#but back then i remember feeling so happy to find the only non religious freak in the whole wide world like

[itsays]

i remember when we got a new girl from chile at my catholic school and the whole time she was just having a horrible time because she had never been to catholic school in her life

[feetoffire]

Captain Christopher Pike, the rec list

I had this almost finished and ready to post, and then the kitten wiped everything, so here it is, a gazillion years later than I wanted. Yay. 

Ongoing - the fic is complete, but not all chapters are posted

WIP - fic isn’t finished

Incomplete - last-updated-more-than-a-year-ago WIPs

recs under the cut; spoilers abound

AOS

Gen

Pike’s Office by AnxiouslyGoing. Poor Jim has a Tarsus related panic attack, and ends up sleeping in Pike’s office/on Pike’s lap. Academy Era, bonus appearance by Spock, dad!Pike. 2k oneshot.

Another Life by LullabyKnell. Time travel fix it for ST2009. As ever, LullabyKnell gave us a spectacular, delightfully well-written fic. Dadmiral Pike, even if he’s technically a captain at this point. No pairings, everything is platonic. 12 chapters, 61k, T. Complete. 

Watching the Cloud of Dust by AngelQueen. Pike runs into Spock Prime while seeing the Enterprise off. Cue melancholy fluff (it follows Spock Prime around like a dog). 1.7k oneshot, G.

Phil Boyce/Chris Pike

horizons universe by gracieminabox. Massive, massive series spanning the whole of Chris’ life. Not canon compliant, i.e. Pike Lives. “Christopher Pike, in word and in deed.” Series, 263k in seventeen parts, G-E. 

Altered Horizons by InsaneSociopath. The bar fight goes very differently because Chris gets elbowed in the face. Featuring depressed!bipolar!Chris, who is Not Having A Good Time, Emergency Department (ED) doc Bones, and mother-hen!Jim. Phil is essentially Sir Not Appearing In This Fic, but he and Chris are married. Seven chapters, 14k, G. Incomplete. I adore this one. 

When Darkness Drifts by InsaneSociopath. Tarsus fic. Jim gets adopted by Starfleet but still ends up on Tarsus, except Chris is there. All Tarsus-related warnings apply. Jim and Chris centric; Phil is most present in the last few chapters. Six chapters, 44k, M. Complete. 

Kinktober 2017 by nerdqueenenterprise. What it says on the tin. Series, 13k in eight parts, T-E. Complete. 

A Vacation Long Overdue by nerdqueenenterprise. Reunion sex, mostly. They haven’t seen each other in six months, so they take leave on a remote beach. ~9k oneshot, E. 

The Weight of a Man by imachar. Another huge series charting the evolution of Chris and Phil’s relationship. Both canon compliant and canon non-compliant, so there’s a choice if you want it. Series, 174k in sixteen parts, M-E. Complete. 

shatterproof by gracieminabox. Will Make You Cry. Phil’s POV, STID compliant, featuring a picture from their early days. 4.3k oneshot, M.

Winged Desires and Veiled Persuasions by imachar. Post-Narada, ignores/was written before STID. Bones ends up hanging out with Phil and Chris at Spuhura’s wedding reception, and then the three of them have sex in Phil and Chris’ hotel suite. Pretty much pure smut. 12k oneshot, E. 

McPike

The Wind and Its Satellite by severinne. Long series, some BDSM, eventual Bones/Jim/Pike. Something of a McPike classic. Series, 186k in twenty parts, M-E.

Partridge Fallen From the Pear Tree by severinne. Post-divorce Bones works as a prostitute to make ends meet. Pike comes to town to recruit him, ends up paying for a night without knowing Bones is Bones, and then they both freak the fuck out when Pike realizes who he is. More-or-less just smut and angst. Pre-canon. Three chapters, 12k, E. Complete.

Singularities Verse by FrancescaMonterone. Bones and Pike fall in love, Pike adopts Chekov, Jim is Jim. Bonus Admirals Archer and Reed, and Archer/Reed. Mostly pre-canon, ace Pike. Series, 81k in six parts, T. WIP. 

Need by Noranem. Post STID, Pike and Bones invite Jim into their relationship and their bed. Established McPike, early days Bones/Jim/Pike. Four chapters, 12k, E. Complete. 

Pirk

See All The Stars by HoneyBeeBritt. Chris and Jim fell in love some time before Daystrom. Fluff and angst, with a happy ending promised in part four. I come back to this one regularly, especially part one. Series, 6.2k in three parts, T-M. Ongoing.

Shining On The Quay by topaz. Post-Narada through Beyond, ignores STID. Chris and Jim fall in love, get together, and figure out how to keep a relationship going when one of them is in space and the other is an admiral. Series, 32k in three parts, E. Complete. 

You Still Got Wheels, Kid by withthepilot. Yes, this is partially on here because it’s one of the few (good) fem!Pike fics. Pre-canon, Pike finds out Jim’s alive because she (not Winona or Sam) is listed as his emergency contact. Prostitute Jim. Takes place two years before canon, I think. 12k oneshot, E. 

Moments along the path by InsaneSociopath. Jim, through no fault of his own, is assigned to Pike as an aide bc Command thinks he’s a loose cannon. Pike is delighted /s. (he warms up eventually.) Some Tarsus PTSD; also a fair amount of fluff. Academy Era slow burn that goes right through to (immediately) post-Narada. 46k oneshot, M. Second chapter is artwork. Long but 100% worth it. 

How Do You Want Me, How Do You Want Me? by babykid528. Get together via smut. Feelings abound but talking about them does not. 3k oneshot, E. 

The Ocean Between Us by severinne. They get a drink in a bar. They’re both dead. Something of a get-together fic. Can and Will sucker punch you with feels. STID compliant. 1k oneshot, T.

Mutual Profusion of Good Feeling (aka Wherein the Aliens have a Flair for Mood Lighting) by kayliemalinza. This doesn’t really count as Pirk, but it’s not platonic enough for the gen category. Away mission, the premise is ‘aliens made them do it’ but there’s no sex or fade to black. Romantic, I guess? I really don’t know, but the prose is gorgeous. Also a Pike Lives/returns to the Enterprise AU. 5k oneshot, T.

Timeline Shenanigans

In plain view by IceCream_Junkie, Killermanatee. Pike/Pike. What can I say? The image of Greenwood’s Pike and Mount’s Pike together is very pretty. 2k oneshot, E.

Out of This World by TheAsexualofSpades. Space Puns. That is all. 1.1k oneshot, G. 

Discovery/quasi-SNW

Gen

A Small Storm by EKthered. Spock goes to visit his captain and ends up comforting him instead. Post Boreth. 2.3k oneshot. 

you were never broken by ordinary things by SiderumInCaelo. Michael Burnham & Chris Pike. Michael has only an inkling of what’s going on, but she manages to comfort Chris anyway. Post Boreth. 1.2k oneshot. 

Piler | Chris Pike/Ash Tyler

the chair and the badge by ninjamcgarrett. The boys are soft and in love. Lots of smut, but a fair amount of plot. Their respective traumas are addressed too, so there’s plenty of h/c. Honestly? My favorite from this pairing. Series, 59k in five parts, M-E. Ongoing. 

Reality by aishahiwatari. Initially a take on how these two idiots settled their differences, and evolution from there. Part two is post-season two of Disco. Series, 5k in two parts, E. Complete.

survival is insufficient by topaz. Post-Disco; they get together to remember Discovery’s crew, and then they get together. Traumas are addressed. Part two is a sort-of case fic, TW starvation. Series, 33k in two parts, E. WIP.

Feeling Too Deeply by NightOfTheLand. Established Piler, post-Disco season two couch sex. 6k oneshot, E. 

dancing to a beat of our own, flying with the speakers blown by wolfhalls. Neither of them want to talk about anything, aka Horrible Coping Mechanisms TM. Bottom Pike, quasi-hurt/comfort. 2.7k oneshot, E. 

Christmas in Sickbay by lah_mrh. Chris is accident- and injury-prone and has a new reason to hate spiders. Ash just wants to spend time with his boyfriend. 1k oneshot, G. 

The Pillow Will Disappear When I Forget I Put a Pillow There, Worry Not by prototype_malice. Sleepy fluff and cuddles. (they deserve it.) 665 words, oneshot, G. 

Chris Pike/Una | Number One 

it will take place without witnesses by love_in_the_time_of_kohlinahr. Post Disco, Pike is struggling with the knowledge of his future, so he and Una play chess until stupid o’clock in the morning (as one does), and then he lowkey has a panic attack. Una POV. Also features sleepy sex, but it isn’t plot-important and can be skipped over, if you wish. 2k oneshot, E. 

Overtime by Astronoddingoff. Una has Thoughts about Chris working doubles for the better part of a week. Also men get pegged. Definite sub!Chris. 7k oneshot, E. 

Terminal Velocity by Astronoddingoff. Una pegs Chris and drags his favorite fantasy out of him. Chris is On Board with all of this. Implied poly!Chris (i.e. Boyce/Pike) and hardcore switch/sub vibes from Chris. 6.8k oneshot, E. 

All for One by knightinmourning. D/s universe, where Pike had/has to hide the fact that he’s a sub to make (and stay) captain. Mostly reccing for part two, which has a fair amount of hurt/comfort (and also hints at threatened sexual assault and definite torture; be forewarned). Technically also Chris/Phil and Chris/Spock, but there’s no pairing sex, and part two is entirely Una’s POV. Series, 4.2k in two parts, M-E. Probably incomplete. 

A Gentle Touch by jedi_harkness. Chris and Una shower together. Body worship, no sex. So Much Fluff (and also happy tears). It’s super sweet. 1.7k oneshot, T.

Phil Boyce/Chris Pike

Decompression by Astronoddingoff. Chris is elated by a recent treaty success and the time spent dirtside. Phil does his best to make him even happier. Lowkey sub Pike. Implied poly!Chris (i.e. Pike/One). 3.5k oneshot, E. 

Most Pike/Boyce fics fall under the AOS tags

Una/Phil/Chris

Triangulate by Astronoddingoff. Sex pollen, but they’re already-kind-of-mostly in an established relationship. Recent miscommunications lead to angst. They all love each other and they’re all idiots. Lowkey sub Pike. Two chapters, 20k, E. 

Holy by Astronoddingoff. Self-actualizing featuring religious guilt/conflict, i.e. Pike is a sub and religion is weird about enjoying yourself. 2.7k oneshot, E. 

Happy Birthday by MeganMoonlight. It’s Phil’s birthday. Cue breakfast in bed. 530 word oneshot, G. 

[send-me-your-hcs]

okay. for some reason mob boss tony kidnaps peter and it turns out peter is a little. (he gets so scared and couldn't help but get into the littlespace as a defence mechanism???) and tony freaks out because he doesn't know how to take care of a little.

This is literally so funny to me. Like just the thought of Tony going from “You belong to me now, baby boy” to “oh God why is it making that noise, Happy make it stop” is so fucking hilarious?? But damn if I’m not intrigued.

…

......am I doing it?

…….fuck me I’m doing it. Damn you, anon.

Warnings: mentions of human trafficking and abuse, ageplay, underage (but Peter’s age is unspecified and can be envisioned however you’d like).

The compound crumbles in less than an hour.

For all his bravado, Justin Hammer goes down almost too easily. Tony feels tempted to whistle as he walks through the compound’s warehouse, stepping over the slain bodies of Hammer’s underpaid cronies.

His team is just finishing up the last of the clean-up. The occasional gunshot echoes off the walls as Tony takes stock of all the merchandise he just inherited, debating what to do with Hammer once they get home. It almost feels like a waste of effort and time to torture the man before killing him, even with all the trouble he stirred up with the police. Tony’s tempted to just put a bullet in his brain and be done with it.

But, well. He isn’t called The Merchant of Death for nothing, and he does have a certain image to maintain. Plus, with Hammer keeping him company tonight, he’ll at least be partially spared from the usual tedium that comes with being the biggest mafia don on the east coast.

It’s as he’s wondering just what exactly he should do to Hammer first that Happy finally arrives, looking a little disheveled, but no worse for wear. “Boss,” he says, stumbling over the array of corpses with a muted curse, “compound’s clear. We’re ready to pack this all up and move out.”

Tony wipes the toe of his shoe off on some unnamed man’s bullethole-patterned sleeve. “Good. And Hammer?”

“On his way back to base as we speak, sir. I’ll have him ready for you when you arrive.”

Tony nods in approval, then notices the pronounced, telltale crease in Happy’s brow. Always a good sign.

“Something else you wanna tell me, Hap?”

Happy grimaces, deepening his forehead wrinkle. “There was an unexpected...uh...hiccup, sir.”

Tony lifts an eyebrow at the other man, equal parts curious and incredulous. “A hiccup,” he repeats, slowly, watching Happy’s face grow increasingly sour. “What sort of hiccup?”

“The, um...the teenaged boy kind?”

---

There are only two bodies littering the floor outside Hammer’s office: his enforcer, and his bodyguard. Happy scowls at the sight and starts clumsily rolling them out of the way, glaring at Bucky while he does.

Bucky smirks at Happy, pointedly not moving to help clear away the bodies lying between them. “Kid hasn’t stopped crying since you took Hammer,” he says to him, standing in the doorway like a sentry.

“Probably in relief,” Tony says, straightening his tie as Happy finishes kicking over the second body. “Who is he? Do we know?”

“My guess is a trafficking vic,” Bucky says with a shrug. “He’s got bruises. Seems kinda...out of it.”

Tony hums. “Well, I suppose we’re about to find out.”

Bucky steps aside and Tony strolls into the room, sparing a disinterested glance at Hammer’s shameful choice of interior decorating. The throw pillows are haphazardly strewn across the floor from the sofa; one of the grommet drapes is missing from the window. It’s a mess, but that’s not entirely unexpected.

Happy follows close behind him as he makes his way to the corner of the room, where the soft sound of pitiful sobs is coming from underneath the large desk. Tony peeks his head beneath the desktop just enough to confirm the kid doesn’t have a loaded weapon before he crouches down.

The little thing is balled up tight, wrapped in the missing window drapery and clutching one of the stolen throw pillows like his life depends on it. He seems naked underneath it, which confirms Bucky’s human trafficking theory and gives Tony almost an instant headache. There are bruises spanning the boy’s wrists and ankles that look new and swollen, standing out brightly against the boy’s very pale skin.

Tony clears his throat. “As comfortable as that looks, perhaps I could convince you to stand up so we can chat face to face, hm?”

The kid flinches, whimpering into the pillow he has pressed over his face. Tony sighs like an overburdened parent and says, “I don’t have all day. You have till the count of three to come out on your own before I come in there and make you. You hear me? One. Two…”

The boy’s soft-looking head of curls slowly lifts, and the next thing Tony knows, he’s staring into the biggest pair of honey-brown eyes he’s ever seen. They’re red-rimmed and brimming with tears, swollen from how long the kid’s been crying, but they stay obediently and nervously fixed on Tony as the boy slowly uncurls his limbs and crawls out from under the desk.

Tony’s somewhat surprised that the boy clings to his pillow religiously enough to let the curtain slip down to his waist, held up by only a single tiny, shaking fist. The boy won’t spare either hand to hold the drape up properly so it pools around his hips, revealing his slim, narrow torso, his perfectly unblemished skin.

There aren’t any other bruises, though more could be hiding under the curtain. Tony appraises the kid for a long, tense moment before he asks, “What’s your name?”

Thin arms squeeze the throw pillow tight enough to strangle it. The boy is still looking up at him with that damned pair of Disney eyes. He hasn’t stopped crying.

“‘m Peter,” he mumbles, sniffling.

His voice is cute. A little high for a kid his age, but in an endearing way. “Peter.” Tony nods, pleased. “I’m Tony. Tell me, Pete, how long have you been here?”

Peter glances at Happy, then at Bucky in the doorway, before shyly lowering his gaze to the pillow in his arms. He hugs it tighter and says, “Um...don’t...don’t know what day it is.”

“It’s Tuesday,” Happy says, sounding put out in that wonderful way he always does. “June 16th.”

The boy blinks, looking nervous and unsure as he says, “Since...two days.”

“Okay,” Tony says, “And where were you before that?”

Peter’s shoulders droop. He looks down at the floor with wet eyes, mumbling, “With bad guys.”

It takes everything Tony has not to smirk. “Bad guys? Worse than these ones?”

Peter nods. “They took me,” he says, his little voice completely heartbroken, “from Miss Jones’s place. They waited till she was asleep and they took me. S’been…” Confusion washes over his face, like he’s trying to access some memory that isn’t there. “It was winter. There was still snow outside.”

Before Tony can decide how to respond to that, Happy tactfully pipes up with, “Who the hell is Miss Jones?”

“Michelle Jones Adoption Center,” Bucky says, reading aloud as he stares down at his phone. “Looks like a non-profit adoption agency. Website says the founder also runs a foster home. Is that the one?”

All three men turn to look at Peter, who nods, staring at Bucky hopefully. “Uh-huh. They sent me there when my aunt and uncle died.”

