cry. If she likes silver earrings or gold ones, it depends on her dress. The way that she drinks coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon, two cups if it’s raining. I know which song I can play to make her dance and I know that she is so stubborn, that even if she won’t like an ice cream, she’ll try it anyway the very next day.” Harry nodded slowly, to himself. “I know that she still sleeps with that plush frog and if she travels or forgets it, she’ll end up hugging a pillow.”

Tom didn’t know what to say. His brother knew y/n, perfectly. And he was right, he’d seen y/n lookout for a pillow in her sleep to hug, a small pillow even if she was holding Tom, she’d always unconsciously search for a small pillow.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about her, Tom,” Harry gulped. “How many poems she’s written about you, and how many times she’s cancelled plans for you. I know why she didn’t show up to the premiere that one time. I know her first kiss wasn’t that Nicholas guy, and I know she always ends up buying the same shade of red lipstick every now in a while, and that she always ends up boxing them.” Harry bit his lip. “I know that her most sincere smile came the day you took her to prom, and I know that she really did love you and she’ll keep choosing you.”

Tom looked away.

“Do I love her? I don’t know. But if you’re asking if the kiss could lead to anything more, no, it wouldn’t from me and it wouldn’t from her. Because we both know she’ll end up choosing you.”

Harry walked away Leaving Tom confused. This wasn’t his brother’s fault. Maybe y/n’s. Probably y/n’s.

“But yes,” Harry sighed. “I still love her, always will.”

“You fucking lied you know?” Tom said. “To me, to y/n, to Emma. Especially to Emma. You still love y/n. “

Harry stopped as if he was going to turn and say something, he didn’t, he kept walking.

Tom didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t want to know it, he was not going to do anything. What was there to do?

But she hadn’t kissed Harry back. Tom watched Harry leave, and then stared at the script. He didn’t want to think about it. Had Harry given him his blessing? And did he even want it? Did he want to go back to that place with y/n?

He didn’t want to read the script, though. Not even if the ending changed everything. He really didn’t want to go there, not right now at least.

He needed time. So he’d take even more days. She didn’t reach out for him. He didn’t reach out for her.

Both of them were quiet. Very, very quiet. He didn’t know if it hurt him more that she hadn’t told him anything about it. Or if he understood it, did she have to tell him anything?

Maybe she didn’t want to.

Because Harry had spoken for himself, but Harry didn’t know if nothing had been awakened on y/n. Maybe y/n had had her own explanation.

Tom had his, though. Maybe Harry hadn’t done much because he knew y/n was in love with Tom. But Harry didn’t know how y/n had wanted it to be y/n.

Y/N eventually called him.

He didn’t answer.

And she called again.

He didn’t answer.

And again.

Maybe she gave up.

But she left a voicemail. Tom didn’t listen to it. Because why the hell should he?

He had let the flowers die. He hadn’t burned them. He had ignored it. A dvd, a box and an envelope.

And he had purposefully avoided them, because he still had something to look up for. It wasn’t a memory, it was something he could still look forward to. But he was curious. Very, very curious. Why had y/n bothered to bring her box to him.

And it bothered him. He had asked Haz when she’d brought it. And it made sense that she had closed the door to Tom. But what the hell was on it?

He couldn’t help himself, he opened it, but then he closed it again. He was furious, defeated.

He opened it again. And it hurt, opening it. Polaroids, from their dates in New York, from Rome, and the first polaroid from two months ago, with Tom smiling as he was eating a pancake, another one from the time Tom asked her out, lipsticks,a beer bottle from that lunch with their parents, a napkin that had ‘NY hot dogs’ written on it, the plane ticket from their first date, a baseball she’d bought after that other one, a dried out yellow flower, pebbles, more pictures,, a drawing, movie tickets, a spiderman toy, a broken teacup from that time they were kids and Tom had accidentally stepped on it, an xbox broken controller, he remembered it, perfectly the controller that had stopped working right after their first kiss.

A lego piece, a Barbie-- he remembered that one, he’d cut her hair and y/n had cried. And many, many more things that were only tokens… For what?

Tokens of their… relationship. As he was taking out each and every object he was reminded of every single thing. As if every time he touched an object, a memory flooded his brain. The yellow flowered dress she’d worn to Harry's party was the one that hurt the most. A wine bottle, a beer cap . Lipsticks, many lipsticks. An old lighter. The Sour Patch empty bag from that same night at the hotdogs….

Maybe Tom was wrong, maybe their story wasn’t New York and maybe their story wasn’t only Rome. For how long had she built this?

He kept going through it, toys from their childhood, a package of cigarettes, a hair comb and…

A pregnancy test?

A pregnancy test.

A pregnancy test!

Tom suddenly felt cold as he saw it laying down on that corner of the box, waiting for it to be seen. He didn’t want to see it. Was she pregnant?

Was this… Was he going to be a dad? He had to take care of her, and the baby. Was this her way of telling him? And how would it work? Did they have to make it work? What the hell was he going to do?

But it couldn’t be.

No, but it could.

“Fuck.”

It didn’t make any sense. But it could make sense. They hadn’t really stopped… New York had been fun. But had it been?

But fuck, this couldn’t… It could be. But why hadn’t she told him before? How the hell… When had she found out? He had been an idiot for waiting so long. Maybe he should call her. What was he even going to tell her? He was sweating cold. He would take care of them, but fuck, how complicated would it be? And poor baby, the whole story their parents had. Fuck, this was going to be difficult.

He blinked as he slowly reached out for it. He felt it. That fear. But… a baby could solve their problems, but what king of bloody thinning was that?

And he finally reached for it, snatching it quickly and bringing it up to his sight.

One lined. It was negative.

And Tom felt a relief. Not because he didn’t want to be a father, but because his relationship with her was too complicated and adding a baby would ruin everything, or would it? Was he really thinking about that?

He couldn’t have a baby, for god’s sake. No, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t, though. He didn’t have to worry about that.

He laughed, slightly. He knew y/n, she probably had done this exactly to get that reaction. But it hurt, to think she was giving all of this back. Because that meant she didn’t want to have them anymore.

He looked up for the DVD next. He decided to play it.

It felt weird.

“Hello! This is y/n!” An old video started. With barely any resolution, as a young, probably 4 year old y/n was speaking to the camera, her face too close, and her lips purple stained.

Tom sat on his bed, staring at the video in front of him.

She lifted up the almost finished purple popsicle, and pointed behind her. “There’s Tom, ugly Tom,” she said as she moved to her hand to angle just slightly right to show Tom sucking on a blue popsicle. “There’s—Jamesy!” She said as she pointed the camera to her brother, too busy away kicking a football. “He’s playing! And I’m here—So I stole my mum’s new—campera—camra, camera, and we’re gonna—“

“Bloooooooooooop!” Tom has snatched the camera from her as he recorded his face just as he ran away.

“Tooom, no, give it back, it’s mine!” Y/N could be seen running after him.

“It’s not, it’s not!” Tom laughed. “Too slow, y/n!”

Y/N was already tearing up. “Tom!”

“It’s mine!” Tom laughed.

“Tom give it back!” She continued, and the young innocent voice faded away and grew into a deeper voice.

“Tom give it back—“an older y/n appeared on the screen now, from a few weeks ago. Back in New York, on set, as Tom was running away with her phone. “give me my phone back.”

This had been just weeks before, when her smile still made him smile. When he wasn’t a fool.

“No,” he lifted the phone out of her reach. The sight of Tom watching her, as she walked over.

“Thomas,” she laughed. “Can you give it back?”

“What for? you were already recording my pretty face, I’m only helping you!” He laughed as he scrunched his nose to the camera. “I don’t even know what kind of vid you want here, so I’ll just—“

“Baby!” She complained as she tried to reach for it.

He smirked as he turned to her. “Baby? Oh, so I’m baby now,” he grinned. “You’ve never called me baby.”

She blushed, instantly. “Give it back, dumbass.”

“That sounds more like you.”

“Can I have my phone back?” She asked, Tom grinned as he walked to her.

“Yeah,” he smirked. “I’ll only just—“he pointed the camera at her face, she tried to snatch it away. “Can you wait? A second?”

She laughed and crossed her arms. Tom only pointed the camera at them before placing a long kiss to her lips.

“oh—shit, oh shit, shit, shit, y/n and Tom are kissing. Fucking hell!” A voice said over their kiss, before switching to the video it belonged to.

The prom kiss, a Snapchat video from someone who had been coincidentally recording the part. Y/N and Tom in a little corner as they kept kissing.

“It’s y/n and Tom, right? Yessss bloody hell!” “Bloody hell!” “Tom—and y/n—“

“Tom and y/n!” The voice said as it turned yet into a different video. “They’re dancing—“ Elaine’s voice was speaking now.

“They’re adorable,” Nikki's voice said on camera.

“They’re not fighting!”

It had been at that wedding, when y/n looked adorable with that pink dress.

Tom remembered that night. It was the night he finally admitted it out loud to himself. “I like y/n.” Shortly after the first yellow flowers.

And they were dancing. Children being silly, holding hands but throwing them up in the air.

“But they’re dancing!” Elaine commented again.

And as Tom twirled y/n, another video appeared. A most recent one, too. When they had been sillying around at Tom’s dance rehearsal. After their Dirty Dancing moment.

“Okay, y/n,” the choreographer said. “Come here, Tom, pretend she’s Maddie.”

“Why would I do that?” Tom laughed, as he brought her close to him. “And how would I? Y/N here is a terrible dancer.”

She chuckled. “Shut up!”

“Unless she’s drunk,” Tom pointed out.

Tom kept watching the video, videos of them transitioning from children, to teenage years, to Rome, to New York, to everything. As if the videos proved how they hadn’t changed, just transformed.

Feelings never fade away.

Tom wasn’t even watching it. What was the point of that? Why did he… feel like this? He finally opened the envelope. A few pages. At first, Tom thought it was a script. It wasn’t. It was… a letter.

Dear Tom, Hello, To you,

Tom.

Yes, I’m sticking with that one. Sorry if I scratch things. Sorry for the bad orthography, grammar or the unfinished thoughts. No, that’s not the thing I should be apologizing for, but it’s a beginning. I’m writing this from my heart and I am trying to write this as sincerely as possible. It’s what you deserve. I initially wanted to think all of this through but I realized that if I let the pen flow, I’ll get to say everything I want to say. I also thought I would try and tell all of this in person but I’m afraid you won’t listen to everything I want to say. This is easier.

You know me. I always have second thoughts and I never do anything that isn’t premeditated. This was the most spontaneous thing I could do, I just picked up the first paper I saw, so yes, it’s stained with coffee.

How does one even begin to write a letter? This is not the kind of stuff I like doing. I’m not good at this. Hell, I don’t know if you’ll even read this. I don’t know if you watched it. That DVD. Hope you did. I really hope you’re watching it.

Though it might be stupid and cheesy and probably not really the romantic gesture you’d expect from me, I have no choice. Because I’m really trying to prove a point here.

I initially thought I would write a script, you know, write a story to make you understand my point of view, but now I barely want to, a script ruined the best thing I ever had. But I guess, it also started it.

I wish I’d told you sooner and I really wish it hadn’t started that way, but it made it start.

You see, that script is the biggest con I’ve ever tricked myself into, making myself believe I would be doing it for a stupid script, when in reality, I guess it’s all I wanted, for you to fall in love with me. I shielded myself saying I would break your heart, I shielded myself saying it was only for the sake of my job. When it really wasn’t. It was me trying to give it another chance. I blew it all up.

And yes. I did write I wanted to break your heart. I don’t even know why. Why did I have to break what I love so much?

Want to know a secret? I never knew how I would do that. My “plan” went as far as to make you fall in love with me, no further shenanigans, because, really, that’s all I really wanted. I didn’t know how I’d break your heart. I didn’t have any plans because I knew I really didn’t want to. I only wanted you to love me.

Hope you did.

Hope you didn’t, too. Because if you didn’t, then I will at least pretend I didn’t hurt you as much.

I know I did. And it’s fucked up, very fucked up.

I’ve been struggling to find the right words to tell you. I know sorry won’t cut it. It’s not enough.

And since I know you don’t read until the end, I am really doubting if I’ll give this to you. It’s not on you, I wouldn’t have read it. Maybe I’m just writing for myself, probably. But it helps. I’ve never been good with words, which is ironic, I’m a screenwriter, or I pretended to be one, I guess. You know me, I’m more about moments. I’m more about little details.

I did send you the script, though. It’s in that box. It’s yours. Keep it. Burn it. Rip it off. Do whatever you want with it. I don’t blame you.

It’s yours.

But it’s there. With a lot of other things. Things that finally explained something I haven’t understood for a while. Until now.

I think that among these years, I’ve found myself in a predicament. You’ve seen it. You’ve heard it. And I’m pretty sure you’ve said it.

I don’t love who I’m supposed to love.

That’s the reason behind it right? I’d like to think so.

That’s what they said, right? I don’t love who I’m supposed to. Not the perfect guy, not the guy who’s been there all along.

And everyone said it, you should date him, that guy it’s your endgame. But I didn’t—feel it.

Maybe for a bit, I did. But I ended up coming back to you.

I didn’t love who I was supposed to love. And that’s what the script said, too. I don’t love the guy who has danced with me under the rain, or the guy who’s taken the best picture of me under the rain too.

No. I love the guy who’s probably the worst thing that could ever happen to me, and who’ll probably be away most of the time. I love the guy who was the storm.

But I still love him. So dearly. And so much. And I miss him. I really miss you.

And I’m sorry.

Really sorry. You don’t know how sorry I am. I can’t believe I fucked up that much.

I am the monster. Not you. I fucked up. And I can’t blame you if you don’t ever want to see me again, I understand it. And I won’t blame you if you burn this. I can’t blame you, I’d probably do the same.