Part of Tony is scared to ask. “What happened to your parents?”

“They died when I was little.”

“Yikes,” Happy says quietly under his breath, though not quietly enough. Tony gives him a reproachful look, then turns back to the boy, whose face is once again soaked in tears, clinging to his throw pillow like it’s a teddy bear.

Tony bites the bullet and says, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, kid, but now that you’ve seen our faces, I can’t let you go back to Miss Jones’ place.”

If the kid’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps staring down at his pillow, letting his tears drip down off his cheeks and soak into the fabric. “I just...I want…” His lower lip wobbles, and then the sobs come. “I don’t know. I don’t know. ‘m so - so c-confused. I just want my D-Daddy.”

For the first time in longer than Tony can remember, he’s at a loss for words.

“Want Daddy,” Peter says again, babbling, like a child. The crying is really doing nothing for Tony’s budding headache. “‘m scared.”

“I’m praying this isn’t what it sounds like, but, please tell me Justin Hammer wasn’t your Daddy. Ugh, Jesus, I’m never going to get the taste of those words out of my mouth. Blech.”

Thankfully, Peter shakes his head no, looking just as disgusted as Tony feels. Thank God. “I don’t...I don’t think so. I-I don’t know. They said I had to be good for Daddy. They said I couldn’t go home unless it was with h-him.”

Bucky jokingly says, “I’ll be his Daddy,” but he mutes himself when Tony lifts a hand to silence him, before turning to give Happy a helpless look. The man stares back, then silently gestures to his gun, the question clear as day on his face. Tony immediately shakes his head, waving the man’s hand away from his holster with a steely glare.

Okay, so. That’s interesting. Apparently mercy-killing the boy isn’t an option. Giving him back to gentle-hearted, law-abiding-citizen Miss Jones isn’t an option, either.

So where does that leave him?

Tony watches the boy cry a moment longer before resignedly asking, “Peter, how old are you?”

Peter wipes his wet face on the pillow, refusing to let neither it nor the curtain go long enough to use his hands. “Don’t...know,” he says, after a moment, his brows furrowed like he’s thinking it over hard. “They s-said that was up to my Daddy.”

Stellar. Great big help, that is.

Sighing, Tony rubs his temple to soothe his headache, taking a moment to really look at the boy in front of him. Peter is...well. It’s fair to say he isn’t unattractive. Hammer’s poor taste in interior design apparently doesn’t extend to sex slaves.

Tony’s done horrible, truly vile things in his career, but children are usually where he draws his thin, arguably nonexistent moral line. They’re rarely intelligent enough to interest him in any fashion, but Peter - for what it’s worth - has managed to pique his interest just enough that he finds himself actually opening his mouth and saying:

“Peter. Since I can’t let you go back to your foster home, tell me: would you rather come home with me instead?”

He lets the ‘instead of killing you’ go unsaid, since the boy is already having trouble wiping away his tears. Peter stares up at him with a frightened, mistrustful look that makes Tony’s hands twitch. There’s innocence in those eyes, sure. But there’s brightness too. For all the babbling and childish baby-speak Peter’s given him, Tony gets the very distinct impression that he’s far from stupid.

“With you?” the boy asks, hardly louder than a whisper. His tone is soft and wary, sounding every bit the child he believes he is. “You...you’ll be my Daddy?”

It’s a strange thing, to be fifty years old and still learning such intimate things about himself, like how fucked up he is for liking it when this sweet, baby-faced teenage boy calls him Daddy in his soft, childish little voice. Part of him can’t wait to turn around and see the looks on Happy and Bucky’s faces; the rest of him doesn’t want to take his eyes off Peter for even a moment.

He nods, giving Peter what he hopes is a reassuring smile as he steps forward, offering his hand for the boy to take. “That’s right, honey,” he says, his tone syrupy sweet. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Daddy’s here now.”

Peter looks between Tony’s outstretched hand and his smiling face, deliberating on what they both know is his only real option. Finally, he lets the curtain drop from around his hips to pool at his feet, revealing his slender legs and freshly-shaven pubic area. Tony’s brain momentarily goes white and fuzzy until Peter’s slim, soft hand hesitantly takes his own, still clutching that hideous throw pillow to his chest like a teddy bear.

Tony grants himself another long look over Peter’s gorgeous frame as he slips his suit jacket off and drapes it over the boy’s shoulders. Peter smiles gratefully and pushes his arms through the sleeves, his face darkening with a blush as Tony starts fastening the buttons. “Thank you, Daddy.”

Fuck. Forcing himself to swallow the growl building in his throat, Tony takes the boy’s hand again and leads him to the door. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you home.”

Peter clings to him as they step through the threshold. Well, Tony thinks to himself, his hand tightening around Peter’s own, at least things won’t be boring from now on.

[iaintyourbro]

Let’s Talk About... On the Way to a Smile: Case of Tifa and The Kids are Alright: A Turks Side Story

Yes, I couldn’t sleep... again. I’ve gotten good at staying up two days at a time. Then sleeping and going back to it. I suppose it’s the quarantine... Which is only going to get worse it seems...

In any case, I finally got to read Case of Tifa... and... if you came out of that thinking they weren’t a thing... I don’t know what to tell you. I honestly went in to it expecting it to seem very ambiguous and very non-Cloti (in a sense). 

What struck me, first of all is the amount of guilt Tifa talks about having. Tifa seems to be just as bad as Cloud is, she just deals with it differently. Oddly enough, Cloud doesn’t show that much guilt immediately. Tifa is the one who is struggling with this major guilt initially. 

So let’s start with some screenshots (pictures?) I took of excerpts I found interesting. Some I’m sure you’ve seen before. 

Here we have Tifa talking about the guilt. She also feels insanely guilty for what happened to not only Aerith, but everything else that happened (Sector 7 Plate Drop/Avalanche). The other weird thing about this... and this is legit at the end of the OG... she almost is convincing herself that she should stay alive. I found a lot of sadness in that. And it’s not because of anything Cloud did. No... actually I think that’s what snaps her out of it. 

Of course we have a smiling Cloud. You’re going to see Cloud smiles... a lot... and he laughs too, which I really hope they show him laughing because I don’t know what it sounds like... 

I’m sure everyone has seen this. It’s the next page after Tifa calls Cloud out on his bright dork smile he’s giving. I mean he fucking says he has her. And that he knows what that means. 

I... I don’t know how you can’t take this in a romantic sense. Maybe because the guy barely smiles so to me this is massive. Maybe because he had a hell of a time telling her anything down Under the Highwind. I don’t know. But this seems like something that’s profound to tell a person. That’s the end of that section (teases - perfect moment for a kiss). 

I like the “What about you? Are you okay?” Strikes me as something we saw in Chapter 17 when you first get control of Tifa and Aerith, right? “What about you, Tifa? How are you doing?”

Tifa loses it, crying. Guilt, guilt, guilt. They talk more about Tifa’s guilt than they do Cloud’s guilt. Cloud comforts her here. Another profound thing at this point, but... we are seeing him do this in Remake already. The hug is the major one... 

But things like when he grabs her from having a crate fall on her... he could have pulled her out of the way and let her go or pushed her (like Leslie does in the sewers). No, he holds on to her. She actually is the first one to let go here. (Look how cute they are PSPSPSPSPSPSPS)

So this whole part just cracks me up. For one, it shows that these three were busy doing stuff together and slept under the plate, even though it could collapse. 

I HOPE WE GET A GODDAMN VISUAL OF THIS. Barret making happy Cloud and Tifa drinks? LAUGHING THEIR ASSES OFF?!  Barret talking about his past?!

“The other two [Cloud and Tifa] couldn’t remember the last time they’d laughed so much.” 

Let’s be real... probably when they were like 14 - maybe. 

There’s also a part later down that I didn’t get where Barret makes fun of them for getting trashed during this night. I would kill to ALSO see that. 

But... laughing, drunk Cloud? Laughing, drunk Tifa? Plz. 

Happy... sounds like the correct term.

Now there are moments as time goes on - mainly after the bar is open - where Tifa thinks about once the bar gets ready, is Cloud going to leave...

This is where I think people take it as they’re nothing. Tifa I think just has a very hard time accepting that not everything is going to be taken away from her. The impression I got from reading this is it was all in her head. Cloud himself gave no indication that he wanted to leave. (The Geostigma catalyst is later)

And here’s why I said I got no feeling that Cloud wanted to leave. (Oh here’s more about Tifa’s guilt). Above this, Marlene says Cloud and Tifa can be her parents and the two look at each other. Cloud doesn’t look away. Cloud also says Awesome with conviction. Looks at Tifa almost to confirm it’s okay... but these two like to talk without words. I think he knew she was getting nervous, so this was his way of saying “See? I’m not going anywhere?” 

Marlene gave him a nice little assist here so he didn’t have to say anything and Tifa didn’t have to ask. 

Tifa, I think, was already going through her major guilt turmoil - she had an immediate reaction to it. I think she knew, deep down, that Cloud eventually WOULD have this problem, and when she sees the slip from Elmyra for the Forgotten City, I think she knew that was the catalyst. 

“Stop worrying about what they were to each other.” I’ve seen a lot of jokes, mostly on Japanese Twitter posts, that Cloud assumed Tifa was his girlfriend. Like, he didn’t realize he needed to tell her that. I read a post about this somewhere too, that they got the impression Cloud (in the land of Cloud’s mind...) got was that Tifa was his girlfriend and knew this. I’m not sure if it’s because of Under the Highwind, I don’t know if it’s because he pulled the same shit on her and talked to her while she was sleeping. I have no idea. 

To me, Cloud and Tifa don’t have to say they’re boyfriend and girlfriend. It seems kind of funny after all they’ve been through. They’re almost like extensions of each other at this point. 

Okay so the above is from The Kids are Alright. Evan goes to see Tifa at the bar because he just saw Cloud and needs to get to Nibelheim. And Cloud tells him to talk to Tifa. 

I have to laugh about this Evan staring at chest line... lololol

Let’s talk about how she describes Aerith. “Friend doesn’t do her justice.”

...Did Tifa have romantic feelings for Aerith? Probably not (though we’d all be fine with it because Aerti is adorable). @holysmotez​ Made a very good post about how Aerith can be seen more as a holy/religious figure. I think Tifa saying this really does enforce that with me as well. 

Also this is the part where you find out there’s blackmail pictures of all three of them in the dresses: Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith. 

But I marked an interesting one - “I’ll be fine. And I’ve got Cloud, too.” She sounded confident.

Now, I was blowing through this at this point. I will go back and do a normal reading of it, but after this, Kyrie and Evan go on a journey round the world it feels like. There’s Nibelheim talk. They talk about some of the people who were killed during the Reunion and are found at the northern crater. 

And here is the end of The Kids are Alright. 

Cloud tells Evan that they’re a family. 

This is AT THE END OF AC when the church is being utilized as a way to heal folks. On thing that also seems odd... A lot of people were under the impression that Cloud disappeared for months... but it was like a week. Tifa blows him a kissy kissy at the end of the movie, then apparently walks up with him and the kids to see Evan and Kyrie - very family like. 

I also did not get any jealousy vibes from Tifa and no I’m hiding this cuz Aerith feelings from Cloud.

The part where he tells her where he found Denzel felt more like he knew she was worried about him closing in on himself again (which he already was anyway), but her reaction didn’t come off as she felt jealous nor that she felt he was hiding it cuz feelings. She wanted to go cuz she wanted to go and be with him and maybe feel her friend (more than friend) there.

I got the same feeling as I did when he was taking extra jobs to get extra money for his bike. Like I should have told you I was there, and it wasn’t really planned. I think he was praying or whatever the equivalent would be. He was feeling guilty, going down a bad path... because he wasn’t just visiting the church in AC. He also was visiting Zack’s grave. I mean, he let the Buster Sword rust to hell out there. (Angeal knows what you did, Cloud.)

So here’s how I feel after reading this, and now I do think that Remake is setting this up better.

Aerith is the same type of person to Cloud and Tifa. They both feel the same way about her. She feels the same way about them. It’s different than a simple friendship, but it’s not romantic. Spiritual is a good way to describe this. 

There is the part where Aerith says Cloud was more than a friend, for she had loved him. By itself I’d say holy shit, wow, Aerith had romantic feelings for Cloud. After reading the rest of this, thinking of the OG, AC, CC, and Remake - yes, she loved him - but not like she loved Zack - she loved Cloud as a special person, not in a romantic sense. I think she almost felt like she had to protect him, because in this same part when she says she loved him, she also says she knows he has almost a delicate heart, but also needed to find a way to warn him about the shit about to go down. 

I think if you asked Aerith about Tifa, she’d say she loved Tifa too. I think OG didn’t do a good job of building up the Tifa and Aerith friendship to show exactly how important she really was to the whole thing, but time constraints, technology, whatever, a lot of games in the 90s suffered from this type of shit. Get the game out! We’ll figure out the rest later...

This also does not talk about Cloud’s feelings on Aerith. The only indicator we really get in this is that Cloud felt guilty that he could not protect Aerith. 

My guess is he told Tifa this at one point, probably during one of the conversations that she needed his help to stay strong. That’s not romance. He felt obligated to protect her because he was supposed to be her bodyguard, but beyond that, he just protects people. He doesn’t have to be madly in love with them. There’s a difference in how he reacts to her death and Tifa’s simulated death. Cloud is able to function, fight Jenova, and carry her off to drop her off in the lake. 

Tifa’s he completely starts to freak. We see what he does in Nibelheim and overtakes Sephiroth. I am not sure what would have happened if Sephiroth didn’t stab him and Tifa had died at that point... I really don’t know. 

In any case, you should go read these novels too. The Kids are Alright has Kyrie and Leslie in it. Evan I’m sure we will see at some point soon.

Don’t be afraid to read them... I was because of shit information online, so I hope this puts you at ease.

Oh, Barret and Cid have a conversation about Cloud and Tifa being together too... 

[stonertransdad]

Life Update since I hadn't been on here in forever

The pandemic was/is wild! Lockdowns started literally around the time we were going to the fertility specialist to get her pregnant. I lost my job to COVID in March shortly before we did the procedure, but we decided there's never really a good time to have a kid. Why not during a global pandemic when one of us in unemployed? (BTW, I don't recommend having a kid during a pandemic. Not being able to go to all of the appointments and having to sit in the parking lot was brutal.)

Let's talk about May friends...it was rough. (TW for mention of suicide btw. I'll post a gif where it's safe to start again if you wanna skip over it.)

So May 1st is the anniversary of my father's suicide. It had been 4 years. I found his body and since he wasn't married, I had to handle his affairs and arrange his funeral. May 1st, 2020 my wife and I had a Zoom game night with our friends and I got drunk because everyone was drinking (except my wife because she was pregnant). After our game night at like 2am, I had a psychotic break. I threatened to kill myself numerous times. My wife tried to talk me down, but eventually called the cops to take me. I thank her for that because looking back, that was the moment I knew something needed to change. I was convinced the cops were gonna kill me because I'm a trans dude in rural West Texas. I legit took the phone out of my wife's hand, hung up on 911, and yeeted her phone across the backyard and tried to hop the fence. Eventually the cops came and talked me down. They took me to the hospital an hour away in handcuffs (for their protection I did nothing wrong). They took me to the religious hospital that I was born in. So when they looked up my info by my name and date of birth from my driver's license (I only changed my middle name) literally all my paperwork and my bracelet had my deadname and wrong gender despite all of my legal stuff saying male with my new middle name. I mentioned it to them and they didn't care. They misgendered me the entire time I was there. I had hit my head hella hard on the bath tub when my wife was trying to snap me out of it, did the hospital even check me for concussion? Nope. I had punched so many things and my hand and wrist were swollen and discolored. Did they check out my hand and wrist? Nope. I was there for over 10 hours before I was able to convince them I was okay and that it was just the alcohol. Did I mention during that 10 hours I was literally out in the hall on a gurney with no mask and this was when COVID was running rampant in Texas (the first time)? I heard people die that night. I had nothing to distract me because they took away all of my personal items and clothes. My wife picked me up and we went home and I have been sober ever since. It's not the first psychotic break I've had with alcohol in my system. Alcohol just doesn't agree with me, but I'm finding new things to replace it with.

TW has been lifted...it's safe now.

A couple of weeks after that I began teletherapy because I had been on the same mood stabilizer and anti-depressant for almost a decade. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that I felt like it hadn't been working for at least a year. This is a reminder to check in with your doctor if you feel like your meds aren't working. You may just need a different dose or a new med. There's no shame in that. I bounced around on various medications trying to find the right combo, some side effects scarier than others, but we got there. Before this, I had been diagnosed with ADHD, Major Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. My therapist threw out my Borderline diagnosis and said it was CPTSD instead, which made sense.

Fast forward to December because my wife was pregnant, I was unemployed still, and we did absolutely fuck-all because the global panini was still raging.

Our son was born on December 3, 2020. He weighed 5lbs 9oz and scared the ever loving shit out of us. He wasn't breathing when he was born so they called NICU in ASAP. I'm freaking out because I can hear and see what's going on while my wife was asking if he was okay as they put her guts back in place to sew her up. 5 or so minutes pass and a nurse asks if I want her to take some pictures. I'm like is he okay, he still hasn't cried. She's like "oh yeah, he's chillin." This goon was being held by a nurse and was just looking around not crying or anything. Chillest baby ever (he still is btw). I held him next to my wife's head until it was time to go back to the room. Little dude did have to spend 4 nights in the NICU because he couldn't keep his sugars or temperature regulated, but he was healthy otherwise. He's now 4 months old and is starting to sit up on his own a little bit and he's OBSESSED with standing. He's still a little guy, but very healthy and growing like a weed. He saves my life daily.

So after being unemployed for over 9 months, I started a new job working in a call center. I absolutely hate talking on the phone. It gives me anxiety and throws me into panic attacks, but I had been putting out hundreds of job applications since I lost my last job and this was the first offer I got. I wasn't really in a position to turn it down since my unemployment had ran out 2 months prior. It was 2 months of training, then we'd be on our own. I got thru the training and thought I could handle it...until they started putting us on live calls with someone helping us if we got stuck. My mental health hit the lowest point it had in a few years and my wife was terrified she was going to lose me. She convinced me to quit on February 28th (not because I didn't want to, but because I'm a stubborn ass who felt guilty). My meds got tweaked a little bit more dosage wise during this mess.

Starting about mid-February, I was experiencing severe shakiness, tremors, and spasms. I've always been a shaky person and never really thought too much about it, but at some points I could barely feed myself, or get a drink, or hold my son. On March 7th, I tried to make an appointment with my doctor about the weird symptoms I was experiencing, but she was out of town and her next opening wasn't until the 31st. My body said that won't work and my wife rushed me to the ER on the 9th...I had begun having seizures that day. I had no previous history of seizures. Got to the ER and had a seizure literally as I was walking thru the door, so they rushed me straight back. They took some blood and that was literally it. No MRI. No CT. They pumped me full of Ativan and said it was just a panic attack and to go home and chill.

Spoiler Alert: It wasn't just anxiety. I was having 20+ seizures a day. On the 10th, my wife rushed me to a different hospital...the good hospital over an hour away. First we had to drop off our gremlin with my mom to make things a little easier. Yet again, I had a seizure as I walked in the door and was taken back immediately. I don't really remember much because they kept pumping me full of Ativan and morphine because I had been in excruciating pain from the number of seizures I'd had. I do remember them doing a CT pretty quickly after I got there. Then they weren't happy with the results of the CT, so they took me to get an MRI, which showed possible signs of Multiple Sclerosis (but I didn't find that out until AFTER the notes showed up in my patient portal after being home a few days, so I raised hell...more on that later.) They did a 24 hour EEG on me and it showed nothing abnormal. Also, EEG glue is a bitch on your hair and scalp. After looking at everything and given my previous mental health history, they diagnosed me with Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures, or PNES. It is a subset of Functional Neurologic Disorder, or FND. I couldn't walk well anymore and had to use a walker when I was discharged. I was in the hospital for 3 days.

When I had my follow-up appointment on the 23rd, I asked why the possibility of MS was never mentioned to me since it was very clearly in the notes. The doctor didn't have an explanation. He called in a referral to neurology so I could get a 2nd MRI to confirm MS and marked it as high priority. He also didn't take my pain seriously. My pain levels had been at a 5 or higher every single minute since they took me off of the morphine in the hospital. He told me to keep taking prescription strength doses of ibuprofen and Tylenol, which I had been. I let him know I had been and it didn't even take the edge off the pain. He ignored me. Leading up to this appointment, I had also added urinary incontinence to my growing list of symptoms and was forced to wear diapers so I didn't have to do laundry all the time. The doctor also took me off my ADHD meds because they were lowering my seizure threshold. He also took me off of my sleeping meds and nightmare meds for the same reason I'm assuming.

I kept my appointment on the 31st with my primary doctor because she's been my doctor for 5 years now and I knew she'd take my pain seriously. She did. She immediately wrote me prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and Tylenol 4. She also told me that my referral had been rejected by neuro. She said my case wasn't a good one for what she called a "wallet biopsy" and the doctors in neurology could be real assholes. She immediately sent the referral to other locations to get an approval. I am still waiting on that despite it being marked as high priority. She wrote me a prescription for a wheelchair because we both agreed my wheelchair was not enough for particular days.

Yesterday my wheelchair was finally ready for pickup, so my wife drove me to go get it. I'm still unable to drive due to my seizures and my tremors and twitches as it's predominantly in my legs and arms. I am an ambulatory wheelchair user now. Some days I can go short distances without my walker, some days I can't go without my walker, some days I can't even get out of bed, and some days I will be using my wheelchair. Don't judge a book by its cover, not all disabilities are visible. I have managed to keep my daily seizure count down in single digits and have even had a few seizure free days. They are still incredibly taxing on my body. I feel like I can't ever replenish my spoons fast enough to keep up with anything in my life.

So all in all, life has been chaotic. We are moving from Texas to New Mexico in the next few weeks, which should be interesting considering I can't overdo it without throwing myself into seizures. We will be closer to my mother-in-law so she can help us with our son and I can start resting a bit more on the more difficult days. Being a stay-at-home dad with an invisible illness has been one of the most challenging things I've done in my life, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Sorry this is so long. I just wanted to update my followers since it's been over a year since I posted before a few days ago.

[imaginingsoftly]

Baseball Trivia Pt. 2 - Josh Anderson

Type: Y/N insert shorts, strangers to enemies-ish to lovers, series

Requested: No

Warnings: standard swearing

There was no fucking way. Y/N stared at Thatcher as he talked, but the words he was saying weren’t computing. No fucking way was Josh Anderson on his way to Vancouver. It was like fate had heard her think that they would never meet again and laughed as she sent Josh in Y/N’s direction. “Earth to Y/N, where the fuck did you just go?” She snapped back to the present, shaking her head and smiling at the mountain of a man in front of her instead of responding. Thatcher gave her another weird look before continuing. “We’re gonna have the end-of-summer barbeque at my place after the last day of training camp, and I expect you to be there. Someone’s gotta help me man the grill.” 

It was tradition. End-of-summer barbeques had become a thing beginning their sophomore year at BC, after the pair had become close during their freshman year. Almost eight years later it was still a yearly tradition, though now the barbeque was extended to the entirety of the training-camp team rather than just a few friends. “Took you long enough to pick a date,” Y/N retorted, slapping the bill of Thatcher’s baseball hat. “ I thought I was gonna have to have a barbeque all by myself.” Thatcher slapped the bill of her hat in response, and it turned into an all-out war. As an only child, Thatcher had become the closest thing she had to a brother, shenanigans included. It was refreshing to have someone to mess with who wouldn’t get upset when she roughhoused a little. 

Even while trying not to let Thatcher and his professional athlete muscles overpower her much smaller frame Y/N found her mind wandering back to Josh. There was really no reason for her to be freaking out as much as she was. It was one hook up. There were no strings implied, no numbers exchanged, it’s not like she ghosted the guy, not really. Thatcher had never really expressed any distaste towards her dating other NHLers, but it was different when it came to his teammates. They were like his brothers, and were therefore her brothers by extension. In other words, off limits. 

She really just needed to relax. He wasn’t even on the team when they got together. Everything would be fine. Josh was part of the family now, and she would follow his lead. If he wanted people to know they hooked up then fine, but if he wanted to act like a stranger that was even better. Thatcher was a little bit too protective of Y/N at times, and she religiously avoided getting into it with his teammates just to make sure she didn’t mess with team chemistry. Honestly, there was a chance Josh wouldn’t even remember her. It’s not like the guy had a glowing reputation anyway, and they had been drinking. It would be fine. Maybe if Y/N repeated it to herself often enough, she would start to believe it. 

Y/N sighed heavily, giving in as Thatcher managed to wrestle her into a headlock. “Seriously, Y/N, are you okay?” Thatcher released his arm and turned her so they were facing each other. Crap. Here comes the interrogation. “You’ve been on another planet since we started talking. What gives?” She shrugged. There was no way she was going there right now. 

“I guess I’m just tired, bro,” she said with a shrug, “conference play just started. I’ve got a lot on my plate.” Thatcher reached up to squeeze her shoulders, and Y/N struggled not to cringe at how easily he ate up her lie. It sucked to lie to him, but there was no way she was going to tell him about Josh, not without talking to Josh first. Her response seemed to placate Thatcher, and he gave up on that line of questioning after making Y/N promise to take care of herself. 

Keeping things from Thatcher was tough; he was there for her after her boyfriend of three years broke up with her halfway through their junior year of college, he drove her down to UConn the summer after graduation so she could begin her first internship as a college grad, and he’d been the one to welcome her to Vancouver with open arms after the completion of said internship. He was there for every important part of her adult life, and now the one thing she hadn’t told him was going to bite her in the ass. The universe was out to get her. 

Training camp would begin tomorrow, and in a couple of weeks Y/N would have to face Josh in the same backyard she was sitting in at the moment. There went any sleep she had planned to get before basketball was added to her workload. 

---Josh POV--------------------------------------------------

“So there’s no one in your life? No girl at all? Not even a hookup?” The questions were getting annoying, to say the least. It wasn’t the guys’ fault; they just wanted to get to know him. The problem was that he shouldn’t be doing this. He was supposed to stay in Columbus, live his life there until he retired and then move back to Canada. 

Josh shook his head. “No hookup. Although there was this one girl,” he said with a small smile, “she was something else. We talked for hours at the bar, and she knew so much about baseball and hockey history. We hooked up, and then she was gone when I woke up the next morning. No note, no number, nothing. And she was from out of town, so I couldn’t even try running into her at the same bar again.” All of the guys groaned sympathetically, and they finally let that line of questioning go. Truthfully, he hadn’t thought about that girl in months. She had been fun to talk to, and tough enough to dish back everything Boone and Seth had thrown at her, but it wasn’t like he wanted to fucking marry the girl or anything. Mostly, it was the fact that she had left that stuck with him. He was always the one leaving. The girls usually tried to hang around, maybe try to get more than one night. It was an asshole thing to think, he knew that, but damn it sucked to be on the other end of it. He didn’t even know where she lived. In all of their time talking he only learned she worked at a university. He didn’t even know if it was in the States or Canada. 

A tape ball connected with the side of his head, and Josh shot a glare at Bo from across the locker room. A middle finger almost followed, until he noticed video cameras catching the exchange. Josh waved at the intern behind the camera sheepishly. They would have had to cut that for their welcome back video if he hadn’t caught himself. Another tape ball came flying at his head, courtesy of Stecher, and Josh whipped that one back at his teammate with a grin. The guys were alright, even if some of them could be pretty childish. Even Hughes acted older than some of the guys, and he was the team baby. A body slumped down into the stall next to Josh’s, and he looked over to find Thatcher watching him. “‘Sup, Dems?” 

Thatcher smiled up at Josh, a shock considering the choice words he’d thrown in Josh’s direction after a particularly nasty dangle he’d put past the goalie at the end of practice. “Barbeque at my place this afternoon.” Shit. He’d planned on exploring the city, maybe finding a hookup tonight. “Non-negotiable, everyone comes,” Thatcher interrupted, almost like he knew Josh was about to refuse. “It’s a tradition. One of my college friends and I get together and man the grill. We’ve been doing it for almost eight years now. Bring yourself and your booze of choice if it isn’t beer or wine.” Josh nodded. Your goalie says you come to some end-of-summer party, you go to the party. Don’t mess with a goalie’s traditions or superstitions. Thatcher stood, punching Josh’s shoulder. “Everybody starts showing up around 4. See you then.” 

Thatcher made his way around the locker room repeating the same announcement, and it was met with shouts of excitement and reminiscing on barbecues of year’s past. Clearly it was a hit. Brock and Petey somehow roped Josh into riding to the party with them, promising that Josh would be happy he’d taken an Uber with them instead of driving himself. “The drinking is legendary,” Brock had promised, a solemn nod of agreement coming from both Petey and Stecher, who flanked Brock. Legendary parties were his thing. This would be even ground, and he could keep up. Bring on the drinking.

--Y/N POV----------------------------------------------------

Y/N woke up the day of the barbeque feeling sick as the Dropkick Murphys blasted on her alarm. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself it would be fine, running into the guy she had ghosted was going to suck. Hopefully he was as interested in revealing their hookup as she was, and it would never get mentioned again. 

She groaned as her alarm continued to scream the lyrics to Rose Tattoo, reaching up to swipe the alarm off her phone. Thatcher was expecting her at his place before he left for camp in an hour with a list of groceries for him to pick up on the way home. The desserts Y/N had prepared the night before were sitting on the counter when she stumbled into the kitchen for coffee, mocking her with their chocolatey stare. It was going to be one of those days. She caved, shoving one of the cupcakes into her mouth with a groan. If she didn’t get a handle on herself before she made it to Thatcher’s he was going to get suspicious. The last time she acted this strangely some poor kid from the Comets almost got punched for flirting with her. The guys had good intentions, but sometimes they took the caveman shit too far. 

With her coffee brewed and cupcake eaten, Y/N shuffled into the bathroom to get ready for the day. She washed her face and brushed her teeth on autopilot, debating if mascara were really necessary. The guys had seen her at her worst, and she didn’t really care what they thought about the sprinkling of acne on her jawline that just wouldn’t go away. It’s not like she was interested in any of those idiots. Well, any of the idiots that had been with the team before a couple of weeks ago, anyway.

A hat would be necessary, even if she was just going to be in Thatcher’s house until it was time to grill. Her nose would burn something awful if she didn’t wear something with a bit of protection, and the soccer games she was working that week would just add to the burn. Hat protection for sure. She slapped on an old BC Hockey hat, one she’d stolen from Thatcher, and looked into her closet with a sigh. The decision on what to wear took far too long. The guys loved to throw her in the pool, especially Brock when he got drunk, so her bathing suit needed to be reliable. The problem was that they also loved to take photos for their social media pages, and her most reliable swimsuits were also the least flattering. The black and white striped bikini was the most durable, but Y/N really wanted to wear the strappy midnight blue one-piece she’d gotten on a whim during a day trip to Seattle. Durability won out in the end, and the bikini was stuffed into her bag beside the pajamas that would inevitably find use when she didn’t want to go all the way home at the end of the night. 

Y/N’s drive to Thatcher’s was relaxing. She lived in the middle of the city, fond of the ability to walk down the street to the grocery store or the bars, but Thatcher’s place was right outside the city, on a quiet sidestreet that better resembled a neighborhood in her hometown. She stopped at their favorite coffee shop on her way out of the city, picking up another coffee for her and a breakfast sandwich for Thatcher. It didn’t matter how many times the nutritionist told him to knock it off, Y/N knew he relied on those sandwiches to get him through morning skates. In no way was Thatcher a happy camper in the morning. His attitude rivaled even hers. Thatcher was waiting outside when she arrived, sitting on his front stoop like she had missed curfew or something. 

“You’re late,” Thatcher called as she opened her door, “and you’re gonna make me late for camp if you don’t hurry it the fuck up.” Y/N raised her middle finger in response, leaning back into the car for the desserts. Thatcher appeared behind her to help carry things, and Y/N had to slap his hand away from the trays when he tried to reach for a cookie. If he ate one now, he’d eat them all by the time the actual party started. She’d learned that lesson the hard way. Y/N placed the breakfast sandwich on top of the tray of cookies Thatcher was carrying, and he leaned down quickly to kiss her cheek. “You’re the bomb, bro, my saviour.” Y/N rolled her eyes. He was so dramatic about his breakfast sandwiches. 

Y/N finally managed to get Thatcher out the door and off to camp with a promise to get the backyard ready for that night, so long as he grabbed the necessary groceries on the way home. It was their agreement since they’d both settled in Vancouver; she brought dessert and got the house ready for guests, Thatcher bought all the food and alcohol. Everything was ready for the night, really, with the exception of the grill. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since she cleaned it last summer, so Y/N grabbed all of her cleaning supplies with a sigh. She needed a clean grill if they were going to make burgers tonight. That was non-negotiable. 

---Josh POV--------------------------------------------------

Brock and Stecher were far too loud when they were tipsy. Petey was fine, if anything even more quiet than normal, but the other two were borderline obnoxious. The pregame had begun the moment everyone rolled up to Brock’s place, and Josh had to admit he hadn’t expected it. Pregaming a team party was a little weird, but hey, he was with a bunch of fellow hockey players. They didn’t always do things that made sense. Herding them into the Uber waiting on the street outside Petey’s apartment was no easy feat, and Josh felt himself sweating a little bit as the responsible one of the party. This never happened. He was always the one being herded.

The ride was long, as apparently Thatcher lived outside the city, and Brock kept Josh entertained with stories of barbecues past. “I think the worst, though, was that time Jake almost drowned.” Stecher started laughing, and Josh stared at him uncomfortably. A teammate almost drowning was funny? Brock must have caught his expression, because he hurriedly continued. “He wasn’t actually drowning, he was just so drunk that he sat in the shallow end and yelled for help. It came up to like his chest.” Stecher roared with laughter again, and Josh joined in a little bit. That must’ve been a sight.