But I’m sorry.

I can’t believe I did this to you, the love of my life.

But it all comes to that. Doesn’t it?

I don’t love who I’m supposed to love.

Except, Tom. I do. That’s what we’ve both got wrong. I do love who I’m supposed to love.

Searching through our memories, I wanted to build up the puzzle, understand every situation that’s led us to where we are now. To two very broken hearts. To lost battles. To understand why I loved someone who has crushed my heart into tiny little pieces, throw it into the ground and then step on it.

You read it, how I described you. How I described what I was doing. How I said you were a monster. How you hurt me. How you were only my…

Perfidy.

1: the quality or state of being faithless or disloyal: TREACHERY.

2: an act or an instance of disloyalty

3: deceitfulness; untrustworthiness.

It’s a war concept, it was used to refer to someone who won someone’s trust only to betray them. Must like us.

We don’t make sense, do we?

I tried to understand a lot about us, and I think I’ve found the answer. It’s complicated, bare with me, and please, this time, keep reading. I can’t afford losing you to another unfinished story. I already lost you, I know.

I know where we went wrong.

We thought of each other as a war, a game, a prank, an apology. And we didn’t have to, that’s where we went wrong. I guess we really were blinded by the idea of a sworn enemy that we walked in thinking this was a war and waiting for the other one to shoot first, when nobody should’ve shot.

All is fair in love and war. But don’t get those two mixed up, because then, it’ll be all unfair.

That’s our problem, you even said it, a war song reminded you of me, I used to describe you with a war concept.

We thought this was war Tom. And it shouldn’t have been. It didn’t feel like one.

And I don’t even know what to tell you now. This wasn’t a war zone. We were wrong. We didn’t have to be careful, we didn’t have to. And I shouldn’t have pulled the perfect perfidy.

But after years of battles, did we expect not to?

The fact that you love me, if you do, and I really hope you do, doesn't change the fact that you hurt me. I think that’s the best thing we can do for now, accept the fact that we’ve both hurt each other so much.

I did write you were a monster. And yes, most things in the script are true. I guess I have to acknowledge it. I own it, I wrote it.

Yes. I love you.

But I can’t pretend I didn’t cry for months, I can’t pretend that night at the club I felt like the whole world tumbled upon me. Because it did. And you know it. I can’t pretend I wasn’t diagnosed with a broken heart and I can’t pretend that I really started this thinking you’ll do it again.

I can’t pretend I was alright, and that your name didn’t feel like a dagger for a while.

It would be stupid for me if I said you never hurt me. And I know, I know, I fucked up this time. This time was on me, but Tom, really. How many times did I not cry for you?

How many times did I not trash my room because it had you all over the place? I can’t pretend that didn’t happen.

Yes, the script narrated that. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen.

But I also can’t pretend that I won’t come back to you. I can't pretend I don’t love you. Because I do, and I loved every single kiss. I can’t pretend all those good times didn’t happen.

And yet, even after every battle. I come back to you. Because I am supposed to love you.

And I tried to build it up. And you know what? It makes sense.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the DVD, in my stupid mind, because you know me, everything is for the story, the aesthetic, but in my mind the DVD is playing right as you read this, in the background. Maybe you look up a little, smile at something and turn back. You probably aren’t. You probably won’t.

He was, actually. The video stayed in the background. He looked up to see it,

“So we’re here at y/n’s 18th birthday party. She’s currently sober. As your biggest enemy y/n I need to have on record on how you’ll get wasted.”

“Shut up dumbass.”

“You shut up idiot!”Tom said.

“Shut up!” Another Tom appeared on camera, turning to a different video, of her dorm room in Rome, Tom was by the window.

“No no, sing again I want to hear you sing,” y/n said behind the camera. She approached him, and opened the window.

“I’m not going to sing,” Tom warned again.

“Come on, everyone in Rome wants to listen to you,” she laughed as she stuck her phone out from the window, recording the beautiful afternoon in the italian city.

“No.”

“Ah, come on, maybe go downstairs and serenade me,” she suggested.

We haven’t changed Tom. Or maybe we have, for the better. But I hope you see it, I am supposed to love you.

And I know you probably want me to go fuck myself, I get it. Maybe this letter will be burned.

I’d do it.

Like those yellow flowers you gave me. I shouldn’t have burnt all of them. Should’ve kept one.

But that DVD, it shows it. You are the guy I was supposed to fall in love with, we’ve built it upon our whole lives. Or maybe we were destined to tumble down. You choose.

I really like to think we are both so stupid that we are meant to be. Maybe that’s toxic.

Probably, yes.

But we have to change it, don’t we? Maybe not.

But we did change it. It just took me a few minutes to realize we transformed all the bad things into good things.

And hell, they were very nice, while it lasted, weren’t they?

We’re the same stupid kids, Tom.

Either we’ve hated each other our whole lives and we fucked up by falling in love. Or we were madly in love and fucked up by hating each other.

Either way, we fucked up.

I also gave you a box, yes that same box you saw in my bedroom, it has your name and it’s scratched and ripped, a little. You don’t know how many times I’ve had to hide that box. And I’ve kicked it and I’ve repaired it.

Inside you will find more of the puzzle I solved. Polaroids, picture-perfect memories, an empty box of pasta, lipsticks, a beer cap, that yellow-flowered dress I wore that day. Everything that’s led us here. Memories that I used to either remind myself that you were stupid, or that I was stupidly in love with you.

I hope you remember most of the stories. I know I do. They’ve built us up to who we were. Like that broken teacup, that teacup was around the time I was about 5, maybe 6. It was kind of the first time you made me cry, ugly cry.

There’s that Xbox controller that stopped working before our first kiss. Do you remember it? That’s why you were the only one playing.

It’s weird now that I think about it. And stupid, how I’ve been in love with the guy who gave me my first kiss for my whole life. Sounds pathetic out of context. Maybe even more with context.

Don’t know if you found the pregnancy test. If not, there’s one in there. Yes, I was scared, it was a few days ago, I was so bloody scared, a baby? Having a baby? At first, I thought, it doesn’t make any sense but it would, considering our… routine in New York. But it was negative. Hurray, I guess.

And yes, a dried out yellow flower. No, you didn’t give me that one. You know it, I’ve never kept any yellow flowers you’ve given me, ones I threw them away, the second ones I gave them back and we know what happened to the third one. So no, you didn’t give me the yellow flower on that box. That one. It’s got a story. After Rome, yes. I once stared at that box, and I promised myself I wouldn’t fall in love with you. I broke my promise. I never fell out of love.

And I remember one day, I was with Timothée, actually. We were on a date, and I remember the day was so bright, the sun was shining again. After all those grey storms, the sun had come out again. I was smiling, I was laughing again.

Don’t know if I’ll ever be able to again. I’m sure of this, I’m never going to New York again.

But I was with Timmy that day, we were in that café I used to go with him, outside. I had noticed from the early beginning of the date that we were sitting by near a kid with a spiderman t-shirt. I didn’t really think of you at that time, I kept on with my date. I did… feel something, maybe a little jump inside of me. I remember I ignored it.

Because... I was so happy, genuinely happy. I thought I had come out of the tunnel. Didn’t want to ruin it. And I remember as I saw the vase on our table, full of yellow flowers. I cried instantly. Couldn’t explain it to Timmy at the time, but I did take it out and kept it.

Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? The power the flowers have. I cried while I got the ones I sent you.

I guess that’s why I used that yellow-flowered dress. I don’t know. I was trying to tell you I wanted to turn it into something beautiful.

You know, Tom. Whenever I used to think of you initially I thought into frogs, yellow flowers and my hair being pulled. Broken tea cups, and stupid games that would get me full of dirt.

Then it changed, to a first kiss, dancing to an 80’s song and late night with videogames.

Then again it was prom night, with that pink dress I used, the first lipstick I had to box in here because I didn’t want to wear it anymore because you had kissed my lips while I was wearing it, and you guessed it, yellow flowers.

For a while, it was a mix of all of that, you bothering me, a kiss, unusable lipsticks, yellow flowers, dancing, frogs. Endless discussions, broken bones. Stupid, silly things.

For a while to think of you, it meant pain, yellow flowers, a nightclub and Rome.

I thought that would never change anymore.

But look at me now, whenever I think of you I think of pancakes, yes my favorite food, Of an elevator, dirty dancing, again an 80’s song, and laughing, and kissing, and other stuffing.

Sometimes what you expect never comes, but it’s the unexpected that changes your life. All I knew the day after we said you loved me was that I needed to be there forever. And I already know your worst, but hell, I wish I can still learn your best. You feel like home, Tom. You feel like it’s raining outside, and you feel like a crowded buzzing city, with people rushing, but you feel like coming back home to a warm pair of arms.

And I really hate that you had to see my worst when I should’ve given you my very best.

And now I won’t have that box, and I’ll give back every polaroid because I don't want them haunting them, and because I don’t need anything to remind me that I fucked up, because I know I won’t have you anymore.

How am I supposed to deal with this?

I don’t know if I can live with this, knowing you’ve touched and kissed spots the sun has yet to see, and it probably won’t ever see them. You’re a fast learner, you know? You knew every single beauty spot, even the ones I didn't know I had, you’ve learned them. The most sensible and subtle touch, the sensitive cardinal points. Underneath our clothes, under the sheets, you learned my story how am I supposed to live with this? Knowing that my body will now remind me of you? How stupid does that sound? You know it now Tom. I’ll never go to war again, I’ll never shoot again. I promise.

If it’s not clear yet...

It’s you. It’s always been you. No matter how cheesy it sounds, it’s you and I don’t want to hide it. Because you own it, you know? the place where my thoughts hide. My thoughts, my heart, fuck, even my body now. It should’ve been an endless story, and maybe it is. And now I know I’ll keep seeing you everywhere, because I’ll be able to smell your skin in some of my clothes. And I know I’ll see your shadow in the moonlight, and I know I won’t be able to sleep now that I can’t hear your heartbeat next to mine.

And I won’t pretend I’m alright this time. I don’t think I’ll be able to.

And I’m sorry, and I will never forgive myself for hurting you. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve explained it to you sooner. But right now, I doubt there’s anything I can say now. I think all apologies are worn out. We’ve been good at apologies. But we are gone, aren’t we?

And though I still want to fight for this, I still would go to war for you, I don’t want to stay in a narrative that includes hurting. I don’t want to stay in a narrative where I’m fighting for an ending that won’t be read. I’m choosing to stay away, maybe we’ll write a different ending next time, not right now, because I can’t afford living knowing I ruined the amazing relationship the love of my life and my best friend have. And though I know I’m losing you both, I’d rather stick with more good memories than bad ones.

I don’t even know what I wrote here, I don't know if it’s too much or maybe it’s not enough, I just wrote for the first time something spontaneous.

I don’t want to promise I’ll stay away, I’m not good at keeping promises. I just want you to know that I really liked our film, I’m just going to pretend it never ended. In my mind, we will be infinite, everlasting. And maybe in another story, in another script, I’ll find a way to make you stay this time, and we will find a way to get out of the warzone.

With love,

y/n.

Tom finished the letter as he hunched his shoulders, the DVD had kept on playing and he looked up just to get the last stone to hit him.

“The princess?” A younger y/n asked, to yet another video, this one seemed different. Not recorded by their parents. “Alright, so the princess is going to…save the prince!” Y/n explained to Tom. “Because she is in love with him!”

“Why does it have to be a princess?” Tom frowned. “Why not be a superhero! Besides, it should be me who saves the damsel!” Tom pushed.

“This is my movie, Thomas,” y/n complained. She was wearing her yellow princess dress.

“This is my movie, Thomas,” he mimicked. He groaned. “Why can’t I be the dragon? Why does Sam get to be the dragon?”

“Because you’re the prince!” Y/n said with a bright smile.

He took the script off her hands. “What does it even say?” He asked as he read it. “This is stupid!”

“No, it’s not!”

Tom frowned. “Why would we kiss?” He wrinkled his nose as he stuck his tongue out.

“Because we like each other.”

And then it faded out. It had all been so quickly. And Tom had to think about it. If they loved each other. Why the hell wouldn't they kiss? Why the hell couldn’t they be together? It didn’t take him more than two minutes to stand up and decidedly go and look out for her. He had made one quick stop, but then he had rushed to her building. He had used the stairs, the elevator had taken too long. He couldn’t wait to see her.

And when it hadn’t been her, the one who had opened the door, Tom didn’t know how he was feeling.

“Oh, another one with flowers, great,” The girl said, she had a clearly not british accent. She looked very similar to y/n though.

“What?” Tom asked. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Yes, first one brought peonies, second one daisies and you… what are these?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” Tom gulped. “I’m… Where’s y/n?”

“Seems like we have… Chamomile, primroses, evening primroses that is, and… Heleniums,” The girl pointed out as he stared at the flowers Tom was holding. “Huh, what’s up with y/n having three hot guys bringing her flowers, girl is lucky.”

“Who--who are you?”

“I’m y/n’s cousin, Cherry, nice to meet you, Tom I presume.”

Tom blinked, in shock. “Where’s y/n?”

“She’s gone now, buddy. Left London this morning.”

The end?

previous chapter Perennial-Prologue series masterlist

wanna be tagged on the sequel? I’ll keep this taglist. If you don’t want to be tagged pls tell me:)

tag list @spidxrparkxr @mukesnugget @anxiousdesignerdancerbandlover @organicpurplepants @happywolves81 @nedthegay @skylar-mendes @sentimentalquackson @savannah0111 @spidermansmj14 @soccerstud004 @marinaabernardii @applenter @silver-winter-wolf @dark-infernal-instruments @claredolphinbear24 @bookgirlunicorn @tomshufflepuff @avengersgirllorianna @nevertoofarfromivar @saintlavrents @herofiennestiffinashardinscott. @tomzfrog @tohollandback @morganhoran1671 @awkwardfangirl2014 @spideysimpossiblegirl @everythingbooknerd @xapham @xapham @xapham @tomhollandisagod @danicarosaline @laurfangirl424 @vintageroses1014516 @cinnamon-roll-peter @the-lost-fairy-tale @lala-florez @fufaation15 @healthyassdonut @ilcveyou3000 @xxtomxo @socorroann @muffinmari25 @cassindeansass @rogers-obsessed-barnes-curious @southsidespideyy @nathaliabakes @nathaliabakes @marvelstuck @embrace-themagic @bradfordbantams @sanniegirl1214 @softholand @softholand @fairytaleparker @underooling @griff1ndor @griff1ndor @thatweirdomimic @avengersgirllorianna @reginalaufeyson-holmes @better-daisy @yeahimcrying @allmonstersxarehuman @spider-manholland @itstaskeen @itstaskeen @georiaang @sebxstianbarnes @kissingtrutharchives @snoopy3000 @prettymessygurl @spideyparkerstark @fanfic-4-you @lexshead @officiallyunofficialperson @mannien @whitewolfandthefox @melodiclovesong @bizzlepotter @localfangirlx @localfangirlx @acceptance07 @witchythingscore @witchythingscore @swaggyspiderman @localfangirlx @queengemsworld @liberty0123 @stiles-banshees @itsjusttor @stretchkingblog97 @annathesillyfriend @dangerousluv1 @tomshufflepuff @thewayilookatbacon @petersdiaries @emjaywrites @swaggyspiderman @infamousmany @jungeunave @forevermore-euphoria @ispiderdudei @calhtlland @literalfsngirltrash @quacksonhq @it-is-rebel-owl-ma-dudes @desir-ae @desir-ae @unbelievableholland @peterporkpie @justanotherusername80 @smolpeachees @thenoddingbunny-blog @quackeroos @spideyyeet @astoldbydanid @astoldbydanid @hollandcreep @milly7110 @milly7110 @laurieteddy @rubberducky-jrr @rebekkah4766 @farfromtom @seaveyheartful @oh-whatabeautiful-parker @coveredinthemessimade @shameless-self-promo-of-a-shrub @sweetiesangster @thatdamjoke @annathesillyfriend @l0ove-sick-blues @witchythingscore @witchythingscore @bookworm06 @sandtopearl @lala-florez @ohfudgeiamgorgeous @chaoticpete @shezzalocked @ @lowkey-love-loki @harrysleftchelseaboot @cosmicholland @frenchfrostpudding @badbitchydecisions @w4ybefor3nir4na @americaswritings @ilovepeterparker13 @lukesbabylon @iamaunicorn4704 @iamaunicorn4704 @simple-things @oh-annaa @sip-portteam @herondale-snow-carstairs @t-holland2080 @tony-starks-ego @quaksonhehe0 @stargazerholland @marvelslut-musicalnerd @hotrubycrab @sovereignparker @peter-parker-tony-stank-trash @belleknows @mysticalinsomniac @nycparkers @nycparkers @anythingthaticareabout @spn-assemble-seven @tanyalooovesyou @somethingchaotic @heartofholland @peachybloomss @youcompletemesk @emyla3305 @emyla3305–butt @hollandstanevans @farfromtom @farfromtom @southbeachfeeling @eridanuswave @tonguetiedholland @wolvesofthewinter @quacksonobrien @dcnerd98 @ifntelyinspirit @electraheart-3174 @julialucena5 @itsmilamawson @harryssuckz @unabashedlyhardkitty @xstarbae @xstarbae @tiredfeels @peterbparkerrwrites @averyfosterthoughts @darethedragonknights @hannahholland1811 @justanamesstuff @emyla3305 @abbiefangirls247 @onewithnomightypowers @itscaminow @youllbemineandillbeyours @hotrubycrab @spidey-holland-96 @awkwardnesshabitat @chloecreatesfictions @primadonnasdream @slytherinambitious @maybecharming @where-art-thau-romeo @viagracex @viagracex @sspidermanss @pcterparxer @whatevshollandarchive @aleyabee @applenter @lovewolfspirit @viagracex @xallyouneedislovexx @panicattheeverywherekid @pcterparxer @getthatfireexitdoor @redhoodparker @scarlet-mind @cakepopcriss @allthisfortommy @aleyabee @perspectiveparker @let-me-luve-you @xxpeachyxo @m-a-r-i-n-t-p @superstarchick @notjustpenandpaper @morbiddanvers

322 notes · View notes

torialeysha · 3 years

Text

Cold Feet - Part 15

Shadow of doubt.

A/N: Hello my darlings! It’s been a while, too long a while, I know :( What an absolutely awful year it’s been for all of us! I can only hope that you’re all well and keeping safe. Here’s a long overdue cold feet update to keep you occupied.

Song: Paramore - Tell me how

A discordant racket sounded above the routine rumblings of the bakery. A muffle of raised voices and the righteous clicking of heels against the sticky floor mirrored by clumpier steps echoed down the cask laden hallways and seeped through the splintered wood of the makeshift door that separated Alfies office from the clamour of the distillery. Looking up from the cluttered mess of his desk, Alfie run a hand quickly through his dishevelled hair and down his overgrown beard while awaiting the approaching commotion with hopeful intrigue. He groaned disappointedly when a Brummie brunette breached the door with a fumbling Ollie in tow, his long, clumsy fingers attached to the fur trim of her expensive coat.

It was wishful thinking on Alfies part that it would have been you who had stormed the door instead of the peaky lass. It had been well over a week since he had last seen or heard from you. And he had invested all of those torturous days busying himself to try and take his restless mind and it’s various crazed voices off of you and the recent revelation that had pillaged his plans to save you both from the Italian shit storm that had blown in from the other side of the pond.

Still his mind struggled to come to terms with the news you were with child. He couldn’t comprehend what was worse, the daunting idea of becoming a father or the sickening possibility that the baby might not be his. His crooked teeth clenched painfully together at the mere thought of you being intimate with anyone other than himself. Of course you had assured him on countless occasions that nothing of the sort had ever or would ever happen between you and Charles. And Alfie had believed you. Trusted that it wasn’t in your nature to lie. Foolishly so now considering you were the one who had also told him of the possibility that he might not be the father. One was a lie but which one? It drove his already unhinged mind insane thinking about it. He tried to stay out of his head and ignore the little demented voices that would taunt him in the quietest hours, reminding him of all the times you and he had copulated over the years and never conceived, which in turn highlighted how coincidental it was that you should now fall pregnant after sharing a bed with another man.

Plagued with doubt and unsure of what to do, he did nothing. Shunning the situation altogether and letting his selfish pride take over and stop him from reaching out and doing the right thing.

“I tried to stop her!” Ollie explained.

“It’s alright, Ollie. Let ‘er in.”

Ada tore herself from Ollies hold with a look that could kill.

“The one who’s too righteous to use the Shelby name, ay? To what do I owe the displeasure?” Alfie casted an unyielding gaze curiously upon Thomas Shelby’s younger sibling, filled with an over-brewed distaste.

“Have you seen this?” Ignoring his provocative comments. Ada pulled a newspaper from under her arm and threw it on his desk. The daily publication landed in front of Alfie with a rustling slap. His curious gaze wandered lazily from her to the paper. It appeared that Ada had left it open on the specific page, considerately saving him the trouble of rooting through. He grabbed his glasses, balancing them on the bridge of his nose before beginning to read.

Ollie slid closer to the desk, pulling his wistful gaze from Ada he peeked down at the paper to see what would have piqued Alfies interest. The headline read Announcements. A full page worth of biliously boastful declarations. Taking up almost a quarter of the page and catching both of their attentions immediately was a photo of you and Charles. The print underneath proudly stating the news of your engagement.

Alfie studied the photo. Looking past the image of Charles’ to focus on you. He couldn’t help but notice how the black and white portrayal did you no justice. You looked tired. Your sparkling eyes dull and lifeless. The only hint of happiness was in the slight upturned curve of your painted lips.

“Fucking ‘ell.” He exclaimed with a sigh. “A life with him should be under obituaries. Please send her my deepest condolences.” Alfie leaned back in his chair with a resigned shrug of his shoulders. The sound of creaking leather beneath his tight grasp on the worn arms of his chair was the only giveaway of his teetering disposition.

“That’s all you’ve got to say? Come on, Alfie, you’ve got to do something about this now. This whole charade has gone on for far too long.”

“And what do you think you know about it?” Alfie boomed. “Sticking ya ore in one last time before you fuck off back up the canal to that shit hole you call home? You Shelbies are all the fucking same, mate. Always making something your business that ain’t your fucking business.”

“Finished?” Ada sighed. Unfazed by his outburst.

“Yeah, I am actually - for now anyway...”

A sceptical Ada waited for him to continue.

“...Take a seat then. Let me get you a drink.” Alfie pulls a bottle of whiskey from his draw. “Or do you want something softer? I mean, never can be sure if you’re up the duff again.”

“Alfie!” Ollie admonished.

“It’s alright, Ollie.” Ada assured him before turning her attention back to Alfie. “You can save the unpleasantries, Alfie. I know you can’t stand me and I can’t stand you either. But the truth is I’m not here for you. I’m here for Y/N. I’m worried about her. She’s in too deep with Charles. I’ve tried to tell her but she’s insistent on staying with him to protect you. You can’t let this carry on much longer, it’s too dangerous for her and the baby.”

Alfie’s eyes widened when Ada mentioned the baby.

“Yes, I know about the baby.” Ada exclaimed through a frustrated sigh. “Y/N’s told me everything.”

“Then you will also know why I ain’t doing fuck all about it.” Alfie grumbled dismissively.

“What are you on about?” Ads asked bemused.

“Hmm, it seems that you don’t know everything then, do ya?... The sprog might not be mine.” Although he tried hard to conceal it, the words pained Alfie.

“What on Earth would make you think such a thing?”

“Because she fucking told me! 1 in 2 possibility she said. And this ‘ere, right,” he pokes the paper. “Tells me exactly what horse she’s backing.”

“And you believed her?” Ads scoffed, shaking her head. “She hasn’t even slept with Charles, so how could it be his?”

“Well if that’s so then why would she tell me otherwise, ay?”

“...It doesn’t make sense...” Ada’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at him. “...You must have said something to her to make her spew a lie like that?”

“Well, lie or no lie, it’s done me a favour to tell you the truth-“ Alfie replied nonchalantly, deflecting her question.

Adas eyes narrowed further at Alfie’s flippant reaction before a bleak realisation washed over her.

“-Oh God! That’s it isn’t it. You told her you didn’t want the baby didn’t you?” Ada’s heart sunk at what she hoped was a wrong assumption.

“Not in so many words.”

“For crying out loud, Alfie. I can only imagine how hurtful that was for her to hear.” Ada paused for a moment. “Haven’t you stopped to think for a moment that that may have been the reason why she said you might not be the father? To hurt you like you’ve hurt her?”

“Listen ‘ere, right. You might be, but I ain’t no fucking fool-“

“-No.” She interrupts him. “You’re just an ignorant pig who doesn’t know Y/N as well as you think you do. She’d stop heaven and hell for you...I used to think you’d do the same for her - maybe I was wrong. Your judgment is cloudy, Solomon’s. Clear your head and come to your senses before it’s too late.”

Alfie stays silent, his thumb and forefinger fiddling with the overgrown scruff that decorated his jawline.

“Y/N’s under the illusion that you have a plan-“ Ada continues.

“Don’t dare come in ‘ere and fucking patronise me!” He erupted, slamming his fist on the desk. “I have a plan, right. It’s not a fucking illusion and it’s none of your fucking business either.”

“Then what the hell are you waiting for? Go to her. Beg for her forgiveness and when she takes you back- if she takes you back, get the hell out of here, both of you.”

“And tell me, sweetie, where does that leave your brother and his little starling problem?” Alfie eyes Ada curiously.

“He’s a Shelby. He’ll handle it.” She replied flatly.

Alfie graces her with an impish grin, the cockiness of her statement amusing him.

“Yeah, he’s done a brilliant job so far, ain’t he?” He muttered sarcastically.

“Just give Y/N the benefit of doubt, Alfie. After everything you’ve put her through, it’s the least you could do.” Ada waited for Alfie to reply but he stayed silent. His arms now folded stubbornly across his chest.

A defeated sigh left her ruby lips as she decided regretfully that her visit had been in vain.

“I’ve said all I’ve come here to say, I’ll be leaving now.” She grumbled, turning towards the door.

“Let me walk you out.” Ollie offered quickly, stumbling to her side.

“That won’t be necessary.” She declined. Blushing at their clashing of hands which have both reached for the door handle. A fleeting moment ensued between the two but Ada shook it off swiftly.

“I don’t need a man to open the door for me.” She sighed harshly.

“No, I remember that.” Ollie gave her a sad smile and withdrew his hand, leaving Ada to open it.

“Think about what I said.” She turned back to address Alfie who just grunted a dismissal.

“Where is she?” He asked suddenly.

“Arcadia.” Ada told him, her voice thick with hope.

Alfies eyes fell to the floor as he gave a subtle nod.

Resisting another glance at Ollie, Ada left wordlessly with her head held high.

Ollie loitered by the door debating wether or not to follow her. An abrupt bang shook the room, so loud it caused him to jump. He turned to Alfie whose pencil was now protruding from the photograph in the paper, piercing what would have been Charles’ face.

“I think Ada’s right, Alf.” Ollie approached his boss carefully.