Thatcher’s house was far too nice for a bachelor, a moderately large home that was built for a small family and not a single hockey player who basically lived on the road. It was homey-looking, covered in gray wooden shingles and boasting a wrap-around porch Josh envied. It was perfect for sitting with a small group of friends. He could only imagine the inside, if the outside was any indication. The landscaping and yard decorations gave away that Thatcher hadn’t decorated the place himself. The inside probably looked like a design catalogue vomited on it.

Cars lined the long driveway and the street in front of it, all Range Rovers and fancy sports cars guys who didn’t know how to spend their money splurged for. Josh caught himself as the wave of negative thoughts continually rolled over him. These were his teammates, not the enemy. Those thoughts weren’t helpful. 

Josh was pulled out of his line of thinking by the stopping of the Uber, and he was the only one to thank the older guy driving as they all piled out of the car. Petey led the way into the house, though Stecher made his presence known with a shouted hello as he brought them through a hallway that indeed looked like a design catalogue and into a bright and airy kitchen. The cabinets were white, as were the countertops, though most of the walls were covered in some kind of dark teal tile. 

Thatcher was slumped on a countertop, flicking the bill of the baseball cap on the girl in front of him. He laughed when she raised a middle finger at him, flicking the hat again. The girl mumbled something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like a threat, in a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. She reached up and smacked Thatcher’s hand when he went to flick her hat again, and Thatcher laughed harder as he swept three beers off the counter and walked back outside through the accordion doors to his left. The girl shook her head after him, though the moment was broken when Brock stumbled into the room behind Josh. 

“Y/N!” Brock yelled enthusiastically. He threw his arms around the girl from behind, and the laugh she let out made Josh freeze. It couldn’t be. “Babe,” Brock continued, “you’ve gotta meet our new teammate. He’s your kind of player. Likes to hit things.” Brock began to turn the girl around by the arm still slung over her shoulders, and Josh almost shouted at him to stop. He knew that laugh, and the girl attached couldn’t be here. Their eyes met, and Josh saw the panic he felt reflected in her eyes.

He was so fucked. 

[loulougoingsolo]

My thoughts on Rhett’s story

Rhett telling the story of his spiritual journey made me feel more than I thought was possible for me, and this post is my attempt to put my feelings to words. I don’t know if any of what I wrote under the break makes any sense, but if you’re interested, go ahead and click through. Just in case, TW: religion and TW: mental health, although I didn’t really go into anything specific.

And because my text is a bit of a mess, if it leaves you with thoughts or questions, I’m open for discussion. Right now I feel like there is a bouncy ball going randomly around in my brain, and I need to spend the rest of this day in trying to make it stop.

I spent most of my 60 minute therapy session yesterday talking about all the things Rhett’s story on Ear Biscuits made me feel and think. I’ve been in a bit of a loop all week, trying to figure out why I felt so much. I’ve never really been able to believe in a god or a higher power, yet hearing Rhett tell about how painful his process of losing faith was, made me feel his pain, and somehow my own, and it confused the heck out of me.

I planned to write a more comprehensive commentary post about this Ear Biscuit, but every time I’ve started, my emotions have taken over me, and I had to skip the original idea of including the links to the books Rhett mentions. Instead of being factual, logical and scientific about this, I’m just going to explain how I felt, why I felt it, and what I think about all this.

So, I’m not religious. Most times, everything outside of logic confuses me. I want to know facts, and base all my decisions on the real things, and that’s just the way I am. I have serious trust issues in my everyday life, but in a way, also when it comes to spirituality. I also have serious issues with maintaining control, and the thought of losing this control freaks me out – in small things and major, life-changing things. Losing control feels like someone suddenly pulls the rug from under my feet, and I fall from an airplane without a parachute. Or as if I was first sitting safely in a boat, but suddenly, I was dropped into the ocean in the middle of open water, with nothing to hold on to, and no solid ground beneath my feet. At this point, if you’ve listened to Rhett’s story, jumping from a boat to water is how he described the moment he realized he could no longer believe in the god he had believed in for his entire life.

Rhett’s religion was based on the bible, and on a complete trust in god and Jesus. His faith was what provided him security, happiness, way of living and a path to follow. He had everything figured out, and all he needed to do was follow this path. There is such security in knowing what you are supposed to do.

I wasn’t raised to believe in god. I believed, and still do, in science and knowledge. At around the same time as when Rhett decided to pursue a path as being a missionary, and saving the souls of non-believers, I was absolutely certain that I had a similar path all paved and ready. I was going to be a science-woman, I  was studying environmental biology in the university, and was driven by my desire to save the world. I had found my passion for environmental work as a teenager, and everything in my life was directing me to this path.

Rhett had to really push himself over the years to be able to ignore his doubts. He wanted to believe, because his faith was the basis for his entire being. When he finally couldn’t erase all of his doubts, he suddenly had nothing to believe in – and even though he says multiple times he wasn’t traumatized by anything in the church, he most certainly experienced massive trauma when he had to let go of it all. He didn’t choose to lose faith, yet he did, and losing everything you believe in is traumatic.

Not believing in higher powers, and having all the trust issues I have, I’ve ever only been able to believe in myself. Too bad, it turned out around when I was 23, that I wasn’t quite as trustworthy as I believed myself to be. I’ve been socially awkward, anxious and a perfectionist for as long as I can remember, and because of my anxieties, I didn’t ever really get close to other people. I survived through high school and childhood mostly by being pretty smart and just clueless enough to actually realize if someone tried to bully me. I knew I never really had very good friends like the other kids, but I was an introvert, and perfectly happy on my own – and it was my fortune that I grew up in a small community, and went to school with the same kids from kindergarten to end of high school. Life was stable and safe. Too bad, it didn’t really prepare me for the big world, and when life got too complicated for me to handle, I lost faith in myself and was left with nothing.

I tried to be what I expected myself to be, and what I assumed my parents, the society, my high school teachers and everyone around me expected me to be. At 23, I couldn’t return to my university classes after the summer break, and I was in the deepest personal crisis I have ever been. I felt like a failure, and I felt I could never again face anyone I knew, because I had let them and myself down. I sought help, went to therapy, and at one point, realized that the path I assumed I would follow wasn’t for me. I had to tell my family I wouldn’t be going back to university. I had to accept that I couldn’t control all of my feelings with logic, and thus lost the foundation to my existence.

It took me quite a few years of therapy and rebuilding myself to get to where I’m at today. First, I found my joy of making art – something that the science life had almost successfully deleted from my life. I went to study jewellery making, and slowly started to believe in myself again – only to experience quite a few relapses along the way. Despite finding a new path in my life in doing art and making jewellery, I still had to come to grips with the fact that I was on the asexual spectrum, and bisexual, and I’m currently, with the help of my therapist and psychiatrist, figuring out if some of my lifelong problems might be based on being neurodiverse (I’ve been going to tests for this for a while now). All of this has forced me to accept that I can’t control my life quite as much as I’d like, and I’m still trying to find a balance between the logical and the emotional parts of what makes me, me. I feel so much more whole now than back 20 years ago, even though there are so many things I can’t know for sure.

Rhett had to rebuild his belief system, and re-evaluate what his core values in life were. He has gone through the painful process of telling his loved ones that he no longer believes the things they still believe, and he basically had to rebuild his marriage from a different perspective – and by the sounds of it, he and Jessie are now in a good place in their relationship.

What struck me most about listening to Rhett’s story is that despite him starting out as a devoted Christian, and me starting out as more than anything, a religiously scientific, somehow, in 40+ years, we’ve somehow come to many of the same conclusions, and despite the obvious differences, we have a lot in common. We both lost the foundation to our lives and had to rebuild ourselves on firmer ground.

I wouldn’t describe myself a hopeful agnostic, but I have to admit there are so many things in this universe I can’t fully comprehend, and even though I can’t believe in a higher power, I feel connected to everything in this world through nature. Thinking about the universe, I’ve understood that the human existence is such a tiny fraction of everything that sometimes it feels absurd how much time and effort our species has spent trying to explain it all. In the end, all religions are attempts to explain the things we don’t know for a fact, and what we believe is only the result of the culture we’ve grown up in. In the grand scheme of things, we are friggin’ small.

I need to end this (probably very incoherent) post before I get sucked into the loop again – but I also have to get this posted so I can get it out of my system. I think Rhett’s current philosophy of living his life the best way he can, and focusing on this one life he can be certain of instead of worrying too much about what happens after he’s dead, is a pretty good idea. In my own life, I’ll continue on my path of learning to accept myself with flaws and all, and instead of trying to fit into a specific box of any kind, I’ll focus on shaping my own kind of container. I still struggle with accepting that not everything can be controlled, but sometimes losing control can create something pretty amazing. I kind of lost the control of my emotions while listening to Rhett’s story, but after almost a week of processing everything his words brought to surface in me, I am grateful for him sharing his story. I’ve never felt more proud for being a Mythical Beast – being a part of this community has enrichened my life more than words can express.

[tessatechaitea]

Kid Eternity #2

This cover says, "Don't look at who wrote it! Just look at how interesting these visuals are! Sucker."

In my review of Kid Eternity #1, I threw out a few theories on why Ann Nocenti's writing is so weird. After reading page one of this issue, I've thrown those theories out again but in a different way. That makes complete sense if you understand English idioms and also understand that everything Ann Nocenti writes is basically pre-trash.

This is page one of Kid Eternity #2 and it will probably get this review banned on Tumblr.

I have a new theory: Ann Nocenti asked what a Vertigo comic book should be and editor Tom Peyer probably joked, "They're mostly tits and profound nonsense." So Ann Nocenti's vagina gobbed in her underwear and she squealed with glee. "That's what I do!" she chortled merrily! I probably shouldn't abuse Ann Nocenti for writing things I don't understand. I have plenty of choices of other people to abuse for it: my elementary school teachers for not calling me out on doing just enough to get by; my junior high school teachers who let me get away with not putting any effort into big year-end projects (In science, we were supposed to make a stone age tool. I rubber glued a carved-to-a-shoddy point stick to another stick (which was worse than my friend Robert who put some pine needles into a split stick, calling the weapon "Ow"); in English, we had one project based on Romeo and Juliet (because all we did that quarter was watch and read various versions of the play) and I refused to do it because the teacher was wasting my time; in Computers, I found Dan Felipe's project, a trivia program, and I just copied it and used it for my own project (changing all the questions and line numbers and other things to make it seem like it wasn't plagiarized but, I mean, come on! In fairness to me, I only did it because the stupid fucking school changed computers halfway through the semester, dropping the TRS-80s for Apples and my project was relying on the Poke images of the TRS-80 to create an animated sequence)); my high school English teacher, Mr. Borror, for reading nearly everything I wrote in front of the class so that I began to think I was the wittiest fucker in Santa Clara High; my college teachers for some reason or another that allows me to not blame my own lack of ability; and probably my parents because if they were any good at their parental jobs, I wouldn't be writing a blog about comic books. In other words, I'm sure Ann Nocenti is a philosophical genius while I'm just a guy who blames everybody else for things I don't understand. Even if I truly felt Ann Nocenti was an underrated genius whose writings I'm incapable of parsing, I would never ask her to explain what she meant by this first page of Kid Eternity #2. I just wouldn't feel comfortable putting her on the spot like that. It's not up to the artist to explain their art to the foolish audience! Only the Christian Messiah bears that responsibility (and, let's face it, he wouldn't have had to explain every fucking parable if he'd been able to convince smarter people of his bullshit). So if it's up to me to interpret this first page gibber gabber, I suppose I should get to business. Or kill myself. I mean, killing myself would be easier and less painful. And I totally would kill myself before reading more Ann Nocenti comic books except I have plans to cut my toenails in a few months. Before I begin trying to understand this hogwash, I'd like to point out that if she'd written it as a sonnet, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I'd read it, think, "Yep, that's a sonnet!", nod my head in sage understanding, and then jerk off to the titties. But this is not a sonnet so it is not allowed to be obtuse simply for obtuseness' sake. So this fucking speech. First off, who is speaking? The serpent trying to fuck the naked lady? Is this the speech the serpent used on Eve to get her to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Although if that's the case, how would talking about Buddha convince Eve of anything? I'll assume the serpent is omniscient (because he may or may not be Satan, depending on what holy men or con artists you believe but certainly isn't Satan if you're simply going by the Book of Genesis. I bet the serpent was God doing one of those Zeus things minus the rape. Zeus loved to trick people so he could get laid; Yahweh tricks people to test their faith). I guess since she had yet to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (come on, God! That name is terrible), she wouldn't know what she doesn't know and can't defend against any nonsense the serpent spews at her. Let's assume the art goes with the speech and it's the serpent speaking. So why is "God in repair" and what the fuck does that mean? And why is it followed by the statement, "Why not call the wisest man a freak?" Does the snake only speak in non sequiturs? Was that a stupid question since I already know the snake's dialogue is being written by Ann Nocenti? It is kind of refreshing to see that her dialogue style never changed in thirty years. The shit the serpent says on this page could be nonsense spewed by Coil from Nocenti's New 52 Katana. You know what? I don't have to continue this because, in the end, it's just a carnival barker's pitch to get people to believe in the freaks in his freak show. He's all, "What's the difference between freaks and religion?!" That's not a riddle I have an answer for. The only religious joke I know is "What do Noah's Ark and The Bible have in common?" That might be a joke that was extant before I came up with it but I did come up with it on my own. And I think the answer is so obvious I would be insulting the intelligence of all four people reading this. Oh, and the snake trying to fuck the lady? It's a tattoo on the Tattooed Lady. The reason the comic begins in a circus freak show? Because Kid Eternity is the newest freak on display! The opening sideshow scene is just one of Kid Eternity's dreams. The demon angel babies get into Kid Eternity's dream and when he wakes up, they've tied his hair to the floor which totally has him trapped for like three panels. That was a close one! Kid Eternity decides he can't truly know what he's doing unless he utterly knows himself. So it's time to get his brain probed.

Let me guess: Carl will blather on about synchronicity and dreams while Freud tries to figure out how big Kid Eternity's penis is.

Carl doesn't initially discuss anything. He's just the straight man for Freud saying all the typical things you'd expect Freud to say: penis this, envy that, fuck your mom, kill your dad, more penises, many more penises, everything is penises. But then he comes on fast and furious with his archetypes and collective unconscious and human mythology stuff, all the biggest Carl Jung hits (aside from synchronicity but I'm sure he'll get around to that later. Ann Nocenti isn't going to miss showing the readers all the knowledge nuggets she mined to make her brain big). If only Nocenti would spend as much time writing the story as she spends making sure the readers know she knows a lot of shit then maybe I would have kept reading this comic book. Meanwhile, Zeus wanders around looking for somebody to trick fuck, Madame Blavatsky hunts down the next best burger before she slips back to the past, Beelzebub and Judas wander through Limbo, Jesus gets drunk and falls off a bar stool, and a phone yells at a woman. That all happens on one page to make sure the reader remembers other things are happening. But why does Ann Nocenti spend two panels of that dense page on Madame Blavatsky when she could have updated the reader on the non-X-File FBI agents who will probably hate fuck each other before the story ends? I also wanted an update on the Buddha Christ Trash Child. But no! Instead Nocenti just moves on to more of her proof that she's read all about Freud and Jung and totally understands the shallow top layer of their theories and philosophies. I don't mean to say I know any more than Ann Nocenti! But I understand how little I know of Freud and everything she's had him say are things everybody knows about Freud from all the dirty jokes about him: ids, supermen, parental relations, and phalli!

Oh, that's why we didn't get an update on the dense update page; Nocenti needed a full page to document the hate/fuck.

My new Ann Nocenti writing theory: Ann Nocenti has never had an original thought. She simply reads things, takes copious notes of bits and quotes she likes, and then shoves them sideways into whatever script she's currently writing. No wait. She does have original thoughts but they're almost not worth having. Like "everything in life is a prison" and then proving it by stating a few things about life that can be cell-like. It's profound in that way that things are profound when you're on acid. If you don't think about it, you can find yourself nodding along going, "Yeah! Yeah! Everything is a prison! Life is a fucking prison!" But if you do stop to think about it, it's like coming down off acid. You start to see how that thought you had about how the number three ties everything else in the universe together because of the way the corners meet didn't wasn't as mind blowing as it was six hours ago. Although the rant you went on about how pressing play on the VCR remote play the show and pressing pause pauses it but then to unpause it you have to hit pause again when you should really hit play was pretty fucking good. Speaking of acid, I'm two-thirds of the way through the acid documentary on Netflix and it's fucking fantastic. I wasn't really thinking a lot about it but I was nodding along going, "Yeah! Yeah! Everything they're saying about acid is absolutely spot on!" throughout. I actually had to take a break because it was making me too happy listening to all Sting and Carrie Fisher tell their acid stories. I don't know why I didn't just spend five paragraphs discussing why the FBI agents were playing Scrabble while they fucked. It's probably just one of Sean Phillips' kinks. Oh, maybe they were just playing Scrabble and not hate-fucking. It's hard to tell because on the next page, Jerry asks Val if they can finally fuck and Val is all, "You're a nerd!" Then she slits his throat. But then in the next panel, his throat isn't slit and he's all, "You feeling better?" And she's all, "Yeah!" So I don't know what the fuck is going on and I don't really care. I've still got like eight pages of this mess to get through and I'd rather just nod along than try to understand it. And then just like last issue, Ann Nocenti sputters out a bit of writing that I totally agree with because I've said basically the same thing before. About how every day, I fall in love with some person I see on the street because of the smallest of things. And then I love them forever.

My story isn't as good but I once fell in love walking through the airport in Minneapolis. I was passing by an attractive woman and she was gazing off somewhere as I looked at her face. She was coming up on my right and then I glanced down at her breasts and back up at her face. And that was the moment she noticed me, as I glanced from her breasts to her face. And, catching me, she smiled and laughed and kept on walking. And I still love her to this day.

And for this page alone, I forgive all of Ann Nocenti's past (future?) transgressions and find myself eager to read Kid Eternity #3. Oh wait. I still have a few pages left in this piece of crap. I read a lot of books in college that I sometimes still say are my favorite books but I should probably just say they stuck with me because I know which books are almost always in my top five and a lot of the ones in college aren't those. But Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence always stuck with me. It's possible that I completely missed the message of the novel but to me, the book was about how true love only exists when it's unrequited. Archer Day-Lewis doesn't love Ellen Pfeifer more than May Ryder for any other reason than that she was the one he didn't marry. It seemed to me that Wharton was trying to portray how hard love is and true, phenomenal love only exists in the imagination. Only a love we can imagine can remain magical. Only when we love an object, or the imaginary person we've placed on a pedestal, can we evade disappointment in the reality and flaws of another actual human being. Being in love with Ellen Pfeifer was easy because she wasn't there for all those years. There were no fights or disappointments or multiple times accidentally walking in on her taking a huge shit. She was pure and beautiful and imaginary. But then again, maybe that wasn't the point of the book at all. I was young and romantic at the time and I still absolutely loved the women I'd had unrequited crushes on in junior high and high school while my college relationship was slowly circling the drain due to personality conflicts. But not due to sex. The sex was fucking great! Anyway, Freud and Jung decide Kid Eternity is in denial and they leave. Hemlock and Dog spread some new reality across the world via a computer virus. Madame Blavatsky starts making time go backwards, probably so she can vomit up all the Twinkies she ate and eat them again with their delicious creamy filling. And the devil and Judas wind up in a bar in Limbo with Jesus to make plans for Kid Eternity. There's probably a lot more going on but there'd be too much for me to process even if it wasn't confused by Nocenti's writing style. No wonder I gave up on this book after three issues. There's no way by the third issue I could remember anything that was going on, if I even understood it the month prior. Kid Eternity #2 Rating: C-. A confusing mess that's about 90% Ann Nocenti just vomiting out things she's read. Even the things that, with the benefit of the doubt, I want to believe sprang from her own philosophical musings, I can't bring myself to absolutely believe it. I feel like every thought and piece of dialogue she's placed in this story just came from piles of notebooks filled with notes she's made while reading other people's works. It's practically a collage of philosophical ideas and moral musings pulled from myriad sources and shoved into a Kid Eternity framework "written" by Ann Nocenti. Which could explain Nocenti's penchant for stilted dialogue. If she were making up all the character's thoughts, the dialogue would flow from one character to the next. But when each character can only respond with some profound thought Nocenti read elsewhere, it comes across like a ransom note, each word cut from the mind of somebody else and pasted as a reply to another bit cut from some other thinker, no relation existing between the two thoughts except the proximity relationship Nocenti has given them.

[star-going-supernova]

What if demon!Henry became human?

@liliflower137 asked me put this stuff out there from some of our discussions about my Inky Eyes, Golden Heart AU. These are answers to theoretical questions, and I haven’t decided whether or not these events can be considered canon to the AU. This is very long, but it’s separated into sections through specific questions. Hope you enjoy them!  :)

What if Henry became human for a week without knowing that it would only last that long?

Okay, I'm not going to go into how this might've happened, but we'll leave it at this: he's turned completely one-hundred percent human, something that lasts a week but, like you said, he doesn't know that going into this. For all anyone knows, he'll be human forever.

So first of all, Henry was never disdainful of humans. In fact, he does things the human way more often than not, meaning as far as his powers go, he's not totally reliant on them. This is good. He won't be completely lost, given that he's been living on earth since before he even met Joey. In terms of that, while he'd really freaking miss his powers, he wouldn't be lost without them.

But then we get to the bits of being a demon that he was never consciously aware of being different, mainly: his aura.

~ Let's talk about demon auras real quick.

A demon's aura does a lot of things. With it, they can read emotions in the people around them, they can sort of scan their surroundings for fellow non-humans, they can check on their human friend's wellbeing; it can essentially be this additional, intangible limb that gathers information beyond what humans are capable of. We'll call it a Sixth Sense, in addition to sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.

But then there are other things, more demon-type things, that an aura can do. It registers the Seven Deadly Sins (although that can be better controlled with age), it warns them of nearby religious symbols, it can manifest itself in unnatural ways (as seen in The Demon that Wasn't), it can affect the emotions and thoughts of those nearby (as seen in chapter 3 of Dreams Come True), detect summonings, alter/switch between physical forms, and so on. 

The demonic aura is, simply put, a power source. It’s The Thing that differentiates them from humans. Literally, give a human an aura, they're a demon; take one away from a demon, they're a human— technically speaking, nothing else is necessary to switch back and forth. It's within them, it surrounds them, they can curl it close and stretch it out.

When Henry becomes human, all that happens is his aura is removed. No harm comes to him, there isn't a twisting of limbs or screaming or anything like that. And that's what's so devastating about it: he just lost something that was so intrinsically him, and the world keeps turning, as though no one noticed.

Within seconds of it happening, Henry collapses, everything feeling muted and dull around him. He's gasping, he can't breath, he can't feel anything. He's not Henry anymore. There's no doubt that he would've gone absolutely completely mad, bonkers, cuckoo, insane— whatever you want to call it, he would've been it within a minute or two. If, that is, Joey hadn't been there.

It takes Joey over an hour to calm Henry down enough to be able to breathe and talk. That first day is a nightmare for both of them. Henry can't stop shivering, he's distant, lost, empty almost, and Joey's never felt so useless in his entire life.

Before the first 24 hours are even up, Henry almost absently tries to kill himself. It's not even a true, conscious decision. His body feels dead already, because it wasn't made to be this way. Joey's mind can't comprehend demon antics; Henry's can't comprehend being aura-less. Like a wounded animal, he's given up.

Joey freaks out. He refuses to so much as leave Henry's side after that, going so far as to handcuff them together. The day after, Henry just trudges along behind him, still not fully aware that he's actually still alive. That's how traumatizing it is.

~ So the almost killing himself thing. Immediately after losing his aura, Henry's body basically shuts down on the intellectual level, leaving only the most basic parts of him functioning. He's not fully aware, is what I'm getting at. Think of it as a sort of defense mechanism on his mind's part, like some people do with trauma. He's just sort of... sealed away. “Henry" is basically comatose, while his body and basic instincts run the show. His body then decides that an even better coping mechanism would to be just putting him out of his misery. Joey's apartment/house (who even knows where they live) had a mouse problem a few months earlier, and he still has rat poison in one of the supply cupboards in his kitchen (not near food or cooking utensils though). Joey's just making some lunch or dinner or doing the dishes, whatever, and he absently notices Henry rummaging around a bit. He doesn't think much of it, until he glances over his shoulder and sees Henry about to drink something— but Joey never heard the fridge open. Gut instinct has him race over there and wrench the bottle away, thankfully before any damage could be done. Henry doesn't fight or anything, because he's not aware enough for even the full ramifications of what he'd almost done to hit him. Joey still breaks out the handcuffs, 'cause no way is something like that happening again, not on his watch. Even after his aura returns, Henry doesn't really remember doing it, and Joey doesn't worry him with saying anything.

But then, he sorta starts to 'wake up,' in a sense. He becomes more responsive, takes the initiative on a few things, eats without prompting, and it's when he makes a joke about the handcuffs ("You just couldn't stand to be apart from my shining personality, eh, Joey?") that Joey knows his friend is coming back to him.

By the beginning of Day Four As A Human, Henry's mostly functioning. He still has these sort of blank moments, when his eyes go dead, but the handcuff comes off and he's able to make a true effort.

The worst part to Joey is that he can't give his friend a silver lining. Henry was already doing human things, so it's not like Joey can take him on some grand adventure to show him the Perks of Being Human.

Over the next few days, they learn just how many mundane things his aura provided for/prevented from happening: Henry is abysmal at reading body language, has a tendency to walk into walls when he's not paying attention (which is often), ends up covered in bruises and scratches and scrapes from many little accidents, somehow manages to get lost four times in the studio, and ends up being allergic to peanuts and shellfish.

But the worst is something he doesn't tell Joey about. It's his drawing. No, his aura didn't make him better or anything. On a technical and professional level, his animations haven't changed a bit. But Bendy and the others don't feel real anymore. Every time he drew them, his love and happiness and passion for his work combined with his aura to give his characters the closest things to emotions and thoughts that not-living, 2D drawings could have. They weren't alive on the page (not in the 2D Bendy AU sense) but he could almost feel them in his soul. This is why Joey saw that longing when Henry looked at them; they were already semi-real, but he never thought they'd ever leave the paper.

Overall, Henry would be okay. He'd never be fully over it, never forget what it felt like to be whole, never completely recover from the absence of an integral part of himself, but with Joey's help, he'd be able to survive. The biggest loss to him would be the drawing thing, because it was the equivalent of if they had died overnight or something. He never got to say goodbye.

Naturally, he comes to resigned terms with his new state of being at the end of the week and then wakes up whole again, aura returned. He freaks out, overjoyed, and probably accidentally makes all the plants in a ten mile radius flourish (which pisses him off, to be honest, because he can't even do that when he wants to, what even) with the sheer force of his happiness.

To celebrate, he teleports himself and Joey to Italy, because Joey's always wanted authentic Italian food, and what better way to thank his best friend for being there for him during those trying times than to pop them over to the other side of the world for some good food.

Henry spends an entire day doing nothing but drawing his characters, because they're alive again, just like him.

More humorous take, inspired by Lili:

Hypothetically, lets say that Henry experienced whatever curse or illness or whatever it was that briefly took his aura away before, when he was a kid/teenager. His parents ended up taking him to the hospital since he was so messed up, but after a week, he was back to normal. The doctors were baffled, but oh well. So Henry finds out more about whatever it was, and learns that short of a deal to sell his aura, it can't leave him permanently.

Jump to adults Henry and Joey, and this happens again, and Henry does one of those full body Ghibli shivers and races to Joey's house despite knowing that he'll be okay soon.

Joey screams when Henry literally kicks in his door and shouts, "JOEY, SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH MY AURA AND I'M HUMAN NOW."

And Joey's on the verge of an aneurism ("NO DON'T, I CAN'T HEAL YOU") until Henry finally gets around to the part about his aura returning in a few days time. Cue massive amounts of amusement for the entire studio ('cause you bet they'd let everyone know) as Henry proves to be a perfectly normal human, just with terrible human sense (aka, all that walking into walls, getting startled easily, somehow ends up lost for several hours at least four times, and so on).

What if the toons were alive when Henry got turned into a human? Or if it was during a time when the rest of the studio knew about him? Is there anything they would be able (or at least try) to do to help?

If the toons were alive, they’d all stick to him like glue, just as distraught as him over it. Because we might joke about the Dad Thing, but there’s a connection that’s forged between a Creator and Creation with the way they did it, and with Henry losing his demon aura, that connection would vanish, for all of them. There wouldn’t be a soul in the entire studio capable of separating Bendy from Henry during the entire duration, and in a way, that would help Henry massively. Joey’s awesome, and there’s no way Henry would’ve survived that week without him, but Bendy would help in an entirely different way. All three of them would. 

(When Henry gets his aura back, there’s a celebration, but at the end of the night, he does exactly what his and Bendy’s auras have been aching to do, and teleports them to a quiet peaceful place. Neither of them are ashamed to admit that they cry pretty hard over it. The loss had been great and terrible for both of them in ways none of the others would’ve been able to understand. They’re both demons whose main personality trait is kindness, and having each other was a dream come true. Henry losing that nearly destroyed him, and Bendy losing that almost sent him into off-model despair on multiple occasions that only Henry had been able to coax him out of. Being brought back together like this would set off All the Emotions, and they’d need some time to themselves to work through them.)

The rest of the studio wouldn’t really know what to do. They mourn the loss, of course they do, because they know what it means to Henry and they can see how destroyed he is. He’s lost a piece of himself, and they offer space and comfort as needed. Towards the end of the week, there would’ve been secret discussions held between the main employees about possibly making a deal with a demon to get Henry his aura back, no matter what it cost them. Because that’s what you do for family, and Sammy hadn’t quite been as ignorant of that budding lung cancer as we thought, and Norman noticed when he stopped seeing dark and dangerous things on the edge of his vision, and Wally knew that a previously shaky wall was magically sturdy, and countless others. Henry might never have mentioned anything, much less asked for something in return, but that doesn’t mean his Acts of Kindness went unnoticed. After everything he’s done for them, of course they’d be willing to do something so potentially dangerous in return. Thank goodness he got his aura back before they could go through with it.

(As a note: that part listing things Henry has done for them in secret was from another question of Lili’s about deals that Henry made with the studio workers. Let me know if anyone wants to see that part too.)

If Henry had stayed as a human forever, would he have eventually told Joey about the drawing thing?

Not on his own. If he ever did, it’d be because Joey noticed that something was really wrong, and kept pushing until Henry spilled.

After that heartbreaking conversation, Henry would go home, but Joey would stay in his office, thinking.

Maybe… maybe he could bring them to life for Henry. Maybe, with a little bit of magick and— and a Machine…

Besides. What could go wrong?

What about when Henry realizes that he’s not immortal anymore, in the permanent situation?

Immortality was never a super important thing to him. He can get over the fact that he’s not going to live for something close to forever now. Worse for him would be the growing old part, and all the helplessness that comes with that. As discussed, he’s rather accident prone without his aura, and he regularly gives Joey little mini heart attacks because gosh dang it Henry, things can actually hurt you now!

One of the reasons losing his immortality doesn’t really phase him as much as it might’ve is that he knows he and Joey and all their other friends will get to live and die together.

On the other hand, though, if the toons were already created, Henry would go a little bit insane from the thought that he’d be leaving them behind, and in that case, well… he might take some drastic measures à la something akin to the Ink Machine. Someone with all that demonic knowledge suddenly determined to cheat death one way or another? Yeah, that would probably be the worst case scenario.

[5typesoftrash]

Inhibitions - Epilogue

Author: quicksilvermalec Artist: starfleetcadet1 Rating: M for swearing, mature themes, and minor sexual content Pairings: Sastiel, Castiel/Ezekiel, Castiel/Crowley Warnings: Rape/Non-Con (mentioned) Brief Tags: Angst, Pining, Drug Use, Minor Character Death Summary: So Castiel isn't the most - moral? Conventional? Call it what you like - attorney, but fuck if he isn't one of the best in the state of California. He's gone up against lawyers from all over and only lost a handful of cases in twenty years. So when a young up-and-comer beat him in a case he should have bagged, of course he was interested. But he wasn't expecting this.

[longer tags, link to art post, and fic under the cut]

Extended Tags: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Slow Burn, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No supernatural, Alternate Universe - No Angels, Alternate Universe, lawyer AU, Lawyer Sam Winchester, Lawyer Castiel, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied Sexual Content, minor explicit sexual content, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Minor Character Death, Offscreen character death, Getting Together, Getting Back Together, Falling In Love, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, First Kiss, First Time, breaking up, Breaking Up & Making Up, Betrayal, Misunderstandings, Miscommunication, Grief, Trauma, Negative Religious Experiences, Religious Sam Winchester, Mentions of Corrective Rape, Gay Castiel, Pansexual Sam Winchester, Pansexual Gabriel, Black Lives Matter, Protests, Pining, Mutual Pining, Age Difference, Widowed Castiel, Sad Castiel, Hurt Castiel, Endverse Castiel - Freeform, Sad Sam Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Good Brother Gabriel, Protective Gabriel, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, POV Castiel, Castiel is a Novak (Supernatural), this story is all over the fuckin place, kind of a wild ride with plenty of twists, enjoy!!

Have a link to the art and you can read this story on AO3 as well! 🧡

~~

Castiel Novak does not want to get married again.

He’s made this one decision for himself; he won’t close himself off from love, but he’ll never remarry. Sam supports him in this entirely; they had one conversation about it where Cas made his feelings clear, Sam indicated that he understood, and Sam has never pressed him about it since.

Castiel will not marry again.

~~

Family don’t end in blood.