“Yeah? And I think you’re just blinded by the peaky tart and that you’d think shit smelt like roses if she told you it did.”

Not wanting to get a wallop, Ollie gritted his teeth and said nothing.

“...So what if she is right, ay? Nothing changes. I can’t be who Y/N needs me to be.” Alfie confessed coyly.

“What you on about?”

“Being a dad. How could I be a fucking dad? I mean, who did I have as an example? My old man was a waste of space.” Alfie eyes his fathers hat hanging obnoxiously on the coat stand in the corner of the room. “Never ever saw the cunt.”

“Oh come on, Alfie. You ain’t your old man. You’d be a great dad. Look at what you’ve done for Goliath.”

“He’s a grown lad though in’t he. I didn’t raise him.”

“What about me then? You’ve pretty much raised me since the day my dad passed. And I turned out alright.”

A hundred and one sarcastic remarks crossed Alfie’s mind but he silenced them and instead agreed begrudgingly with a grunt.

“All you got to do is look at everything you’ve done for Y/N to realise that you’re nothing like your old man.”

“Yeah, waste of fucking time that all was.”

“Oh, Come on Alfie! If you really felt that way you wouldn’t have bothered whipping up a nurser-“ Alfie’s seething scowl stops Ollie abruptly.

“... I know it’s none of my business, boss.” Ollie gulped, continuing more cautiously. “But I don’t think Y/N would have come here and told you about the baby if there was any doubt in her mind that it wasn’t yours.”

Alfie jumped up from his desk causing Ollie to cower, fully expecting Alfie to chin him one for interfering in his personal business.

“There’s only one way to find out, in’t there. Get my coat.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

For you, daytimes wasn’t the problem. Daytimes you could spend time with Ada or occupy yourself with the odd job at Arcadia. It was the nighttimes that haunted you. When the parties were over, the doors closed and you had to curl up beside Charles with another mans baby growing inside of you - a man who had shattered your heart a second time.

You had left the bakery that day numb, exactly like you had the last time he had broken your heart - ironically within the same four walls. It took all the strength you had to put on a brave face and lie to Ada afterwards, to tell her how overjoyed Alfie was about the news you were carrying his baby and that it wasn’t the train wreck it actually was. It just felt easier that way and it also gave Ada one less reason to hate him. It angered you that even after all the hurt Alfie had put you through, you still possessed that unabating need to defend and protect him. Which was the main reason you were still here and hadn’t fled London like your wounded heart had wanted to.

You had thought, or more so hoped, like you had done the first time he broke your heart, that Alfie would have come round by now but almost a fortnight later and still no word. It seemed you would have to somehow come to terms with the inevitable and try as best as you could to move on without him. Just the thought of that tore your sewn up heart back in two. You’d lay awake at night thinking about it, licking your wounds and drowning in a turbulent sea of misery as you tried to work out your next move. You wouldn’t be showing properly for a few more weeks, which should hopefully give you enough time to bring Tommys plan to fruition and help him put a stop to the Changrettas’ before it was too late. It’s what you would do next that had you stumped. One thing was sure, you would have to leave town. The thought of sticking around and raising Alfie’s child in London knowing he didn’t want to be a part of either of your lives was too gut wrenchingly painful to endure. So where would you go? You still had family you could turn to but your stupid pride would stop you from going back to your Aunts or turning up on your mother’s doorstep pregnant. What you needed was a fresh start. Birmingham was an option - a rather appealing one considering your connection to the peakies. You could be certain that Tommy would see you right and make sure you settled in. However, Tommy’s business relationship with Alfie could pose a problem. Another option, a more drastic one, was America. Ada would spend hours telling you about America and how much she adored it. She said she would be returning there soon, maybe you would go with her.

“That’s the last of the gin, Miss.” The glass bottles clinked a merrily enticing tune as the delivery man set the last crate on top of the other one at the bar, effectively stealing you from your reverie. He slid a docket under your nose for you to sign and with your signature and a tip of his flat cap he took his leave.

You had begun replenishing the bar with the gin when a sudden, eerie feeling crept over you. Shaking it off, you quickly dismissed it as fatigue and continued unpacking the crates...but the feeling lingered. Maybe it was the huge club that was bereft of the nightly pandemonium which caused your unease and emphasised the strange silence as it pressed in on you. You glanced around, the presence of the few workers dallying doing little to ease your imagination as it began to run wild: What if Sabini had found out who you were? Or even worse, what if Luca had done some digging and found out you had been spying on him and Charles? Either one could be lurking in the many shadows of the club waiting for the right moment to strike. It was an alarming possibility that caused a shiver to run down your spine.

Feeling paranoid and vulnerable, you were overcome with a staggering urge to get out of there as fast as you could. You left the bottles of gin on the bar top and made a hasty retreat from the grand hall to retrieve your coat and purse from the office. You moved briskly to the golden pillars which adorned the entrance of the large hall and masked the narrow stairway to your little office. No sooner had you breached the golden barrier were you pulled behind one of the pillars. Your mouth opened on a scream but closed when you came nose to nose with Alfie.

“Alfie, what are you doin-“

“-You’ve lied to me, ain’t ya? You haven’t fucked the Yank.” His grip tightened on your wrists.

“That’s none of your damned business!”

“Anything to do with you is my business.” He growled. “This is my business.”

He let go of one of your wrists to gently caress your stomach. You stilled at the unexpected gesture and melted against the column you were pressed up against. Enraptured completely by his touch that you hadn’t felt for days. Reminding yourself of the reason for his absence, you snapped out of his spell and batted his hand away forcefully.

“You’ve changed your tune!” You spat bitterly, pushing past him.

The sound of his footsteps and cane hitting the marble floor behind you told you that he was following you.

“Leave me alone, Solomon’s.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me.” He grabs you again before you can ascend the stairs to the office.

“Tell you what?” You turn on him.

“Tell me the truth!” He hollers indiscreetly.

“You can’t handle the truth.” You whisper shout. Escaping once again, desperate to get away from him and the ear-wigging workers scattered around you. You make it to the sanctuary of your office, trying to shut the door on Alfie but he’s too close behind you. He pushes through, catching you as you lose your balance and stumble backwards.

“Tell me the baby’s mine.” He demands, glowering.

Your eyes travel across the menacing features of his face so close to yours.

“You really need me to tell you?” You smirk.

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Of course it’s bloody yours!” You scream, pushing free from him.

“Why did you tell me otherwise then, pet?”

It may have been your imagination but he sounded relieved.

“Do you blame me after the way you reacted?”

“What did you expect? Dropping a bombshell like that? I was in shock.”

“I expected more from you, Alfie! I realise now how naive that was of me.”

“Now listen ‘ere-“

“- No you listen. Before you say another word I want you to know that I’m keeping the baby, and that you’re completely free from obligation. I’m assuming that’s why you’re here? Well, be assured, I don’t want or need anything from you, Alfie Solomon’s. Least of all your pity.”

“Pity?” He scoffs.

“It’s written all over your face. You’ve made your choice. I’ve come to terms with that now. I can do this on my own. We don’t need you.” You told him, trying your best to sound convincing.

“Right.” He gives you a half amused, tight lipped smile. “Well, after seeing that stomach-churning announcement of your engagement in the times, it appears that you have also made your choice. But I am curious, Virgin Mary, about how you’re going to explain all this to lover boy?”

“Mock me all you like, Solomons. But I have no intentions of staying with Charles. Although I have accepted his proposal - for yours and Tommy’s sake, may I add. On the contrary to what you believe, once this is all done and dusted I will not be marrying Charles. In fact I’ll be gone as soon as this is over.”

“And where exactly will you be going?” He asked. All amusement now gone from his gruff voice.

“I’m still working it out. But you haven’t got to worry about me or your bastard child cramping your style. We’ll be far away from here and far away from you.”

“You and my child ain’t goin’ anywhere. I’d track you down. Follow you to the ends of the fucking Earth if I had to.” His inflamed temper and seething threat shocked you silent. “I acted like a cunt the other day, I hold my hands up but I’ve since seen the error of my ways... Just give me another chance.”

“How can I give you another chance? How can I believe that this is what you really want after everything you said? I can’t do it. I can’t live in doubt like that. I’d rather not be with yo-“

“- don’t say it!” He interrupted suddenly. “I fucked up. I thought I’d be a shit dad. That I’d let you both down. But this is what I want. Let me prove it to you. Another chance, a shot at redemption is all I’m asking.”

“You’ve already let us down...I’m sorry, Alfie, I can’t-“

“-Don’t fucking say it!” He warned again. Grabbing you and pulling you to him. You stood rigidly in his arms. Your stinging eyes unable to meet his.

“I can’t-“ you try again but he cuts off the rest of your sentence with a rough kiss.

You pull away, slapping his face hard before colliding back into him and kissing him as if it was the last time.

The sound of the door handle rattled and you tore yourself from Alfie instantaneously. Less than a second later Charles burst through the office door.

“Dar-ling.” seeing that you wasn’t alone, Charles drawled a protracted greeting upon his entrance.

“Hello, my love.” You smiled. Quickly going to him and hoping that your flushed cheeks and heaving chest didn’t arouse his suspicions anymore than they possibly already were.

“Mr Solomon’s. What are you doing here?” He looked past you to address Alfie.

“We were running low on rum so I called Mr Solomon’s, who went out of his way to personally deliver us some. Wasn’t that kind of him, sweetheart?” You quickly answered on Alfie’s behalf.

“Yes.” Charles mumbled “too kind.”

You risk a glance at Alfie. His jaw was tense. His penetrating gaze falling from Charles to you.

“Well I should be on me way now then. As always it’s been a pleasure, Y/N.” He grins, striding towards the door and ignoring Charles completely. “Think about what I said.” He tells you before disappearing, purposely leaving you and Charles with an elephant in the room.

“And what exactly is it you have to think about, my dear?” Charles asks tightly.

“Extra protection on the doors.” You lie, swiftly coming up with a cover up. “He thought it would help deter the riff raff.”

“I see.” He utters mindlessly. Catching you off guard when his fingers caught your chin and lifted your reddened face up to his. You tried not to fold under the scrutiny of his leering gaze.

“You have that rash again.” He sounded accusatory. His thumb and forefinger tracing roughly around your mouth and jawline where your skin had been chaffed a pale pink by Alfie’s coarse beard.

Your heart pounded loudly in your ears.

“Do I? I haven’t been well lately, have I? It must be to do with that.” You shrugged free from Charles and leant across the desk to retrieve your coat and purse.

“Take me home, my love. I’m famished.” You looped your arm through his to encourage him towards the door but he didn’t budge.

“Tell me, how do you know Mr Solomon’s again?”

Your settling heartbeat once again started to race.

“He was the landlord of my uncles shop. I used to work there and he’d pop in now and again to collect the rent. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering. I remember you telling me he was an old friend. However, I just can’t help but think that it’s a bit of an unusual alliance.”

“I’d hardly call it an alliance. Maybe friend was too familiar of a term. He’s more of an acquaintance.”

“I see. Well, acquaintance or not, I don’t know if I’m comfortable with you doing business with Mr. Solomon’s anymore. In future, any dealings with him will go through me.”

“I’m fully capable-“

“It’s not about capability!” He erupts, startling you.

“It’s about him.” He carries on more evenly, regaining his composure. “I simply don’t trust him. Any business with the Jew now goes through me. Do I make myself clear?”

You nodded compliantly, hoping he’d drop the matter.

“Good. Now let’s get you fed and watered.”

Previous Next

Tag list: @storm-bjorn @alsheyra @lililolli @jaegers-and-kaijus @lightwoodt @stars-trash-18 @anrm1 @innerpaperexpertcloud @alitheamateur @hardygal69

#PeakyBlinders #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders fanfic #Alfie Solomons #alfie solomons fanfiction #alfie solomons imagine #alfie solomons x reader #peaky blinders imagine

67 notes · View notes

serinemolecule · 3 years

Note

Not to harp on the obvious, but the discussion feels hollow without it: the only reason some people - not all, maybe not most, but definitely some - push for "equality" and "inclusiveness" and etc. in tech is because it's seen as a desirable and powerful position. No one's been belly-aching about it back when it was fashionable to tell nerds to stop being fat and ugly and what a bunch of losers they are. It's only up for discussion now that there's something to be gained from it. It's hypocrisy.

(context: a lot of women-in-tech discourse)

I mean, I was belly-aching about it.

I like to say I was a feminist until I met other feminists. I definitely saw plenty of things nerds could be doing better for equality. But then the first time I met other feminists, they were harassing nerds and writing long essays about how nerds were even worse than average men (which still seems to me like an absolutely insane position).

That was... a really big crisis of faith there. I spent years reading feminist literature, trying to understand their point. And the crazy thing was, a lot of the principles and concepts do appeal to me. But then the way they’d apply it, talking about how privileged nerds were, or just using it as an excuse to be assholes to people, that’s always seemed wrong to me.

My approach at the time was just to try to understand it better in private, and never talk about it in public. This lasted until I read the SSC essays on social justice which I entirely agreed on, then I joined Tumblr to hit on Scott, and since then I started getting more comfortable with writing out my thoughts, but also the really bad SJ of the early 2010s just mostly faded away from the spaces I’m in. I still hear insane stories from other places (like the New York Times! wtf!) but it no longer feels like a crisis afflicting my own community, so I never wrote anything out.

Part of it’s that my community is the rats, now. SJWs may still exist here, but they don’t have a social power to turn us against each other. Whatever effect Topher’s tweet had on the rest of the world, it means he’s no longer welcome among rats anymore. We dismiss them with equanimity using the ancient proverb, “Haters gonna hate”.

Anyway, I suppose now’s as good a time as any for me to talk about what I think about feminist theory.