These are the words embroidered on the tapestry of the Winchester family crest when Castiel finds it hanging in Sam’s bedroom.

“What’s this?” he asks his boyfriend. Sam chuckles.

“That was a project I did in Home Ec in the eighth grade. ‘Create a crest for your family’. That right there is the outline of the gun, here’s the shield. I did it in rust red and dark green because Dean’s eyes are green and I just thought the red paired nicely with it.”

“Where did the saying come from?” Cas asks, running his thumb over the carefully stitched golden lettering.

Sam smiles softly at him. “My dad,” he murmurs.

Castiel’s brow furrows. “I thought he was dead?”

Sam shakes his head. “No, not my father. Dean and I moved in with a friend of our father’s when he lost custody. His name’s Bobby and by all rights, he’s our real dad. This was what he said about it when we told him we wanted him to adopt us, and it’s the motto I live by.” He looks at Castiel with eyes sparkling. “You’re part of our little chosen family now, too.”

Cas raises one eyebrow in faint amusement. “Do I get a choice in this?”

Sam dips his head to kiss him deeply. “Not at all,” he breathes when they part.

~~

Never.

Not at all.

Not even if he does think Sam would look gorgeous in a tux.

~~

“You should take him to meet Bobby,” Dean teases one night at dinner. Castiel hasn’t technically moved in with Sam yet, but he spends most of his time there, most of his nights there, eats most of his meals there, and has begun to encroach on their family movie nights. (He and Sam still go out for dates, though.)

Sam glances at Cas with a question in his eyes.

Do you want to?

Cas looks down at his plate. He doesn’t not, but every time he thinks of doing the meet-the-parents he can’t help seeing Ezekiel’s family. Sweet old Amara and Billie. He remembers their faces like it was yesterday, he has their voices ingrained in his mind. The day he met them, they hugged him like he was their own child, kissed his head, held him close. They fed him all his favorite foods and told him stories about Ezekiel’s childhood and extended him an open invitation to stay with them if he ever needed to.

The day his husband died, they were with him in the hospital room. The looks of devastation on their faces crushed him into pieces. The way Amara pretended to be strong but collapsed into Billie’s shoulder as they left the room. The way her sobs echoed down the hallway, little broken gasps of air—

“Cas?” Sam asks, sounding concerned. One of his hands rests on Cas’s back. “Are you okay?”

Cas swallows hard and looks up at them. “I’m— I’m sorry, Sam, I just…” he trails off and Sam nods.

“Ezekiel,” he whispers. “I get it.”

Cas nods. “It’s not a no,” he finally says. “I just… need time.” But they both know he’s had twenty years and maybe it’s faded but it hasn’t faded much. They both know it’s probably a no.

~~

Even if he wasn’t so incredibly traumatized, he wouldn’t have the money. He’s been largely providing for Sam and Dean since they barely have anything to live off of, and his funds are trickling away. He doesn’t need money for happiness, but he would need money for a wedding.

~~

December 09, 2020 – 04:18 To: Gabriel Novak (gabrielnovak@novakrep.org) From: Castiel Novak (castielnovak@novakrep.org)

HELP ME

Gabriel,

Sam wants me to meet his dad. Not his dead one, his adopted one. Dean wants me to as well. I don’t know what to say to them or what I should do. I’m afraid, Gabriel. I’m terrified. I want to make them happy but what if I lose them like I lost Ezekiel? What if I lose Sam? I can’t lose him, Gabriel…

Please, I need your advice.

Yours in crisis, Castiel Novak, SJD (he/him) Associate Attorney, Sam Winchester Law Firm www.samwlaw.com

 December 09, 2020 – 11:46 From: Gabriel Novak (gabrielnovak@novakrep.org) To: Castiel Novak (castielnovak@novakrep.org)

RE: HELP ME

Cassie, what the fuck. Like actually. What. The literal. Fuck.

Don’t freak out about this, child. You are fine. Sammo loves you. He’ll understand if you can’t go meet his dad and he’ll understand if you want to. He just wants you to be happy.

And hey. Just remember, Sam is not Ezekiel. And no matter how much your trauma-brain wants to oversimplify things, just because you lost Zekey doesn’t mean you’ll lose Sam. You will be okay, I promise. No matter how bad you think things have gotten, you will be alright.

I’m right here, kiddo. I love you. I’ll take care of you.

P.S. How the fuck do you still have access to this email address? You quit your job like two months ago!!

Gabriel Novak, MLS (he/him they/them) Senior Staff Member Novak Represents Law Firm www.novakrep.org

 December 09, 2020 – 12:15 From: Castiel Novak (castielnovak@novakrep.org) To: Gabriel Novak (gabrielnovak@novakrep.org)

RE: HELP ME

Thank you, Gabriel. I did some mindfulness and meditation and I feel calmer. You’re right, my trauma is overwhelming me; previous experiences do not dictate the outcome of future ones.

I’m going to meet Sam and Dean’s dad. Sam is a wonderful and perfect partner to me, and Dean has proven a steadfast and loyal friend. I am incredibly lucky to have them both in my life, and I would like to see where they came from.

I love you too, my brother. Thank you for helping me through this.

P.S. Michael said I could keep it. It’s easier than creating one for Sam’s firm.

Love, Castiel Novak, SJD (he/him) Associate Attorney, Sam Winchester Law Firm www.samwlaw.com

~~

The email conversation makes it plainer to him than ever that he is not emotionally prepared to handle marriage. He loves Sam; that will be enough for them both. He squashes his fantasies of proposing to his boyfriend and focuses on moving forward.

~~

“You ready?” Sam asks, squeezing his hand gently. Castiel smiles at him and nods once.

“As I’ll ever be,” he chuckles.

Neither of them needs to put voice to the thought to know that Cas is feeling doubtful and afraid. Sam can read it in the set of his jaw, his adversarial stance. He knows Cas needs extra reassurance, and he lives to provide. Castiel is endlessly grateful for him.

Cas lets go of Sam’s hand only long enough to step out of the car and then he’s at Sam’s side again. Sam locks the car with his non-dominant hand because Cas won’t give him any wiggle room on his right.

“Thank you, Sam,” Cas murmurs, resting his head on Sam’s shoulder.

“For what?” Sam hums. “You’re doing this for me.”

Cas nods. “I know,” he replies. “But you’re the one who let me know that I didn’t have to. I’m doing this because I’m comfortable, because I want to, not because I feel pressured. I’m here because you’ve never been anything but good to me. I love you so very much, Sam.”

Sam stops walking and turns to face him, his free hand coming up to cup Cas’s chin. “I love you very much as well,” he says, grinning, and when their lips meet, it’s with a hungry sort of fire that banishes the sharp, cold winter air around them and fuels them, sustaining them when they pull away. Cas looks up at his boyfriend, breathless.

“You are an absolute marvel,” he declares, his voice nothing but an awed whisper. Sam even has the audacity to laugh.

“Nah, I just know you really well,” he says.

Cas stays close to him as they make their way into the house in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. “Bobby?” Sam calls out. “You home?”

“Sam?” calls a gruff, older voice from somewhere in the house. “’Zat you?”

Sam grins. “Hey, Bobby,” he laughs, pulling Cas into a living space. Castiel’s eyes float around the room, taking everything in, and then come to rest on an older man, probably in his late fifties or early sixties with a full beard sitting behind a desk.

“Who’s this?” he asks in a deep Southerner voice.

“Bobby,” Sam says softly. “This is my boyfriend, Castiel.”

Cas smiles and waves at him.

“Cas, this is my dad, Bobby Singer.”

“Wonderful to meet you,” Cas says, extending a hand. Bobby takes it and shakes it once.

“Good to meetcha too,” he replies, standing. “I dunno what Sam’s told you ‘bout me, but hopefully good things.”

Cas smiles. “Entirely,” he confirms. “Sam admires you very much.” He risks a glance at the boy and finds his face shining with a happy grin. He slips his hand into Sam’s and squeezes affectionately.

Sam glances at him. “Don’t hafta expose me like that,” he mutters, still smiling. He receives a playful nudge in return.

“Don’t gotta make me vomit,” Bobby grumbles, but beneath his mask of vague contempt he looks proud. “So you’re the boy been makin’ my son glow like the sun, huh?” He walks around the desk to look at Cas straight in the face. “I think we can find a place for you. C’mon, let’s have a drink.”

He walks past them into the next room and Cas shoots Sam a look. Sam nods slightly, contentment sparkling in his eyes, and Cas knows that they’ll be okay.

~~

But…

There’s a part of him that wants to pledge his love for Sam in front of everyone they care about anyway.

He reminds himself that there are other ways he can do that.

~~

They spend Christmas with Bobby, drinking spiked eggnog and singing drunken carols, decorating the whole house with tinsel and bells, and Cas kisses Dean under the mistletoe just to make Sam jealous.

(If the passionate, hot, possessive sex they have that night is anything to go by, it works.)

Dean and Bobby pretend not to notice them flirting in the corner or playing footsie under the table at meals, and they are definitely pretending not to hear the sounds that echo through the upstairs at night.

Cas and Sam are happy, and Dean and Bobby are happy for them. That’s enough.

And as they climb back into Sam’s eco-friendly little car on January second, Cas realizes that this is the first Christmas he’s had where he got a gift, felt warm and safe and welcome, wasn’t hurt or guilt-tripped, and was able to be happy.

He’s very, very glad it was with Sam.

~~

He moves into Sam and Dean’s house. They cohabitate easily, like they’ve lived together for years. They adjust to each other’s schedules and move around each other in a practiced sort of dance. Sam will make bacon for his brother and boyfriend before either of them is awake and have it sitting on the table with coffee for each of them. He’ll hug Dean and kiss Cas before settling into his chair between them and they eat breakfast in comfortable silence before preparing for their day.

Cas starts to notice himself relaxing, releasing his stress and anxiety, and starting to feel safe again, in Sam’s house, in Sam’s arms, in Sam’s life. His nightmares start to regress, he flashes back less frequently, and slowly over time he learns that he doesn’t have to be afraid this time.

He finds his happy ending with Sam Winchester.

~~

April 19th, 2021

“Sam,” Cas chokes out to his boyfriend when they retreat into their bedroom after breakfast. “I have an errand to run today. It shouldn’t take too long, but I don’t want you to worry.”

“What do you need?” Sam asks, pulling on a shirt.

Cas takes a deep breath. “I’m going to visit Ezekiel’s grave. Today is the twenty-first anniversary of his death.”

Sam’s face clouds over with concern. “Oh,” he whispers. He reaches out and takes Cas’s hand. “You shouldn’t have to go alone.”

Cas shakes his head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking,” Sam reminds him. “You’re just letting me do the thing I offered to do.”

Cas swallows hard. “Alright,” he manages. “Thank you, Sam. You’re always so good to me.”

Sam smiles gently and kisses his forehead. “You make it easy,” he replies softly.

~~

Sam makes a detour to Target and they walk through the flowers aisle until they find a bouquet of dark pink roses (for gratitude and appreciation) and poppies (for remembrance). Sam pays for it with his credit card, despite Cas’s weak protests, and then they’re on their way to the graveyard.

Cas walks slowly through the rows upon rows of headstones, feeling sorrow and regret for all these people who were taken from their families, just as Ezekiel was taken from Castiel. Finally, he approaches his husband’s grave and kneels in the wet ground in front of it.

He sets the flowers at the base of the marble and hangs his head.

“Hey, Zeke,” he whispers. “I have a lot of things to tell you, things I’ve… never actually said before. I was too ashamed to admit this to you.”

He takes a shaky breath and feels Sam’s hand come to rest on his back, reassuring him. The soft, comforting touch gives him the strength he needs to continue.

“After you—” he chokes off, inhales, and tries again. “After I lost you, I was miserable. I was so… so broken, my love, I was ruined. I didn’t know how to cope with it, so I— I turned to drugs. It’s my greatest shame, my deepest regret, I numbed my pain, my love, and my memories with weed and called it freedom. I called it recovery. I thought… I thought I was happy. I thought I was getting better.”

Sam’s hand travels in a soothing little circle around Cas’s shoulder and the knowledge that Sam is there, supporting him, still loving him, keeps the words streaming from his lips.

“I wasn’t,” he gasps. “I was just changing my pain, turning it into something else. I wanted to believe that you were watching me, loving me, taking care of me wherever you are but you’re gone, Ezekiel, and I’m still here. It took me so many years to come to grips with that.”

He reaches up and grasps Sam’s wrist. Sam twists his arm so he can hold Cas’s hand instead. When the elder speaks again, his voice is an awed and happy little whisper.

“And then I fell in love again.”

Sam makes a soft sound, despite how hard he’s been obviously trying not to respond.

“Last year, I found Sam. Sam is… Sam is everything. He’s hardworking and compassionate and fierce and beautiful and strong-willed and an absolutely marvelous lawyer. He won’t fill the hole you left in my heart, but he makes it a little bit smaller, and I’m ready to dedicate every day I have left to making him feel the way you made me feel.

“I truly believe you would want this for me. That if you still had some sort of consciousness, you would be overwhelmingly happy that I have Sam, that he’s here with me. I think this is all you ever wanted, was my happiness. And I am happy, Ezekiel. I am happier than I’ve been in two decades. I am happier than I have felt since the day we married.”

He finally turns his head and looks up at his lover.

“Sam numbs my pain,” he breathes. “Sam takes it and diminishes it, holds it in himself, protects and shields me from it. Sam is the little candle in my heart, fighting off the darkness, banishing the fog of misery that surrounded me for so long. Sam is phenomenal, and strong, and kind, and brilliant, and fantastic. Sam is the only person I can imagine sharing your loss with.”

He stands shakily and faces his lover. “Thank you, Sam,” he breathes. “I love you.”

Sam kisses him softly. “I love you too.”

They turn together and walk away, and behind them, Castiel leaves the piece of Ezekiel he’s been clinging to.

Goodbye.

~~

And Castiel will never marry again, not even Sam Winchester, but he doesn’t need a ring to remind him that he loves and is loved.

He has Sam to do it for him.

Masterpost | Previous

[chriska-partners-4-life]

EO, Chriska, and Harrison 😘did you really want them all? I do

YES! Because I have so many thoughts! 

Send me a ship and I’ll tell you…

EO (2.0 never existed)

who proposed

Elliot was the one to propose, especially because he is old fashion in a few ways and I believe marriage is one and he believes in gender roles for various things

how they proposed

He takes Olivia on a nice getaway because they both deserve time off from work and lord knows they have enough vacation time saved up they could most likely afford to take an entire year. He makes a whole day out of it. They start by going to the beach, and relaxing in the sun, and then he tells her he booked a spa day for her to truly relax, so while she’s at the spa he is putting the finishing touches on his plans and getting himself ready. Once he’s dressed he lays out the dress he has picked out for her, and leaves a note telling her to put the dress on, and to meet him downstairs in the lobby of the hotel at a certain time, they take a short walk (because she’s wearing heels) to a fancy, romantic restaurant down the street, and enjoy a nice dinner with some wine. They go back to the hotel and take a walk on the beach as the sun is setting, with his back to the waves he gets down on one knee and asks, she says yes, and then there is clapping, they turn around and there are his kids, and Maureen is Skyping with the Cragen, Fin and Munch since they couldn’t be there. 

who stressed more over wedding planning

Elliot is because he wants to make sure Olivia has the wedding she has always deserved, and wants even the smallest detail to be perfect. Olivia keeps telling him that she doesn’t care what the wedding is like. She would be happy to just go down to the courthouse with him and make it legal. She just wants to be his wife. 

who had the wildest bachelor(ette) party

Olivia for sure. I mean get Olivia, Alex, Casey, and Melinda all together with alcohol Kathleen is the DD, Maureen and Lizzie join in some of the fun. I’m seeing male strippers, shots, crazy adventures the older ones don’t remember in the morning. Elliot doesn’t really want to do anything, so he, Munch, Fin, and Cragen, Dickie plus a few friends El has from his days in the Marines order a fight that’s on TV, cracked some beers, and pig out. Elliot is glad that Olivia is going to have a fun night

who freaked out before the wedding

They are surprisingly both calm, Elliot is a little terrified that something is going to go wrong, but he is sure about his decision and that Olivia loves him. Olivia knows her love for Elliot and Elliot’s love for her, nothing else matters.

best man/maid of honor

Dickie is Elliot’s best man. They have made amends after the Shane episode and Dickie is excited to have Olivia as a step mom, even though he thinks he’s too old to have a step mom.

Alex is Olivia’s maid of honor. They have always had the best friendship, and that way she wouldn’t be forced to choose between Elliot’s daughters and risk upsetting them. 

where they got married

Elliot wanted a church wedding, but that was one stipulation Olivia had. Since she wasn’t religious it didn’t feel right to her, she told him he could have a priest but she wanted something outdoors. They chose to do it outside Bernie’s beach house.

if/what they wrote in their vows

Olivia’s: Elliot, when I met you, there was something so easy about becoming friends with you. The more I got to know you, the more I began to fall in love with you. I didn’t know it was happening at first, and I tried to make it stop. You were married and had kids, but you still somehow wormed your way into my heart. I’m so glad that you did. I never knew I could love someone the way I love you, and I never knew I could be loved. Thank you for being in my life and thank you for loving me so wholly. I love you.

Elliot’s: Olivia, I am the luckiest man alive because you love me. I watched you date men and break there hearts, and I always hoped that if I was ever lucky enough to be the man who go your heart to make sure I didn’t break yours and you never had a reason to feel unloved. We have had our times where we didn’t agree, we can have the worst fights, but no matter what you are the person that I want to make up with for the rest of my life. I want to show you that you are worth loving and I will never stop in my quest to make you smile. I love you sweetheart forever.

who cried at the wedding

Elliot started crying when Olivia started walking toward the alter.

Olivia started crying before she began her vows.

By the time Elliot finished his vows there wasn’t a dry eye in the place

which song they had their first dance to

My Best Friend by Tim McGraw because they started their relationship as friends before they were a couple

where they went on their honeymoon

The Bahamas! 

what they did on their honeymoon

All sorts of fun activities. Snorkeling, swimming with dolphins, the beach, touristy things, and lots and lots of sex.

Chriska

who proposed

Chris

how they proposed

Took her to Hawaii, under the guise of needing to do some stuff for Joyful Heart, but once the plane landed he told her that they were going on a vacation. They spent time swimming with the dolphins because it’s one of Mariska’s favorite things to do, They stay in because they are famous and Chris wants this to happen without them being interrupted by fans. He orders room service while Mariska is in the shower, and he gets dessert (chocolate cake) and put the ring on top, and then hides it on the cart. They enjoy their meal, and he starts talking about when they started SVU and how much things have changed over the years. He pulls out the cake and pulls off the top of the dish and there is the ring. Mariska gasps and then laughs and calls him a cheeseball. Obviously she says yes.

who stressed more over wedding planning

Mariska because she is a perfectionist. She wants every detail to be just right, and Chris caters to it because he loves her and he wants her to have the best day ever. 

who had the wildest bachelor(ette) party

Chris, that man get get wild. Mariska can too, but she doesn’t want to do the whole huge bachelorette party thing. Chris’s party gets crazy, but Mariska isn’t worried about it. She knows he knows his limits and wouldn’t do anything too stupid.

who freaked out before the wedding

Mariska. She’s worried that something isn’t going to go right, and that fans might try to crash it. Luckily everything goes off without a hitch.

best man/maid of honor

Chris’ best man would be: Lee Tergesen

Mariska’s maid of honor: Debra Messing

where they got married

They got married in Hawaii because of the significance it holds

if/what they wrote in their vows

Mariska’s: Chris, the moment we met there was an instant connection. When we auditioned you were telling me a story and we told the big wigs to wait so you could finish and that was when things were clear. We were going to get along great. You don’t find many people who you get along with from moment one, but when you do, you hold onto that person no matter what. We have faced many challenges together and there is no one I would rather spend the rest of life with than you. You are my rock, my soulmate, my other half, and I love you more than words could ever tell.

Chris: Mackie, I never laugh as much as I do when we are together. You can be the craziest person I know, and you love hashtags so much. But honestly I love everything that makes you, you. You are so positive and you make not only the world, but especially my world a better place. I will love you forever.

who cried at the wedding

Mariska was definitely crying

which song they had their first dance to

At Last by Etta James

where they went on their honeymoon

They went to a bunch of places. Spent a lot of time in Italy. They also go to Paris.

what they did on their honeymoon

Saw the sights, enjoyed being a couple, quite a bit of sex.

I’m going to assume you meant Carrison instead of Harrison. Although I mean Harrison in a relationship with himself could be interesting haha. (Harrison never married Melissa, but he and Carrie were still wonderful friends with her.)

who proposed

Harrison, most definitely

how they proposed

They were at the wrap party for Return of the Jedi, and Harrison pulled her outside for some privacy. He started going on about how there was this connection between them, and how he never felt that with his first wife. He knew what they had was special, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He got down on one knee, and asked her to be his wife. She immediately said yes, and he pulled her in a long kiss. Things started getting out of hand where anyone could see them, so they went over to hide somewhere where no one would find them. They were almost naked when Mark came out to find them. They heard him calling their names and told him they would be inside in a few minutes. It was a half hour before anyone saw them inside. 

who stressed more over wedding planning

Carrie was having a hell of a time because she would start planning when she was manic, and then when she went back to look over it later it made no sense. After a few cycles of this, Harrison told her that they were going to hire a wedding planner, and if she told him what she wanted he would make sure that it happened.

who had the wildest bachelor(ette) party

They had a joint party, since Carrie threw the best parties. They had decided they didn’t really want to do anything separate. They had the who’s who of Hollywood and their close non-famous friends over. The parties was one big blast and they were glad that they had done it that way.

who freaked out before the wedding

Carrie was terrified Roy or Pam were going to make an appearance. Luckily they stayed away for the wedding.

best man/maid of honor

Harrison’s best man: Mark Hamill (because in my world they didn’t fall out with each other)

Carrie’s Maid of Honor: Penny Marshall

where they got married

George agreed to let them have the wedding on Skywalker Ranch. They had gone back a forth over location choices, but ultimately decided that this was probably one of the best places to accommodate the size of the wedding and to keep people who weren’t invited/wanted out.

if/what they wrote in their vows

Carrie’s: When I met you Harrison, I kept my distance because you had this aura that you didn’t want to be bothered. I was 19 years old and felt like a kid, and I didn’t want to annoy you. Then we went to George’s birthday party, and you saved me from some unsavory things. When you kissed me, I had no clue what was going to happen, but I knew whatever it was, I wanted it. Things were complicated to say the least at the time, but I am glad that we have finally reached the point that we are at because I wouldn’t want to live in a world without you. Sometime you made act like a scoundrel in real life but I wouldn’t have you any other way. I love you.

Harrison: I know. (Yes that was necessary) You truly are a princess. I don’t know what I did right in my life to deserve you, but I’m so glad I did it. I will love you forever and always, and I will love you for who you are, no matter what life may throw at us. You make everything better. I love you sweetheart. (To which Carrie responds with I know)

who cried at the wedding

Carrie definitely cried, Harrison let a few tears slip.

which song they had their first dance to

You Light Up My Life by Debby Boone

where they went on their honeymoon

They spent some time in London since it was their city, went to the ranch in Jackson Hole.

what they did on their honeymoon

Well what little time they spent outside of the bedroom, they did a little shopping, enjoying each other’s company.

[gaiabamman]

Get “Linked”, a sci-fi political romance with fantasy elements, here (Kindle, paperback and Audible!)

Summary: Nala is a riotous liberal. When she discovers that she is Cursoi, gifted individuals that form a military caste, she infiltrates them with the goal to kill newly elected President Crash, a hateful bigot. Unexpectedly, she falls in love with fellow soldier Drama, whose skill is empathy. Nala, who was raised human, struggles with Cursoi culture, where “merging” (similar to human intercourse) is very common and non exclusive. Things precipitate when Nala “links” with gorgeous and conservative Lethal, the killer of their Cursoi unit. “Linking” means that the two, who hate each other’s guts, share their consciousness and feelings. Nala inevitably learns about Lethal’s dark past and Lethal learns about Nala’s fears and secrets. It does not help that Lethal is Drama’s sworn enemy. Nala, who has a science background, starts researching Cursoi with the pretext of making them stronger, when in fact she is looking for weaknesses to attack them from the inside out. Interestingly, Lethal takes some s*it about the fact that he won’t merge with men (what’s wrong with him?! Why the discrimination?).

Currently, Nala is facing her first mission after linking, which took a lot of adjusting. As a Cursoi, she is compelled to follow orders and right now she has to kill a sniper attempting at the president’s life. Will she? Also both Nala and Lethal have not been “merging” since when they linked, and the situation is becoming unsustainable for both of them.

Warning: mild language, some explicit content.

By the way, the trees on the cover are pyramidal neurons. GEEK OUT!

Nala! Lethal says in my head. Nala, we have to! You’re blocking me!

Lethal and I stop the sniper’s heart, and I almost pass out. I cannot believe we just killed a man. I cannot believe I could have disobeyed after all. Lethal’s bewilderment echoes within me, resonating with the implications of the discovery. Yet, for now, I’m choking with the guilt for the man I killed.

Vulture makes the corpse disappear. Zera removes him from anyone’s memory. I cling to Lethal’s inner shield, to his wall. I need it. I can’t deal with this. Lethal shifts and his elbow touches mine. Serenity invades me, and for the first time maybe ever, I am grateful to have Lethal at my side.

Nala, we just followed orders, he says.

I just followed orders, I repeat, like a mantra. I just followed orders, but I didn’t have to. Did I?

President Crash says, “The first month of my office has been an absolute success. The Few passed unanimously the Religious Freedom Act. This should settle the haters who called me a racist. I respect everyone.”

The crowd claps. I hold back a smirk at the people flipping Crash off as a sign of love and respect. You get what you sow, I guess.

Drama says, “Disturbance, a fight is starting.”

Emo says, “Sedated.”

I add, “Kid got crushed. Healed.”

Zera says, “Removed. He won’t even remember.”

President Crash says, “Also, we finished the budget, and will be able to save 300 billion Uni on what was projected by the previous president.”

Whoa. Maybe he does know what he’s doing.

“Also, we are cranking down on illegal immigrants, just like I promised. I will make it impossible for Saturnites to come to Earth, unless they’re needed. You put your trust in the right man, and remember! The end justifies the means!”

When he walks away, waving, the crowd is still roaring.

Ghost says, “President secured. Dime, take us home.”

This time, I do feel like I’m going back home.

That night there’s a lot of Libre. Apprentices look like devils in the light of the lanterns. The crickets scream in my pounding head. A number of Apprentices come to hit on me, or to ask questions about what’s going on between Lethal and me and linking in general. I don’t even reply. I barely register the chatter around me, or Zera rubbing herself against Lethal three seats down. He evades most questions, focusing on a more physical type of interaction.

No matter how much Libre I down, the guy I killed keeps dropping dead in front of me. Did he have a family? He must have known he was gonna die for nothing. What a waste of life. At my hand.

“Rogue, you’re quiet tonight,” Min says, sitting across the table from me, and I don’t even answer, downing more Libre, and wishing him away. After I ignore him, he starts talking to Kino. Lethal’s hand is now around Echo. I can feel Zera in his lap, her sweet perfume sickens me. He must hate it too.

Drama is missing, and so is Emo. I think about Lethal’s stubborn refusal to merge with men, the pitiful encounter with Drama. Is he merging with Emo? I do get it, though, Lethal. With everything that happened to you, I get it.

You’re drunk, he says.

But I get it. I can feel Lethal’s anger as he squeezes Echo’s butt a little too tight. She smiles, biting his shoulder. Gross.

Lethal says in my head, Funny how it never occurred to you to merge with a woman, because I certainly wouldn’t object to that. The realization hits me like a dunk in the cold springs. And you weren’t even raped, Rogue. People just have preferences, get over yourself.

I reply, I don’t care about merging, now! How can you not care about the guy we killed?

He says, You’re just too weak to admit you’re wrong.

He closes his eyes and thinks of his first kill, the Master who abused him, and every kill that followed. Each one was painful and guilt ridden, till they all blurred in his self-hatred.

He says, have another round of Libre, Rogue, you’re such a role model.

Drama appears at the edge of the darkness, with Emo, laughing and pushing each other around. They sit and start drinking, chatting with everyone. Then Drama’s eyes find us.

I say in my head, Drama is watching us.

I don’t give a bonk.

Clearly. Like I said, I get it—

Shut the bonk up, Rogue! You don’t!

Zera jumps off Lethal’s lap, startled, and then leans her head on Drama’s shoulder. It breaks my heart a little more.

Lethal cannot shut me up. I know we shouldn’t talk in each other’s head so much, but it’s pretty easy to keep our consciousnesses apart, when we’re fighting and doing things the other never would. Yet, I do understand how after being abused by his Master, he’d rather be in control of merging. I’m not surprised he’s not into men. Even with women, he’s always on top.

Lethal growls, Get out of my head! And I’m into no one. No one can even bear to talk to me.

I can see why. My snarky, drunk remark hurts him. I didn’t mean it, Lethal.

Oh, go bonk yourself! Or is that too dirty for your frigid ass?

The only reason Lethal does nothing about Zera kissing Drama’s neck is that he enjoys how much that’s hurting me.

He continues, So ready to judge me, but you’re the Cursoi freak, Rogue. And your hero, here, with his hand in Zera’s pants? He’d rather merge with humans. Ain’t that strange?

I’m holding back the tears. I guess.

He’d merge with anyone but you, in fact.

Because you won’t let us, jerk!

Lethal glares at me, furious, because that was a low blow, and because we are all freaks, in our own way. It’s easy to gang up against someone, and I’d rather shoot that get shot.

The sniper dying comes back to mind.

Lethal’s anger makes so much sense. Damn, I thought I was lonely. I’m sorry, Lethal.

What did you just say?

I’m sorry, Lethal. You’re right.

Are you now? Well, bonk you, Rogue. He turns away, and I clearly see Zera throwing a hopeful look his way. I guess she likes it rough.

I hold back the tears and my mind is taken up again by images of the sniper dropping dead before he even had a chance to pull out his termin-aid, the crowd forgetting him within seconds.

I try to stand up and stumble. I’m not even sure what I’m trying to do. I see myself like in a holo-show, walking toward Lethal, and putting a hand on his shoulder. He flinches when the golden light surrounds us. He jerks away from my hand, still angry, but then turns to look at my face and scoots to make room for me on the bench at his side.

By the time Lethal and I stumble back to our place late at night, I’m wasted. The Libre I drank is fogging up his brain too. We haven’t spoken anymore, but strangely, he came home with me.

“You would have slept in the park, if I’d let you,” he slurs, shaking his head to clear it.

“How gentleman-man-ly of you, hic!”

He rolls his eyes. We stop in front of our hot springs, considering the skipping stones.

He leans heavily over my shoulder, and I bask in the warmth and happiness his touch brings us.

He says, “You smell soooo good.”

I giggle, because I know he means it.

“Of course I mean it, Dumb. You pick your hair products. Ergo you like them. Ergo I like them. Also, I haven’t merged in a month and anything smells better than Zera’s perfume.” I laugh. Crickets sing. Hoot the Owl does her thing.

“You named the owl?” he asks. I hiccup. “That’s… cute?” he slurs. He has never said that word before.

I sigh. I like drunk Lethal a bit too much, but I’m pretty sure it’s the Libre. “It was better when you were a meathead,” I say.

“It wasn’t. I wasn’t.”

“Less approachable?” I garble.

“It wasn’t.”

We decide to attempt the skipping stones, his arm still around my neck. We don’t even make the first one. He misses it all together, and I slip.

SPLASH!

In the gurgling of the water in my ears, I heal his head as it’s cracking against the rock bed, then I realize the ankle I twisted when I slipped feels already okay. I emerge, coughing up water.

“I did that,” Lethal says. He’s sitting in the hot water, beside me, his wet tunic clinging to his wide shoulders, wet hair covering his face and bewildered eyes. “I. Did. That,” he repeats, his pride filling my chest, because it’s the first time he’s healed someone rather than killing them.

“Next time, do yourself first,” I chide.

“That sounds mergy, and you healed me first too,” he says.

“Your head was cracking open!”

The words die in my throat when I realize he’s breathing faster, his eyes fixed on the wet fabric clinging to my breasts.

I jump out of the water, fighting his arousal. “You’re drunk,” I say.

“No, you’re drunk,” he whispers, right behind me. Either I’m really drunk, or he’s really nimble. Or both.

I ignore him and stumble to the stair, up and up and around, all the way to the nest, slipping on the last step because of my wet shoes.

Lethal catches me, and warmth spreads through me.

“Maybe you should leave,” I whisper.

“How?” he asks, amused. “And you don’t mean it.”

I feel ashamed of my needs and I want to push Lethal away. I say, “This is where I made love with Drama. I can’t deal with you, Lethal.”

“You can’t deal with yourself, Nala. You touched yourself in that very same nest and didn’t think about it twice. How would this be different?”

“It’s not merging for me, okay?” I step away from him, and I already miss him.

“Nala, you are Cursoi. I know you didn’t know that growing up, but you’re doing to yourself the same thing I did to myself all these years.”

“Sleeping with half the capital?”

“You know what I mean.”

Rejecting yourself.

He turns and leaves, and I ache to feel complete, but I also ache to find the strength to keep lying to myself.

During the following days, I still keep repeating to myself that I just followed orders, and I ignore Lethal’s pity-filled looks. I feel hopeless, my soul crushed with that of the man we killed.

The other Cursoi struggle to adjust to our new situation. Lethal and I can’t stand any of our respective friends. It’s been five days since we resumed our Cursoi routine, merging aside, and the other Apprentices kind of gave up on the idea of merging with us or getting any information about linking. To be honest I feel like anyone barely stands us anymore.