I get the impression that Scott is embarrassed by his old posts on gender politics, but I still endorse every word. Even the words people like to criticize the most, I endorse as an angry expression of “Why don’t you care about how many people your ideology is hurting?” That said:

Privilege theory – I remember encountering privilege theory and thinking “yes, this totally fits the model that normies are privileged and nerds are marginalized”, until I got to the part where they started talking about how privileged nerds were. I think the theory is still pretty good, and of course the practice about writing privilege checklists and using it to silence people is incredibly fucked up.

Patriarchy theory – Fortunately, no one talks about patriarchy theory anymore. It came from the radfems and it always seemed horrible to me. It's uncontroversially true that ruling class is mostly male, but patriarchy theory seems to just equivocate between that and insane conspiracy theories.

For example, “culture is built for the benefit of men at the expense of women” requires you to just dismiss everything that hurts men and helps women, to excuse that fashion policing is nearly solely perpetuated by other women, and even if it’s true, the fact that it is perpetuated by everyone means pointing the finger at a specific group will not help fix the problem. Did Kamala Harris exercise “girl power” when she kept black prisoners in jail past their release date?

Cultural appropriation – The usual steelman I hear for this is “it sucks when white people take your culture for themselves, and yet still call it cringe when you practice your own culture” – but the only objectionable part is the latter! Stop objecting to the former part! There’s nothing wrong with culture mixing and it is in fact one of the most beautiful things in the world!

Part of it’s that I’m a first-gen immigrant, and cultural appropriation attitudes often come from insecurities second-gen immigrants have. Cultural appropriation just means I’m now an expert on your new culture and you’re not allowed to stop me from infodumping on it.

The other steelman is “misusing religious artifacts is bad” and I think to the extent that it’s bad, it’s bad whether you’re doing it to your own culture or to other cultures.

In general I think Halloween was, among other things, a great celebration of diversity that did not need to be cancelled, and I don’t think any costume was offensive to the majority of any culture.

Intersectionality – This word confused me for so long. People kept explaining it as “black women often have problems specific to their group that neither women’s groups nor black groups themselves are equipped to fight” which just seemed obviously true and didn’t seem like we needed a word for it.

Over the years, I’ve seen it be used as a reminder of “don’t forget how your activism affects other marginalized groups”, so it’s probably a useful concept to keep around.

Microaggressions – I think being oblivious to microaggressions is an autism thing, but I still think it’s insane to make them a political issue. Sure, you can vent about them, but acting like they’re on par with actual aggressions just seems like a losing cause.

On second thought, I don’t think I have a problem with making them a political issue in general. I think the whole tactic of SJWs being a hateful harassment mob makes the microaggressions thing just come off as especially petty.

I also think there’s a lot of competing access needs here. I actually really like infodumping about what kind of Asian I am to anyone willing to listen, and I think acting like the question is the root of all evil is really unfair, especially since literally everyone who’s ever asked has been happy to learn about the finer points about Chinese ethnic groups.

Isms as prejudice + power – People have mostly stopped discoursing about this, which is good. Language policing always seemed bad to me.

Objectification – SSC says everything I feel on the topic: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/17/my-objections-to-objectification/

The last time this came up in Discord, people said that objectification is more than the straw-man being criticized in this article, that it’s about people being entitled to your body or whatever. But I think the article does address that: “This is obviously a legitimate complaint. It’s just not a complaint about objectification.”

I got exposed to objectification as a criticism of hot girls in video games. And I just can’t see hot girls in video games as a bad thing.

Rape culture – [cw rape] This is an incredibly sensitive subject so I’m going to give you some time to stop reading here.

Our culture has a serious problem with rape. I think it’s important to understand that it’s usually committed by friends and family, that it’s depressingly common and has nearly definitely happened to people you know, that it’s usually committed by people who don’t think of what they’re doing as rape, and that all the discourse on it is really fucked up.

I also think that calling this “rape culture” entirely misses the point. I’m sympathetic that SSC doesn’t understand it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/19/i-do-not-understand-rape-culture/

Our problem isn’t that we glorify rape. Our problem is that we consider it a special kind of evil so bad that of course no normal person would ever do it, and this makes it easy to rationalize that whatever this normal person did couldn’t have been rape, which causes huge harms.

I don’t have answers, but I think it’s incredibly clear that calling it “rape culture” doesn’t help.

In general, I don’t think feminist activism on the topic of rape goes in the right direction. The smug “consent is like tea” video has the exact same problem. People don’t need to hear more “normal people would never rape” messaging.

#gender politics

24 notes · View notes

lesbeet · 4 years

Text

i’m putting this below a cut just bc it’s long but covid rant ahead ~~

this is probably the least effective place for me to write this bc (hopefully) everyone following me already agrees with me but i cannot fully express my absolute and utter rage at what’s going on in illinois right now lmao

like on the one hand i’m kind of lucky bc i didn’t manage to get a job this year, meaning i’m not beholden to whatever stupid measures various school districts are taking to increase in-person learning in order to get their students’ families to shut the fuck up, but on the other hand, i can’t get a full-time job in my chosen field because i’m fucking terrified to work in a school right now! my mom is already doing it every day and she’s the one who goes to see my immunocompromised grandparents like. at least weekly, and her boyfriend’s kids don’t give a fuck about the virus at all and she spends almost every weekend at his house. but that’s a whole separate issue

i’m just....our case numbers are increasing—they’ve BEEN increasing—and because a bunch of dumbshit parents are holding these ridiculous in-person rallies the school boards are like “ok fine whatever we’ll endanger our entire community if it’ll get you to stop sending me angry emails!” bc they’re spineless and fucking stupid

so the family i nanny for, the mom is gonna have to start working at school in person next week (at the school i’ve worked at for the past few years and student-taught at last year...but i don’t work there anymore bc i never heard back about the openings i applied for <3) and her son, who is in KINDERGARTEN, is also gonna be starting hybrid learning in the next few weeks. and it’s like...i trust the mom to be safe bc she’s taking this seriously, but i don’t trust one or two teachers in a classroom full of 5 year-olds to be able to keep everyone safe, even if they did take it as seriously as they should

and a lot of these hybrid programs are really just gonna be teachers having to teach half the class in person and half the class remotely AT THE SAME TIME, and yknow what’s gonna happen?? they’ll be less effective teachers for BOTH groups! because that’s a ridiculous ask! and yknow who’s gonna be blamed anyway? the TEACHERS! bc that’s who’s been getting blamed for not wanting to fucking risk their lives and their families’ lives just so some WASP-y millionaire stay-at-home wife won’t have to—g-d forbid—interact with her children for a few extra hours in the day (this district and the one my mom works in are made up mostly of wealthy WASPs; i know there are genuine reasons some children need the services in-person school provides, like childcare and meals)

and suddenly conservatives are soooooooooo concerned about childhood suicidality and hunger? it’s fucking sickening bc A) they seem to think “OPEN THE SCHOOLS!” is a cure-all for these issues, when in reality it just means they won’t have to see it as often, B) they’ve never given a shit about these issues before, C) whether or not you take covid into account, THEIR policies are huge factors for why so many children in illinois (and in the us at large, and in the world at large) are hungry and/or depressed and/or suicidal, and as such they D) they have no intention of actually addressing any of the root causes of these issues, like income inequality or, yknow, the impending end of the world

it like physically fills me with heart-twisting stomach-curdling RAGE seeing these talking points repeated over and over and these rich apathetic parents annoying the absolute fuck out of local school boards just to get what they want, regardless of like. science.

we’re coming up on our “third wave” and it’s all a fucking joke because if we’d just shut down for real back in MARCH things would be so different....but two half-shut downs and everyone’s like “we did it! go us! back to our lives now!” bc everyone’s tired of the restrictions but it’s only gonna get more and more difficult to keep placing half restrictions on people as more time passes. like i’m sorry i know a huge number of citizens won’t be happy about it but i’m ready for the government to come in and be like “okay you fucking morons, since you’re clearly incapable of not acting like immature children we’re gonna make the rules until you stop getting people KILLED with your apathy and selfishness” and shut down schools across the board. they need to stop leaving it up to individual districts bc this has all been so disgustingly politicized that more conservative-leaning areas are gonna want their kids in school no matter what’s actually happening

i’m just so tired i’m tired of losing faith in almost everyone i know and just seeing how absolutely uncaring the people around me are in a more concrete way than i’ve ever seen it before...like this isn’t hypothetical this isn’t a frustrating discussion about policy, this is nearly everyone in my surrounding communities being so brainwashed or so selfish or so stupid (or some combination) that they just simply do not give a shit about anyone but themselves, but who will blame EVERYONE but themselves if and when they have to deal with serious consequences for all this fucking bullshit, and meanwhile they’re pushing off those serious consequences onto people who don’t have the luxury of making those same choices because they can’t afford to!

i try so hard to keep a positive mindset about the overall trajectory of humanity but it’s like...................how. how do i continue to do that when this uninformed selfish apathy has been purposefully cultivated to benefit the ruling class. how do i fight against government sponsored brainwashing and propaganda and straight up misinformation. how do i convince people to give a shit about others like. we’re all fucking doomed man i don’t know how else to look at things anymore it’s all over

17 notes · View notes

argentdandelion · 4 years

Text

Grace Monroe is a Liar (And Why That’s a Good Thing)

Note: this article does not sufficiently weigh Simon’s bad behaviors in Episode 11, “The New Apex”. This article has been kept unmodified for posterity.

Grace Analysis

“You know Sheena...you were right. Chloe shouldn't smile until her parents can afford to give her braces."

Grace is not simply a liar, however: she is also, to put it plainly, fake. She’s something of a social chameleon, but rather than drastically changing her presentation to fit in, she dons a fabricated, friendly and encouraging persona to make others “fit” her own desires. She even has variants of her persona for different audiences. She sounds like a friendly “cool kid” to 15-year-old Jesse, claiming he was a “natural” on his first raid although he only halfheartedly kicked a cube. She acts like an adoring parent to the younger Apex kids, squatting to the level of shorter Apex children, praising their offerings, and telling them she’ll keep the offerings someplace special. To Hazel (and Tuba) she acts like a kindergarten teacher at the first day of school, simultaneously making Hazel excited about The Apex and acting assuring to Tuba.

The most striking evidence for Grace’s lying social-chameleon-esque acts is how much her mannerisms and very voice change when addressing the Apex kids and Jesse compared to addressing Simon. In the first and second episode, she feels open to banter and bicker with Simon, such as exchanging unflattering nicknames or saying she doesn’t want his “ripeness” (body odor) giving away their position; she treats no one else as a friend like this.

Grace is not simply an insincere “queen bee” highschooler-type, either. As Uncivilized Elk has pointed out in “Cult Recruitment in "The Mall Car" – Infinity Train Analysis & Review” (warning; profanity), intentionally or not Grace’s tactics with Jesse show a step-by-step plan to indoctrinate Jesse into the Apex’s worldview. She praises Jesse and acts as if she cares about him, but is only manipulating him to a particular end. For example, when Jesse thinks the candy tastes bad, she convinces him to throw it to the wheels of the train, telling him he can “do what he wants”. However, this is almost certainly a precursor to making Jesse accept “wheeling” (killing by throwing them to the train’s wheels) denizens. Furthermore, in “The Jungle Car” she misdirects Hazel on who’s to blame for an unpopular decision, minimizes it (saying Simon was “confused”) and “resolves” the problem almost immediately: very suspicious abuser or cult-like behavior.

Initially, she engages in cognitive empathy (internal emulation of the emotional states of others) without really caring about others, to figure out how people work and so manipulate them. She has a utilitarian sort of approach, changing her persona to make others do what she wants and change them. To be fair, it’s possible not all of her kindness and empathy is faked. When Jesse took his exit, Simon calls him “weak”, but Grace says he wasn’t weak, but misled, and says: "We just lost another human, Simon. Show some respect.” Still, she’s certainly not sincere, overall. For example, despite teaching him he can “do what he wants”, when what Jesse wants goes against The Apex, Grace and Simon immediately try to stop him.

However, over time, Grace's temporary, utilitarian approach of altering personas to her goal makes her "become the mask". She eventually finds it hard to justify her continued kind and compassionate acts to Hazel in relation to her Apex worldviews, and the contradiction causes her distress.

Simon Analysis

Simon, in contrast, lies much less than Grace and is more open about how he feels, especially in his disdain for Denizens. While he initially seems friendly, when Jesse’s off on a raid he has no patience with MT’s concerns and outright tells her to “get out of here before Jesse gets back. You can’t help him like we can.” (Possible: it didn’t occur to him that Jesse might still trust Lake, so being too mean to Lake would come back to bite him.) He is also more open about his disdain for nulls around Hazel, though it would clearly benefit him to tone it down before they can “ditch” Tuba.

Two of Simon’s more important deceptions are notably half-truths, not outright claims. He claims MT broke Todd’s ankle, which is technically true: Todd kicked MT’s metal body and in the process broke his ankle. Arguably, him saying “no one knows” where the passengers go is him honestly saying he doesn’t know exactly where they go; how could he know Jesse Cosay’s home was in Arizona, and which specific location? Indeed, sometimes he does not lie even would it be very practical to do so. For example, although acting as if he “couldn’t save her in time” and pretending to be deeply unsettled by Tuba’s death would have gotten rid of Tuba and not put Hazel’s cooperation into question, he outright tells Hazel he wheeled her. His attempt to comfort her about “never hav[ing] to worry about that null again” could suggest obliviousness to the viewpoints of others, but it could also be his version of trustworthy, straightforward honesty, in accordance with his own beliefs.

It’s important to note that, though Simon is more honest than Grace, he still lies, deceives, and manipulates others. The difference between them is finesse, speed, and frequency. Though Simon may think of Grace as his plaything, or come to think of her as such, it’s Grace who’s effective at making others her playthings, by manipulating her social presentation like a social chameleon.

Root Causes

Arguably, both Grace and Simon do not treat people as means in themselves, but means to an end: in essence, other passengers are treated as tools for their own goals. It’s interesting to see how much Grace and Simon treat Apex members (and each other) like they treat nulls: that they are “only good as they are useful”. When they stop being “useful”, in the sense of helping the Apex or each other according to plan, they eventually become aggressive. Admittedly, the change to aggression is slower and more complicated for Simon to Grace in Season 3; Simon’s end goal for Grace could easily have been “comfort and companionship”, which friends naturally give anyway.

Grace emphasizes Jesse’s ability to choose for himself, but when Jesse’s decision strays from The Apex’s values and Grace’s plans, she doesn’t let him go with a “you’re missing out, buddy” lamentation. Instead, she says: “I wanted to go for the easy way, but you made it hard” and shows the Flecs where Lake is, presumably so they can do the dirty work for them. Jesse has value to Grace as an Apex member, one under her control, and not in any other sense. Grace’s logic for showing Lake to the Flecs parallels Simon’s actions in trapping Grace in her own memory tape; he says “you made me do this”. The Cat outright says Simon treats Grace as an object with: “and how should she be acting? She’s not like one of your toys.”

Grace Monroe is a liar, and much more so than Simon. And it’s because she is, in the words of the Memory Tape’s Hazel, a “coward leading cowards”. Grace’s lying comes from her fear: her fear of being wrong, of not being enough, of being alone. Her kindness to the Apex kids, faked or superficial as it may be, probably comes from the desire to give them what her parents would not. Adding onto her cowardice and fears, she initially hid her dropping number from Simon in “The Chat Chalet Car” because she "didn't want the Apex...or you...to see me like this...and think less of me." Though her fear Simon would think less of her for it was unfounded, as Simon sincerely supported her then, afterwards she hid her number from Simon. She “cut him out” (in Simon’s words) from her lack of courage to be open and honest. As Memory-Hazel points out, when Grace had the “chance to make it right”, by revealing she knew about Hazel’s condition when it was obvious she was a turtle, she did not.

Conclusion

Grace and Simon are both villain protagonists messed up by unresolved trauma and eight years of being on the train with no guidance whatsoever. One starts off slightly worse than the other, only to get much better discard her animus for nulls. One starts off slightly better, only to get much worse and expand his animus for nulls to humans as well: his former best (and only) friend, at that. It’s the tiny differences in how they relate to others and operate that cause their slightly different moral starting points and massively different end points.

#Infinity Train #Grace Monroe #Grace (Infinity Train)#Simon Laurent #Simon (Infinity Train)#Meta #Analysis #Character Study

19 notes · View notes

lavenderek · 3 years

Text

ok so i just have another peeve i’m gonna share

so racism is systemic. we all know this and have heard it, but i get the sense that a lot of people don’t know what that means, exactly.

let’s take blackface as an example. blackface is not offensive because it makes black people feel marginalized. blackface is offensive because it is designed to dehumanize and further disenfranchise black people, in society. does that make sense?

minstrel shows served many purposes in their heyday - they exemplified societal views of black people, they removed black people from entertainment as an industry, they created and purveyed very real stereotypes; and those stereotypes acted as reasons to take jobs, rights, voices, and safety from black people by convincing those in power that they did not want or deserve these things, or had no use for them. for this reason, they weren’t just insulting, they were actively dangerous. and many of those stereotypes exist to this day and still have the same effects.

it’s built in to society. that’s what systemic means: it is part of a system.

(not to be confused with systematic, which means it is done with very specific patterns and goals in mind, like trump and the press. they often overlap, but there is a difference.)

that’s why blackface is still bad even if some people - even if some black people - are not personally offended by it. it is not because people are upset by it, it’s because of its historical context and because of the effect it actively has on society in a very real way now.

the reason i’m thinking of this right now is because of youtube apology videos lmao.

when it comes to apologies by youtubers for racism, a lot of them are bewildered and frustrated to discover that their apologies are considered insufficient. they really get into these videos, getting upset, appealing to viewers’ pathos, “i’m so sorry that i made anyone feel xyz” - and i’m sure plenty of them are in earnest. i’m sure a lot of them really are truly regretful. and it must be mind-boggling to be told this isn’t enough. it must feel absolutely hopeless. let me help shed some light on that.

the reason their apologies are considered insufficient is because their rhetoric betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the effects of their actions. the problem isn’t that you made your followers feel “less than.” the problem with blackface isn’t that it made black people feel “less than.” it’s not even that you contributed to normalizing this kind of behavior - although that is certainly a problem that you should be addressing.

like, this is why comedians have that shit about punching up instead of punching down: we live, now, in 2020, in a society that actively engages in anti-black racism and disenfranchisement; and when you, as a person in a place of societal power - that’s what “privilege” means, by the way, it means you possess some form of societal power or safety - join in that, you are part of the problem.

you haven’t created a problem by hurting some people, you have increased a problem that already existed.

it’s not about intentions or feelings. it does make a lot of people feel better to know you aren’t intentionally creating racist content out of hatred, but that’s not the point.

like i said, the reason i’m thinking about this right now is because of youtubers apologizing, but i see it everywhere. even from well-meaning allies who otherwise work very hard to contribute to the BLM movement and give voices to other black users online. they make it about making people feel marginalized. they get shit like historical context, but they still seem to believe it’s about feelings.

they’re still like, “we should listen to disabled people about disability issues. disabled people feel dismissed.” like, yeah, i bet they fuckin’ do, i see them talk about it a lot; but that’s not the problem. they feel dismissed while they’re talking about real instances of being denied access, and there are systems in place that actively contribute to the denial of that access, and there is a history of denying that access, that can’t be removed from the situation.

the person in the wheelchair is offended because they can’t get into the bank because there isn’t a wheelchair ramp for them to use, sure. but the guy who built the bank being like, “i’m so sorry you couldn’t pick up your cashier’s check” is absolutely pointless.

not putting a ramp there isn’t a problem because that guy can’t get into the wells fargo. not putting a ramp there is a problem because people are denied access to almost every facet of life. this is because society was designed this way: sometimes with the direct intention of keeping them out of the bank, and sometimes without even thinking of them as humans who go to the bank. and we are all enabled or encouraged to not think about them, so we’re always doing shit like parking too far over a crosswalk, or setting up greeting card displays in the middle of the grocery store aisle so that it’s not wide enough for a person in a wheelchair to get through, or making it a total pain just to use one of those motorized things for shopping. all of this belittles them as members of society, which makes them unable to participate in society, which effectively removes them from it. and then society acts as if they brought this on themselves (”have you tried yoga?”). there is a pattern of systemic denial of rights and access taking place here. it’s not about pissing people off, it’s about the system.

look, i’m not perfect, this isn’t a lecture. i was raised with many instances of privilege myself. i still benefit from that privilege today. i just work very hard to acknowledge that privilege and hopefully leverage it in favor of causes like BLM and shit; and part of that is understanding the root issues.

i worry i’m not making myself clear so i overexplain. anyway bye

#diary post #long post

6 notes · View notes

therootsprojectuk · 3 years

Text

Webinar Transcript : Cultivating Medicinal Mushrooms 26.01.2021

Webinar transcript ‘Cultivating medicinal mushrooms with Hossein Hekmat 26.01.2021. This webinar is a part of a series run by ‘The Roots Project’ X Kirkstall Valley Farm. The Roots Project is a fundraising, and resource platform for refugees and migrants. To learn more, support and donate check out or linktree : www.linktr.ee/therootsprojectuk

Seren Oakley (Host): I’m Seren, I’m with Kirkstall Valley Farm, and this is Hossein.

Hossein (Speaker): Hello

S: So, Hossein is going to be our mushroom man for today. I wanted to start off by – I don’t know if any of you know Merlin Sheldrake is, but there’s a really nice bit in his book that I think could intro quite nicely into what you’re going to tell us about mushrooms. So, it says “Mushrooms provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the way we think, feel and behave. Yet they spend their lives largely hidden from view and more that 90% of their species remain undocumented. The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.’ So, Hossein can you tell us, what are mushrooms? Firstly, before we start, and what you do in relation to them maybe.

H: I can. I discovered mushroom cultivation. Well, I’ve come across adaptogens a few years ago in pursuit of holistic health. Trying to figure out why conventional medicine doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. So, I mean one of the biggest influences on me was Paul Stamets. You may or may not have heard. Hopefully. He’s a person who really embodies something that I’ve always wanted the world to progress to which is the spirituality of science and the science of spirituality. The understanding that the holistic approach to the planet in terms of how we look at ourselves in terms of individuals. The way mycelium works both metaphorically and literally teaches you that the planet is one, the universe is one. But they’re actually connected in scientific ways. Mushrooms have networks underground caused mycelium. They spread out. They have a symbiosis with the ecosystem that they’re in bringing nutrients to things that need it, trading nutrients with plants, bringing nutrients from the mother tree to like a seedling. They seem to have been around a lot longer that mammals. A few million years ago, if I’m correct they helped bring plant life from the oceans to the land. Most people don’t realise humans are more closely related to mushrooms than plant life. Because they breathe in oxygen and they breathe out carbon dioxide. So, when I kind of got into understanding natural, more herbal solutions to human issues. Adaptogens became a big thing.

S: What is an adaptogen, for people who don’t know?

H: There’s different ways to explain it, it’s a natural holistic product, that has a lot of benefits for your body, but also tells your body how to improve itself instead of giving your body what it wants. It’s like a key to a programme that it unlocks a process in your body where things improve. Typically, adaptogens are things tat tell your body how to adapt to stress, so often it’s adapting to physical or emotional stressful environments. Or improving your ability in those ways. A couple we’ve mentioned in podcasts before, for example, Ashwagandha; is a nootropic. It improves cognitive function. It has benefits for thinking and cognition. It has some prospects in that regards for things like Alzheimer’s and dementia. It regulates hormones like testosterone naturally, down regulates cortisol the stress hormone. These things have multiple properties. If you follow the trail of natural adaptogens you’ll inevitably get to mushrooms, to fungi.

S: What are some of the first adaptogenic mushrooms you got into? And what do they do?

H: So, Lions mane is one of them, you’re familiar with as well. It seems to have the properties that ashwagandha has for the brain, but a lot more pronounced. I’ve got some notes here actually. There’s a lot of adaptogenic mushrooms that I’m quite into and most of which I’m growing but there’s a couple more you need a bit more time to do so. Lions manes a good one you can grow at home. It’s got a lot of benefits, and helps with ulcers, and tumours. It’s an anti-inflammatory as well. There’s a study from 1987 showing it’s beneficial for throat cancers, and gastric cancers. A few other benefits are that it’s one of two types of mushrooms that causes neurogenesis. It helps the neurons regrow and repair. Which is something you can’t really find in the synthetic world. It’s actually quite rare anyway. That’s a really good adaptogenic property of lion’s mane, the neurogenesis. Specifically, the outer part of the neuron, it helps that part grow, which could be damaged by, you name it PTSD, Stress, Depression, all sorts of issues. Again, it highlights a perspective of a human made issue, resolved or addressed with a fungus. As we know fungi adapt to the environment and try to help it balance out. So, on a physiological scale, they have a lot of potential to help us, because we are basically the planet, conscious. Just like the fungi we’re not really separate from them. But there’s this illusion that we are. There are a few other benefits to thee mushrooms that we’ll talk about today. They all have a common theme between them, they all have a massive boost to your immune system, they seem to be very effective for a few cancers. And they all have an anti-inflammatory effect on your body as well. A lot of medicines that help your immune system, caution needs to be taken with them, because they can cause inflammation to your immune system. Most thee mushrooms don’t seem to do that. They have what exerts call, immune-regulatory properties so hat means they regulate they boost it, but they have an anti-inflammatory effect as well, so people with an auto-immune disease should look into a few of these.

S: Other than neuro-performance, are there any that really benefit with physical performance that you’d recommend to people?

H: Yeah, to be honest! Quite a few of them have positive effects on your body, you mean like physical benefits, you mean like exercise and physical performance? Cordyceps are a good one, you might have heard of, in the wild they grow on insects. They’re a little more difficult to cultivate at home because of that. There’s a couple of strains. There’s a very famous Tibetan one. There’s a lot of benefits to taking them the list is massive. But again, like with all the other adaptogenic mushrooms, they have a benefit for immune system, some studies show anticancer properties, and anti-inflammatory properties, but with cordyceps, studies show - for example - they all seem to have a speciality property on top – (with cordyceps) is athletic performance. They oxygenate your blood, I think it’s to do with how they affect your blood, they have a life prolonging effect as well. These are studies that are still going through, mainly because there’s no profit big pharma kind of studies for them. But cordyceps is something I would recommend to someone who would benefit from, if they’re suffering from anything, a disease or an issue that slows you down or you require, or you require extra athletic performance. Just generally we need to start a culture.

I used to be in the gym industry, the fitness industry, you observe a lot of artificial profit-based solutions. People are addicted to getting bigger and more muscular. You reach a certain age, and it’s a given in the personal training scene where, they reach a certain age, they all start taking testosterone. Whether on their own, or they go to their doctors and ask them to top them up. But if you have a bit of knowledge, you can have your performance naturally improved adaptogens do that, they tell your body to give it what it needs. Cordyceps have those benefits, they seem to create a lot of circulation, they improve athletic performance to the point, this would have to be quoted properly, but a bunch of athletic teams were accused to be doping because they were taking cordyceps, cordyceps have some anecdotal stories of athletics being affected quite positively to the point that people think they’re doping. So cordyceps would be a really good one. For anyone wit hypothyroidism that would help a lot with as well

S: Before we move on to the process, because I’ll show the video after this, how did you move from the supplements and eating mushrooms to the decision to start growing mushrooms yourself

H: I think there was a lot of spare time during lockdown. I’m self-employed effectively, with more focus on sports massage therapy, but that’s not really happening. So, you have a lot of time to learn thigs and do things during lockdown, so it just felt like it was meant to be. I was already following that path of holistic and natural medicines. You get to a point where you do your own research and things and you realise what we’re taught, and what the reality of what can help us is based on profit. It’s based on funnelling us into a system, where if you feel like you want to help people improve their lives, health, improve their mental health, you’d be channelled into a degree that ignores a lot of things, the university system is funded by a capitalist system that wants you to just, kind of go into an industry, and make profit, make money. So, decades of watching medicine fail, and realising this more and more. I remember seeing years ago the negative effects of pharmaceutical on myself, my family members, people I care about, so it kind of woke me up to the anti-pharma stuff that everyone’s now picked up on, but still has very little power against. That’s the drive, the drive comes from realising pharmaceuticals are not here to help us, they’re here to make to profit. When you live in a world where everyone’s taking testosterone when they turn 25, and you pop an ashwagandha and a cordyceps, and you know. You’ve done the research and you see the people behind it, you see like Paul Stamets, or Merlin Sheldrake, these absolute legends who want to make the world a better place, so we can make the planet a better place with less suffering, so you know the planet will survive a lot better, that’s the drive that makes you want to do your own research. I’m not talking about some paranoid conspiracy talk; I’m talking about the basis of what science there is out there. Why it’s not prominent, why it’s not on the news, why Phizer, a company with evil, evil, evil track record, where they’ve caused deaths in children in places in Africa, and just shell out millions and millions in dollars, to make up for it’ company like that is trusted and accepted as a solution to COVID-19. Which we know is making endless profit for the billionaires that really aren’t here for our benefit in the first place. When that’s accepted, I don’t think it’s going to get that many results, and when people don’t really know what medicinal mushrooms are, that’s what I want to tilt the balance of.

When you get the knowledge, and you get into mycology and understand these breakthrough mycologists and what they’re doing, you understand that one or two of these mushrooms, is enough to covid proof you. With a healthy lifestyle, where you’re eating the right foods, making sure you’re getting your zinc, your vitamins, there’s nothing that comes close to enabling your body to do what it’s meant to do. With the help of you body and the earth extended, because that is your body, that’s the earth. So, we live in a world where people are conditioned to trust medicines that are no good for anyone apart from the people making profit, and often they’ll cause adverse effects. We need to change that because those drugs aren’t good for your physical health or mental health. But what I’ve found is that adaptogens, fungal based or not, counter the negative effects of pharmaceuticals.

S: Let’s go through to the process I think, when we do it would you rather, we go through the pictures, and explain what’s going on in the pictures first or go through the video and then talk about that at the end?

H: Lets go for the pictures and talk a little bit about that first.

S: Cool, I’m going to share my screen with everyone, yeah. So, what is happening in this picture?

H: That’s a aby lions mane growing out. Lion’s mane has, as the name suggests kind of like a beard, or some people say like a brain, or some people say like a fluffy pom pom. Most would agree it’s a pom pom mushroom. The good thing about lion’s mane is it’s also a gourmet mushroom. Like it really tastes nice, fry it up with some garlic, some sesame seeds. The aim is to really be growing enough to eat it really as opposed to buying or taking the extract. So, the process with most medicinal mushrooms is, and we’ll go through more later is you need – it’s micro biology – you want to kind of, if you’re using spores, you want them to germinate, they need to be in a completely sterile environment, no other bacteria, or other fungi are there. Because they’ll compete with them, and in a lot of cases, if it’s a predatory fungus, they’ll kind of take over. So, there’s a lot of sterilisation.

With this Lion’s mane I kind of grew it out. On grains, so what I did was bought liquid culture. I ordered liquid culture from gourmetmushrooms.co.uk they’re based in Leeds. They’re a really good mushroom supply company. The person who runs it, is a big fan paul stamets. I’ve got his book here. This is the main for of inspiration, and thing that I learn from. Apparently, this lions mane that I’m growing, is a Paul Stamets strain. So, he met Stamets, and he kept it and he’s kept it for a while. What you need to get is liquid culture, or spores in grans that have been prepared. Typically you hydrate the grains, s you soak them for 24 hours, then you simmer or boil them for a bit, so they absorb moisture, but then you drain them so they’re dry on the outside. Close to when you’re ready to eat them, if you were to eat them really. It’s a process of putting them in jars, carefully prepared jars, you’d sterilise them. So what most people do is use a pressure cooker, between an hour or two of 15 psi, it kills all the spores or anything competing in the grains. Then after that it’s a case of finding an environment, or like a still air environment, to put your liquid culture, which is the mycelium in a liquid form, or your spores which have germinated, into the grains to incubate for a while. With Lion’s Mane for example for a few weeks, or even a couple months if it’s a big bag. Often with gourmet medicinal mushrooms, the incubation temp is higher than fruiting temp so when you’re ready to fruit you lower the temperature. Another thing that mushrooms really like is humidity, I use a fogger here. But anything to make humidity around it. I’ve got bit of a Lion’s Mane culture here to show actually. This is something I’ve used already, so I don’t mind opening up and exposing it to air because that would usually contaminate it. The mycelium of lion’s mane is a bit whisky; it doesn’t look that strong. It’s a bit sporadic. Some mycologists might see this and think of is that contaminations. But it’s just the way lion’s mane grows it’s a it sporadic. This is what I use instead of a petri dish, you can sterilise and use these cups. You can put a little bit of this into the grains, to inoculate it, or you can make liquid culture and put that in. So that’s Lion’s Mane. It’s gorgeous and it tastes beautiful.

S: I’ll go to the next image. What are these?

H: So, these are bags, sawdust bags. I was in the process of filling them up. You can grow a lot of these medicinal mushrooms on sawdust. Supplemented sawdust. In fact, that’s the main method. Grains are a way to get the mycelium in something high nutrient so it’s strong. So, you can put the grains to sawdust as well. Usually, you hydrate it to something known as field capacity. What it is is I get a formula from the supplier. With this beechwood sawdust, for every 1kg of beechwood sawdust you put three Litres of water, and that should hydrate sufficiently, for the mycelium to grow out on and the mushrooms to grow. I put it in a spawn bag or a grow bag, and these are autoclave-able, so you can kind of have them at about 15-16 psi which is about 120 degrees centigrade, and they’ll sterilise what’s inside them. So similar to what we said with the grain jars. You put these in a pressure cooker, sterilise them, and once they’re out they’re ready to inoculate. Then you can the liquid culture in there, you can put a piece of mycelium in there from agar or petri dish. Some people do spore syringes in there. It just creates a potential for variations in genetics.

S: and what is that?

H: This is liquid culture, I was talking about, an if I’m not mistaken that’s enoki in a jar. It’s a medium where the mycelium can grow in water. So, you do the same kind of process, if you want to create liquid culture, from spores. For example, you could get spores of a mushroom from a vendor, they usually come in a syringe, and you inject it into the medium. The medium is usually a small percentage of carbohydrate, 4% by weight. I’ve used light malt extract here, which is another way of having a nutrient broth. I put 1g to 600ml. Then you put it in the pressure cooker, because tit’s liquid it only needs to be sterilised for 25 minutes. Once it’s sterile you can kind of inject it or put a piece of mycelium in there as well again it has to be in a sterile environment. Usually like a still air box, something I can go into later, or another episode. Where you can open the top and be confident nothing else can get in. Then you spin it out, you spin it out everyday for a week or two. As you can see the bits of mycelium grow. Then the bits in between, are just like the water medium.

I think there’s another one here as well you can show. Maitake, or yeah hen of the woods… Yeah, so the last one was Maitake, this is Enoki. It’s actually looking a bit healthier than the other one. When you spin it round it breaks up. It’s actually got a jelly fish like cloud. I love it it’s beautiful. That’s healthy-looking mycelium, from enoki. Basically, I bought the spores, so it was already in a syringe ready to spread, and then I expanded it to liquid culture. That’s the benefit of liquid culture you can just keep expanding it for a while. Then have more of it.

S: We’ll go back to this picture as well.

H: This is a very interesting thing, so those sawdust blocks that we showed earlier. This is a shitake fruiting block that’s already. I can kind of go into the benefits of shitake as well, because its one of the tastiest gourmet medicinal mushrooms so it’s like a very potent anti-cancer mushroom as well. So, I’ll go into polysaccharides as well. So, the way mushrooms work and their adaptogenic properties, is in some of the compounds called polysaccharides, and there’s a type of those called beta-glutens. These are basically very complex carbohydrates, that can work with and bind proteins, and the complexities are like a key that work and unlock something in your body, to create an adaptogenic effect. So, a few studies I’m looking at here, there’s a study from japan that show it has anti-cancerous properties, there’s a study from 1978 from a scientist called Shiharo, where it almost completely performed regression of many solid tumours that were looked at. There’s a poly saccharide called KS2 in it for example, it’s a powerful anti-carcinogen, anti-tumour. Again, it’s an adaptogenic compound that binds to proteins, it tells your immune system what to do, how to deal with it better. Another notable benefit of Shitake for example, is its immunity boosting properties there’s a study from 1993 that shows it can reverse the effects of herpes, it can slow down HIV, and has immunity boosting effects in it as well. There’s another study Seren, that you might like, that says, fermented shitake is a lot more effective. They say fermented shitake is even better.

So, this is a shitake block. Even compared to other medicinal mushrooms, it does take a bit longer to mature, and most mycelium has a white-ish colour and so does shitake. But after a while it goes brown, and that’s when you know it’s ready to fruit. So, this is a shitake fruiting block, that we’ve actually harvested, and eaten, it’s been put out for it’s second flush because shitake usually does a couple of flushes, it just takes ages. It’s worth it though.

S: Yeah, I’ll play the video now. I guess if you want to just talk over it because it’s quite fast moving but we can always watch it twice through if people want. Hossein if you want me to stop the video at any point just let me know because it is in sections so we can just stop it.

H: Sure, Sure. I’m ready.

S: So, this is the cloning from shop bought mushrooms.

H: So, this is a still air box, I was referring to earlier. You clean it up first, wipe it down with alcohol. 70% plus iso-propel alcohol, or Dettol or both. Then you wait half hour for everything to settle in there. Anything you need to work with, you put in there. So, I’m working with a scalpel, exacto-knife in there. Cloning’s a really good way to grow mushrooms, you don’t necessarily need to buy culture from anywhere. You can clone from the wild or even super market, as we’re doing here. So, this is shimeji mushroom. Another mushroom that has a lot of benefits, similar to Enoki, which I’m growing at home as well. The process is you find the healthiest happiest one, amongst some healthier friends as well, that’s like a healthy cluster. You find the best one.

I’ve been a bit extra careful here and sprayed it down as well so it’s clean on the outside. A lot of people don’t do that. You spread it apart and you get a little bit of the flesh, ad that’s all you need. You put the flesh in a petri dish, that you’ve got the medium on already, similar to a liquid culture the medium, it’s like a gelatinous version. You watch it grow out and as it grows out, over the next few days, weeks. It takes a couple weeks to grow properly then you can observe it see if it’s healthy, the healthiest strand that’s kind of coming out from where you’ve planted it, you can watch that grow out. You can keep doing that until you’ve got a healthy culture. That’s also how you eliminate contaminants, especially if you clone from the wild. You’re going to have other fungi contaminants competing, likely to be with the mushrooms. Same with shop bought, you can’t guarantee it being sterile. Here we can see I’m opening up the flesh of the mushroom, so I can get into the middle, cause in the middle it’s less likely to have contaminants, even if it does have contaminants, it’s going to have less of. I’m flame sterilising the head of my needle here. This is all happening in a still air box, that’s why it’s a bit blurry, it’s PVC.

I’m taking a little bit of the flesh from the centre of the mushroom, to minimise the risk of contaminants being on it. I’ve got a little piece there, just putting it into the middle. Once you get used to this kind of stuff, I want to get to a place where everyone’s doing this kind of stuff, like it’s plant work. Like Myco-phobia is the reason none of us are doing this kind of thing. Everyone could do it. Everyone should do it.

So I’ve got a fogger here, which creates a moist environment for mushrooms. That’s the top of a bottle which I’m growing Enoki mushrooms on Enoki’s have a different way to fruit they cultivate and fruit to grow short and thin. So, I used a method to make them grow long and thin by reducing carbon dioxide levels.

This is Hen of the Wood, maitake. Another mushroom with loads of medicinal benefits, similar to maitake. So, this study from 93, from a guy called Chan-young; reduces tumor mass. I’ll go into Maitake a little bit as well. The thing with maitake is as well, again we’re talking about man made problems. I don’t know too much detail about hormone effecting pharmaceuticals, but I have observed a lot of common issues that happen in modern society that happen with men and women. I’ll go into what Enoki does in terms of certain tumours or cancers. As well as having all the benefits we’ve mentioned, is a very effective treatment for treatment resistant malaria. So that is something to look into. A natural treatment to help malaria. Also, there’s a study that shows – this is in the Paul Stamets book. 76% improvement in pregnancy rates, in women who were not ovulating due to PCOS. So, PCOS, 76% improvement rate in pregnancies, for women who were not ovulating before. Now, you could say – how did that happen in the first place? I don’t know. But pharmaceuticals in general are a massive part of why we have that issue in the first place. I’ll go into Enoki as well, and how that affects men.

Yeah – so these are three shitake clone plates that I’ve grown before. So, when I grew out the shitake, I took a piece of the flesh from an area that had nice big mushrooms around it. I think in the video I’m trying to show what it looks like, but I’ve got a sample here that I can show. It’s gorgeous, it puts a smile on my face. The fractal-ness of it. I’ll show you now, if you can see. So that’s the mycelium of shitake, that I’ve used before ad gown out. I’ve kind of put some of it in the fridge. It’s gorgeous. It has similarities with so many things in nature, it looks like an eye, or a mushroom top.

Here is another process, where I’m taking a bit from one petri dish and putting it into another. Tis is like the clean up process where you take the healthier process, and moving it to let that grow out. So, once you get to your mushroom lock that your growing, you’ve got the healthiest part. The most contaminant free. It kind of becomes, similar to like a whisky where people say single malt is better than multi malt. Especially when you’re doing this stuff, the spores will have multiple genetic so you’ll want to isolate the healthiest genetics and transfer that.

That’s a T2 transfer, that means I’ve transferred it twice. From the original petri dish onto the second petri dish.

Sweet.

S: There’s a question in the chat, we could answer that quickly if you can see it, it’s from Goldi. It says ‘I live outdoors most of the time, what advice do you have for growing mushrooms in unpredictable environments? Like it can get warm and cold quickly and sterilising things can be difficult.

You can kind of sterilise things without a pressure cooker. You can steam sterilise things, but you’d have to do that for a good 24 hours, to really – endo spores are an issue. Spores are actually really cheeky. They can survive a lot. They hide in the middle of grains like ‘Don’t tell anyone and I’ll like come out later, and BOOM’ they take over the grow so, predatorial fungus, or bacterial spores. They have this defence mechanism, where they can deal with a lot more heat and pressure. When that heat and pressures gone, then they start evolving, and the DNA changes and they start becoming the fungus. If you don’t mind putting something on the hob for 24hrs, you can do it.

In terms of unpredictable environments, you would have to incubate at warmer temperatures, that’s just a given. Some of these you could incubate at as low as 15 degrees, these medicinal mushrooms. I would recommend using strong aggressive strains. Oyster mushrooms are a very tasty gourmet mushroom. I plan to grow some; they seem to be to be fastest most aggressive strain. Some of them are really fine with cold environments. You’d have to look at incubation as well, because incubation is always warmer. All these mushrooms will grow in the cold. All of them will fruit in the cold. It’s just whether they will incubate. So you want to normalise the temperature but I would also look at your local environment specifically, and see what advice there is online also. I’m coming from the perspective of someone who’s like learned this stuff, got into this stuff. But I’m definitely not a specialist. Or a mycologist. An amateur enthusiast. Which we should all be, cause that’s the whole point of the culture, is to normalise it; where we have mushroom grow kits in the kitchen. Some people even put them in the bathroom, once the mycelium has taken over the substrate and it’s quite strong, you don’t really have to worry about contaminations as much as you would. Especially a clean bathroom would create a good steam level for it. For humidity I’d look at Oyster mushrooms. They do have some medicinal benefits. Some Oyster mushrooms have closed to these [mentioned mushrooms] kind of benefits.

S: We’ll open it up as well, if anyone else wants to unmute themselves or type any questions in the chat

H: Robbie?

Robbie: Thank you. Lots of good information there. I’ve been getting into medicinal mushrooms. Mainly foraged ones that are picked out and about. Turkey Tails and Birch Polypore’s and things like that.

Growing medicinal mushrooms is something I want to get into. So I was kinda thinking like it seems like a bit of a mine field of so much stuff, but what do you need to start a simple grow? I mainly wanna grow Lion’s Mane

So what i would recommend is, if you want to get into it quickly. There’s a couple of methods. I started with kits. I got a Lion’s Mane grow kit and from that I cloned instead of getting the culture.

If you want to start from a base level and growing them regularly, I would recommend getting a good liquid culture from a vendor. There’s no guarantee that they're completely sterile but pretty much [are]. They use a Flow Hood which is this thing which blows sterile air where they can work on and they cost £100s. I use the Gourmetmushrooms.co.uk Liquid Cultures and they worked absolutely fine.

Liquid cultures are better than a spore syringe, because someone's already isolated the good spore genetics and hopefully taken away any contamination from it.

So if you are going to start growing, you can buy the liquid culture, then in terms of equipment, I use jars.

I’m an audio/kinaesthetic/ visual learner. I love books as well when there’s a passion and enthusiasm but I’ve learned so much from university of YouTube.

R: yeah

Because there’s a lot of talented enthusiastic mycologists in the UK and in America to learn from, that I’ve kind of become obsessed with [watching]

Basically you can use jars and there’s a process where you do ‘Culture’ to ‘Grain’ to ‘Substrate’ or you can grow straight from culture to substrate. All these gourmet/medicinal ones grow on woodchips or supplemented wood because they’re used to growing on or near trees.

The other category of medicinal mushrooms which were seeing a revolution in, grow on different substrates. For example , the Psilocybin based ones are part of a mental health revolution. I think its an example of how we’re going to make the world a better place. They don’t grow on woodchips, but they're definitely powerful medicinal mushrooms. But the rest of them [medicinal mushrooms] grow on supplemented woodchips.

The only drawback t large scale mushroom growing is the big plastic grow bags, but the good thing is it’s the same industry that’s finding the solution to the plastic problem. I don’t know if you’ve heard, there’s a lot of beautiful intelligent people working on engineering one of the 50 species of fungus that eat plastic. But you can get grow bags with filtered air patches that don’t let bacteria in. You can get about 20/30 fairly large ones for about £15-£20. I get sawdust and supplement it between 10-15% with organic wheat bran. That kind of gives it the equivalent [nutrition] of what a tree would have , then you bring it to “Field capacity” with water, put it in a pressure cooker at 15psi for 2 hours. 15psi pressure cookers are very very difficult to get in the UK, because in Europe and the UK they're usually 10psi, which you can experiment with. There’s the Idea that you just do it for 2/3 times as long [as the 15psi would] it will work.

You can steam sterilise as well. You put the big blocks in a pan, but you’d have to boil it for 24 hours so you’d have to figure out having to keep boiling the kettle and adding more water in.

If you see it as process that you’re passionate about, it’s a wonderful thing and if you eventually save up and get a pressure cooker , the most common one that everyone uses is a ‘Presto 23 quart’, it’s like a 21.5Litre pressure cooker with a pressure gauge. In America it’s cheap, like $100 but for us to buy it’s about £130 plus import duties etc on eBay. If you can save up its worth it, otherwise if you can find a way to steam for 24 hours, then you can get your substrates prepared.

Otherwise, I think we can segway this [mushroom cultivation] culture with grow kit culture. Depends how deep you wanna go. If you wanna be someone provides the grow kits as well or someone who provides information on growing or just a mushroom product user, either way that’s welcome from the mushroom world.

With grow kits, they send you it already covered in mycelium, ready to fruit. That’s when they send you it. They're usually not that expensive. The £1 Shiitake block £7 and I think they had one over 2kg at £15, something like that.

S: I’ve posted the website that you use

H: Bless bless

Another thing I’d say is do what you’re doing now. Ask ask ask. I nagged so many people with so many questions. I bought 2 Shiitake blocks and get texting him about what to do J

R: Cool, that sounds good. Ill definitely do a bit more reading on it too. What was that book you had, also?

H: This is definitely something I’d recommend. My friend lent me it but I’d buy it a 1000 times:

Growing Gourmet Medicinal Mushrooms – Paul Stamets

R: oh Paul Stamets, cool

H: yeah , this isa good reference book. The only thing it doesn’t include is Cordyceps but its absolutely amazing. For indoor and outdoor and medicinal mushrooms.

Does anyone have any more questions ?

I did wanna mention Enoki. They all have these common benefits: on of the polysaccharides in Enoki is called Flamulin. From a study done by a scientist called Ying, from China in 1987 that shows 80-100% effectiveness for treatment of Sarcomas and Carcinomas

They have unusually low cancer rates in areas where these mushrooms are consumed in Japan. Studies of anti cancer properties go back as 1968 and another from 1990. Alot of these studies were initiated such a long time ago that you wonder how the worlds, where the information is geared towards making more profit.

Another property of Enoki I wanted to bring up is it shows fantastic results for prostate cancer as a speciality. Enoki is good for enlarged/tumourus prostates. It’s kinda cool because you see these specialities they do as well as the common benefits among them. Like for example with Maitake and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.

I did wanna mention a couple more mushrooms whilst I’m here. So these are all mushrooms I’m growing or intend to grow:

There’s a couple more mushrooms that are like wood conk style. There physically a bit more dense.

These are medicinal but not really gourmet. So you either do extracts or teas or tinctures.

This might be most famous of medicinal mushrooms you may have heard of so this is Reishi.

There’s loads of studies showing disease resistance, [life] longevity and improvements of thyroid issues. Cancer fighting properties. Been used as an ant cancer medicine in asia for 100s of years. Includes very complex Beta Glucans. Some species have 40% Beta Glucan content - really high adaptogenic content. Ive noted a bunch of things for example the way it stimulates T – Cell production, immune system boosting while maintaining anti inflammatory effects on the immune system.

Good for blood health. A study from 1989 mentions it regulates blood sugar and lipids. Another study from China (Yung 1995) showing significant reduction in lung cancer cells. A study from Japan shows its toxicity to cancer cells (Mizushima 1998)

Reishi has show significant reduction in HIV cell production in humans from a study in 1994 and there’s another study proving it fights DNA damage.

Reishis’ all over the world as well in different forms. Ive not seen too much of it in the local, local areas like Meanwood/Woodhouse but what I have seen is Turkey Tail.

Turkey Tail’s everywhere; if you do some research you’ll see you’ll find it in warm countries, cold countries in different variations. you can find it in Woodhouse ridge before all the critters get them, they're quite pretty.

There’s a study from (Nakazuto 1997) (Sugimeshi 1997, 1994). Im mentioning the studies so people can reference it and also so it’s not some generic advice you may hear from people about things. These are serious studies.

Paul Stamet’s mentioned, combined with chemotherapy, it increases the survival rate of many cancers with the help of its main Polysaccharide known as PSK . A study (Kobiashi 1995) shows it reduces cancer metastasis. It’s also a powerful anti free radical. There’s another Polysaccharide in it called PSP which inhibits HIV production. So that’s 3 different [medicinal] mushrooms that fight HIV.

Othere Polysaccharides in it include RPSB. They all have a bunch of benefits including immunomudulation and anti inflammatory benefits.

Studies show Turkey Tail has a great effect for treating Leukaemia and it has strong anti microbial properties.

So these are really really good Covid time mushrooms.

There’s an anecdotal story about Turkey Tail too. If like me you follow Paul Stamets you may know about the story of his mother he mentions in his lectures where his mother in here 80’s called him one day... yeah Catherine, do know this story?

Catherine: Nods

H: Yeah so she had incredibly enlarged breast. Doctor gave her very little time [stage 4 breast cancer] her doctor or friend mentioned a study about Turkey Tail and she mentioned her son Paul makes Turkey Tail. Paul gave her 8 Turkey Tail extract capsules a day (I have 2 day) and he famously in his lectures brings his mum on stage 10/15 years later, well into her 90’s alive and healthy J.

Sorry my housemates just cooking :D

Has anyone else got any questions of advice or anything you want to tell me or I’ve missed. Any Mycologies here? ... sweet

Seren: I think we’ve had quite a lot of things for us to think about.

Thanks, let’s wrap things up here. Thanks a lot for teaching us all this . are there any websites or resources you’d like to suggest before we go. Ill post the links to the roots stuff as well in the chat for next week.

Hossein: I want to thank Seren. You’re a legend. You see magic all around the world and you bring it to light and you inspire people to do what they might be a little shy to do. Thanks so much because you bring so much light to the world. Eternally love you

Seren: And you man

H: sorry what did you ask again?

S: Links

H: oh yeah, for learning I use YouTube or these peoples websites. So as you get into mushrooms you’ll hear Fresh Cap Mushrooms alot. They have a website and are on Youtube. They're a really informative Gourmet/Medicinal Mushroom group. They have a lot of videos where they show you indoor and outdoor cultivation. All the stuff that I’ve mentioned about the benefits, they go into a little more detail. In their videos they have this massive massive Reishi mushroom the size of a table and its beautiful. So that’s FreshCapMushrooms

There’s ‘Fresh From the Farm Fungi’ as well. They're a specialist mycology centre. They show you how to grow. I’m following them now and they're growing and experimenting with Cordyceps at the moment. They're still in the experimental stage where people are trying to work out the best way to grow them. What we grow is Crodyceps Militaris, which is easier to grow and more potent than the rare Himalayan Cordyceps Sinensis that only grows in insects. If you ever see an orange twigletty thing sticking out of grass in fields, that’s Cordyceps, pick it and try to clone it from the wild.

There’s a few mycology places and websites based in the UK as well but I forget. They usually have the word mushroom or fungi in their names

I would definitely recommend Paul Stamets. He’s got his own website too. For more specialised people, he’s got links to the studies he’s done and part of or any studies pertaining to mushrooms helping the world.

Another shout out Id recommend as well is Natura Studios. They're on instagram too and there website is https://www.naturadesign.org/ [corrected]. They're quite legendary, revolutionary people as well. Ive talked to the main guy who was a design student who got into mycology. They're designing a vegan leather based on a mycelium structure. Theres people growing mycelium based objects and things at the moment. But he’s supportive of the fungi eating plastic [movement] as well. I think the fish and everyone would benefit from that. S: we’ll add the kinks in the chat H: thank you bye

#mycelium #mushrooms #shitake #enoki #miatake #lions mane #holistic #natural #paul stamets

1 note · View note