During universal geo, Ghost asks, “What’s the temperature shift on Mercury from night to day?”

I reply, bored, “About sixhundred celsius due to its closeness to the sun, its lack of atmosphere, and slow spinning. It goes from -173 ºC to 427 ºC, which is why Mercury, or Merc, is often used in figures of speech to signify hell.”

Browser rolls his eyes, and Echo even murmurs something that sounds like gibberish imitating my tone. Lethal shuts them all up with a murderous look.

At the end of class we walk to the lab, where we now spend the majority of our time. After our little demonstration on Ghost’s bladder, it became apparent we need training in keeping our sanity much more than manipulating the human body.

Awkward choice of words.

I glare at Lethal and his stupid comments, trying to focus on the data flashing on the holo-charts. The truth is that I can’t avoid pining for Drama every time I see him.

Get over yourself. You merged once, Lethal says, full of spite.

It was more special than anything you’ve ever had. Silence. I can only feel Lethal’s pain.

“Focus,” Lethal says, pointing at the new data.

I try.

Ghost shows up in the lab at the end of the day. Lethal and I are sitting close to each other, staring at the monitors. I realize that once again we are touching, the golden light only we can see like a safety blanket between us.

Lethal stands, and I already miss him. “Ghost,” he says.

“Lethal, Rogue.” He nods, then adds, “You two look terrible. Have you merged since… nevermind. I’m sure you’ll have the sense to figure it out.” We both look away. I am well aware that Lethal is burning, because so am I, but if I dealt with not merging for years, he can survive a few weeks.

Bonk you, he says.

You wish.

“So, found anything?” Ghost asks.

Lethal waves to the left, where a holo-chart shows a 3D rendition of human plasma cells, which produce antibodies. He says, “We figured out how skills develop—”

Ghost jumps to his feet. “Could you imprint skills at will?”

Lethal and I shake our heads.

I say, “It’s similar to V(D)J recombination, the process that allows humans to have an endless array of antibodies to fight any possible disease.”

“Okay?”

Lethal adds, “Except that skill recombination happens in the brain. At birth, each Cursoi has the potential of developing one of many skills. The skill is selected at puberty.”

“How?” Ghost asks, tilting his head and squinting.

“The recombination happens in cells we named pro-neurons.” I say, “When kids use them, they activate like normal neurons, but the effects are minimal, because there is only one pro-neuron per skill type. We found a huge number of them in the brainscans of Cursoi toddlers, but none after puberty.”

“They die?” Ghost asks.

I nod. “Except the one type that is selected. If one kid engages in an activity he or she enjoys, like healing for me, their dopamine level goes up. The pro-neuron’s activation in concomitance with the spike in dopamine and the peak of sex hormones characteristic of puberty causes that specific pro-neuron to replicate, very much like memory cells in the immune system. These new, all identical neurons colonize a big chunk of the temporal lobe in the brain cortex and make the skill possible.”

Ghost is trying very hard not to stare at Lethal, but his thoughts are obvious. How the Merc did Lethal enjoy crushing internal organs as a kid? Most Cursoi skills are not strictly weapon-like, hence Lethal’s nickname. Most are fun and can be used in a strategical way, like Browser’s or Kino’s, or Emo’s.

Ghost says, “When your master died… it was no accident. Was it?” His face is very white.

Lethal says nothing, and I feel all the guilt and the triumph that still wrestle in his heart at the memory, but mostly the pain, the humiliation.

Ghost continues, “Did he hurt you?”

Lethal stands up abruptly. “The report is over, Sir.” He adds in my head, Time to get drunk, Dumb, and I can’t shake the feeling he’s on a mission to do something really stupid tonight.

[knightsparrow]

Strays (working titel)

Tbh I don’t like writing down or drawing characters in such an early stage of a project. because I will change so much about them and writing it down feels so final?

but I like them a lot for the month they exist and I know it will take me a couple of years until mi make an actual story/comic out of this and I kinda want to keep record of the changes I make

so here we go:

  Story

The story is set in an alternative superhero universe very similar to the dc one because that’s my biggest influence right now. So basically I’m taking the universe rules and bend them how much I want (sorry not sorry). The story will take place in europe in a big city and it’s surrounding cities. So we have skyscrapers, old buildings, lots of parks, small suburb areas and good old industrialized apartment blocks.

The whole story kinda came to life through the thought of “why are there so few european superheroes” and “who is taking care of the rest of the world if all big heroes chill in America?” Also going into the whole idea of not so big heroes working for the people instead of battling world threatening situations.

Which makes me come to the next point all of the characters in this story aren’t that freaking powerful. They are either too young to be big heroes yet or they simply have very basic abilities that make them not really op.

 The whole story is set to be rather funny and light in comparison to all the dark shit I’m usually writing ( I needed a soft story to work on for once). There will still be epic battles and dramatic plot twists and the likes but overall it’s supposed to be rather uplifting and funny (think marvel movie like, which will be hard because I’m bad at coming up with funny jokes)

  Format

I was thinking about cutting the story into multiple short arcs each around 100 pages. The idea behind that is to be able to release them as individual volumes you can pick up in the middle like a good comic series. And I wanted to do this as a side project while working on my bigger stuff as some kind of break… Who knows when I’ll actually start to draw this

  Characters

this stuff will change a loooooot

especially names. Names are usually the last thing I decide when creating new ocs so yeah there might be a lot of things that will change in the future

 Superboy clone

(who still needs a proper name)

He is in his early 20′s and currently studying law. His hometown is a small village so he lives in the big city in a tiny way too expensive flat and has to work a lot besides studying to pay for his living expenses. His family is very conservative and religious so he’s more than happy to live in the big city where he can be his real self (yeah very generic so far).

Powers: He is extremely strong and will later learn to fly (you could say he is a quarter kryptonian or something)

 Dragon Boy

(Who also needs a new name but than again the name is dumb enough to pass as an actual super hero name)

Grew up in the city under harsh circumstances. So your typical low class guy who gets into trouble just for the way he looks and where his family is from. He still lives with his family and makes money through being a pizza courier and being an errand boy for his big brothers.

Powers: He is a demon vessel which so far just makes him hear voices. But thanks to dia he learns to control his powers and he eventually will learn how to turn himself into a beast that looks like a dragon. So yeah again he can fly, is super strong and can breath fire

 Dia Mond

(Dia Mond Is her human name. I still need to come up with a demon one)

A demon summoned into the dead body of a prostitute who’s work alias she adapts. She helps dragon boy with his demon voice problems but decides to stay with the group after her job is done. She has her own motives and her overtaking the body of a supposed to be dead person will make a lot of trouble for the group later on

Powers: well basically all kind of demon powers. She can speak and understand every language, can easily manipulate people and can fight as well as her earthly body allows her to. If she wants she can even summon lower demons or hell beings. But most times she just watches the others and makes snarky comments. So technically she is the most powerful of the group but she hardly ever uses her powers

 Witch

(she needs a proper name)

A well known witch that lends her dark powers to everyone who pays her. She helps the others because she feels pitiful for dragon boy (and they pay her) by summoning dia. She thoroughly regrets that later ‘cause dia takes a liking to her and she is kinda stuck with her. Her hideout becomes the first base of the group.

Powers: all sorts of dark magic. She owns several books filled with powerful spells but every spell has it’s price

 Pigeon

(yep that is her superhero name)

A french girl who is obsessed with cute and pastel things. She is always in a good mood and lifts everyone up. She also hates conflicts and wants everyone to get along.

Power: she has a special connection to pigeons and can see whatever they see. Which sounds very useless is actually very powerful: pigeons are everywhere in the city and so common nobody really cares about them which makes her the perfect spy.

Shikari/Falcon | Anzu

(not sure which name I should pick for her, but I really wanna go down the road of the Hawk/Dove vs Falcon/Pigeon pun)

Anzu is very quiet and shy. She let’s her girlfriend pigeon do most of the talking.

Powers: Anzu has a pet falcon which she is able to share a mind with. So her ability is very similar to Pigeons which made them close in the first place. Compared to pigeon her ability is limited to this one bird and it’s more of a mind controlling ability while pigeon can only see and hear what the birds let her see and hear.

 Lancer

He is a huge nerd studying economy because his parents want him to inherit their business (he hates his study through and would rather spend 24/7 with his 2D waifus). He lives in a huge house in the country side and spends most of his money on his “becoming a superhero”-project. Because of his rich upbringing and him being a “know-everything” type of person he comes off as very arrogant.

The rest of the group find out about his family and that he’s rich waaaaay later into the story ‘cause he never tells them. He provides their second hideout eventually

Power:

Uhmm he is rich and has too much pocket money to spent on high-tech toys and body armor. When he was younger his parents gifted him a horse to teach him responsibilities. That horse is his best (and only) friend and he is a pretty good rider who also won a couple of tournaments

 Archer

She works for an animal rescue and through her work meets a parasitic alien that lives inside a horses body. The horse and the alien are getting along pretty well and so she adopts “them” to keep their secret. (I have no clue how to introduce this mess of a character into the story but oh well here they are)

Powers: Archer is a great well yeah archer combined with her alien-horse buddy they are unbeatable

 Bellerophon

(yeah not sure if I keep that name because no one will remember that one)

Her father was a famous engineer who created a ai horse for her. So of course, Bell follows into his footsteps by becoming an programmer and engineer herself. Over the years she optimized her robot horse Pegasus into an actual winged horse that can fly.

Powers: She is pretty much the brain of the group. Bell doesn’t has any special superpowers besides being extremely smart and good at crafting and creating technical and non-technical things in minutes

 Titania

(an old x-men oc that deserves to see the light of day again)

Titania is a superhero apprentice. When she comes back to her hometown, she has to realize that a group of smalltime heroes are running wild in her city. She finds their hideout quickly and confronts them with how stupid and dangerous what they are doing is. The others pretty much ignore her and at some point, she has to realize the only way to stop them from doing dumb things is by joining them and spending her home vacation training a group of wannabe heroes.

Powers: Titania can manipulate any type of metal. She is still young and learning with actual heroes how to use her powers. She is the only one of the group besides superboy clone with actual superpowers. And also the only one with affiliations to actual superheroes.

[honeybee-hayes]

CHARACTER PROFILE QUESTIONS BY BETH KINDERMAN AND NIKKI WALKER 

Taken from here { x }

PART 1: THE BASICS

What is your full name?

Beatrix Nadzieja Hayes.

Where and when were you born?

December 19th 2039, at Kings College Hospital in London, England.

Who are/were your parents? (Know their names, occupations, personalities, etc.)

Lucas Hayes, Papa. Paratrooper in the British Army, dead. Fun, loving, kind. Ava Hayes, Mother. Housewife, currently in a mental hospital. Horrid, evil, disowned.

Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like?

N/A

Where do you live now, and with whom? Describe the place and the person/people.

Beatrix lives outside of London on her own, in a two story house that she’s decorated to her liking. There is a large garden out back, with an old, small hangar used for storing the jets and planes when they aren’t being lended out. 

What is your occupation?

Bee is a Lieutenant in the British Army, and an Agent for International Rescue.

Write a full physical description of yourself. You might want to consider factors such as: height, weight, race, hair and eye color, style of dress, and any tattoos, scars, or distinguishing marks.

5′8″, British, blonde hair and chocolate-honey eyes. Comfortably style of dress - mainly shorts and tops. Four tattoos, all well hidden. A few small scars from childhood, and a nice round one on the top of her left thigh.

To which social class do you belong?

Middle.

Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses?

Allergic to Canary Melon, suffers with PTSD.

Are you right- or left-handed?

Right handed.

What does your voice sound like?

This girl.

What words and/or phrases do you use very frequently?

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” “Боже мой.”

What do you have in your pockets?

Phone, hair bobbles, lypsyl.

Do you have any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics?

The ability to switch between English and Russian in the middle of a sentence, and change her accent up at will. Has an annoying habit of tapping her fingers on her skin when sitting. 

PART 2: GROWING UP

How would you describe your childhood in general?

Beatrix’s childhood was, for the majority, unstable. 

What is your earliest memory?

Her earliest memory is of trying to put her fingers into a plug. It’s only bits and pieces of a memory since she was young - she remembers her Mother freaking out and her Dad laughing and pulling her away. 

How much schooling have you had?

16 years. Nursery, Infants, Juniours, Secondary.

Did you enjoy school?

No, school was simply a tool for Beatrix to learn and make her way into the Army.

Where did you learn most of your skills and other abilities?

Most of her homemaking skills and DIY skills are self taught, through the internet or through experimenting. Her kickboxing skills come from taking classes when she was a young girl, and then constant training sessions - whether she’s in the gym or on tour, the girl kicks ass.

While growing up, did you have any role models? If so, describe them.

I think Bee’s one and only role model was her father - he was a good man and she looked up to him, aimed to follow his steps into the Army.

While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family?

Beatrix only had her mother and father to get along with, and it’s safe to say she was a daddy’s girl through and through. Her mother, however, is a different story.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Being a daddy’s girl, Bee wanted to follow her Papa’s footsteps into the army. Not necessarily become a paratrooper like he did, but she wanted to help out and serve her country for definite.

As a child, what were your favorite activities?

Beatrix always loved playing outside in the sun - whether it was climbing trees, playing on the swingset, or riding a bike. 

As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display?

She was always a bright, bubbly, happy child. Post-divorce, however, that all changed. Beatrix withdrew into herself and became quiet, focused, and determined.

As a child, were you popular? Who were your friends, and what were they like?

Penelope was, arguably, Beatrix’s only childhood friend - especially after she withdrew and refused to make any friends at all.

When and with whom was your first kiss?

At fourteen, Beatrix actually attended a house party and played Seven Minutes in Heaven with another girl from the party.

Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity?

Yes.

If you are a supernatural being (i.e. mage, werewolf, vampire), tell the story of how you became what you are or first learned of your own abilities. If you are just a normal human, describe any influences in your past that led you to do the things you do today.

Arguably, Beatrix’s biggest behavioural influences have been her parents divorce, the Bratva, war, and Penelope. Each event (or person) practically causes a behavioural one-eighty. 

PART 3: PAST INFLUENCES

What do you consider the most important event of your life so far?

The most important event in Bee’s life would undoubtedly be the death of her father. As big as it is to get involved with the Bratva, or to be part of International Rescue, nothing can compare to that - it shook her to her core.

Who has had the most influence on you?

Lucas Hayes, without a shadow of doubt.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Achieving the rank of Lieutenant in the British Army.

What is your greatest regret?

Being captured with a group of nine other women overseas. She doesn’t regret being captured, she regrets not being able to save all of the women. She regrets that one was killed before she could act.

What is the most evil thing you have ever done?

Does having a lack of mercy towards those who don’t deserve it count? Because there are countless acts of that.

Do you have a criminal record of any kind?

No - but only because she’s friends with hte right people. The Bratva did a pretty effective job of wiping her criminal record before she left Russia, back when she was sixteen. They still do a good job of keeping it clean when she visits during the summer.

When was the time you were the most frightened?

At age 25, when Beatrix is trapped under a burning building - thats when she is the most frightened. She can experience The Hood trying to control the world, murder in front of her very eyes, and even being trapped in a room with a ticking time bomb - but nothing will shake her to her core like being caught underneath a fire and not being able to do anything about it.

What is the most embarrassing thing ever to happen to you?

John caught her wearing his boxers after getting out of the shower.

If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be, and why?

Regarding the group of women overseas - Beatrix would make sure all of them made it out alive.

What is your best memory?

An illegal, drunken night in Russia with her friends - tresspassing on private, abadoned property and breaking and entering said property. Beatrix climbed up a gutter pipe and broke the second floor window of a house. It’s her favourite memory because it taught her that, in some weird sense, she can do anything if she puts her mind to it and believes in herself.

What is your worst memory?

Bee’s worst memory is probably the look on the Babuskha’s face when she was packing to leave Russia, holding out one last bowl of Borscht for her. It tugged at her heart in a funny way, made her wish she could stay with that old Babushka.

PART 4: BELIEFS AND OPINIONS

Are you basically optimistic or pessimistic?

Beatrix is, without a shadow of doubt, a pessimist. Years of running on the wrong side of the law, fighting wars, and just trying to survive has made sure that the negative of a situation comes to the front of her mind first. 

What is your greatest fear?

Fire always has been, and always will be, Beatrix’s greatest fear. Even when safely contained in a fireplace, she remains anxious and hypervigilant to its movement.

What are your religious views?

Non-applicable. With everything she’s seen and done, Bee hardly believes that there is some greater force out there. There’s too many awful things happening on the regular, even though they live in a supposed ‘better’ world than fifty years ago, and people wanting to do harm, to think that something like a god still exists.

What are your political views?

Governments can be useful for control and regulation - but they can also be easily deceived and corrupted. Beatrix finds it to be a... fine line. 

What are your views on sex?

Details on such a thing should be kept between those having it - and noone else is entitled to those details if they do not wish to share. What people want to do is up to them, and there should be no shame in it.

Are you able to kill? Under what circumstances do you find killing to be acceptable or unacceptable?

Had Beatrix allowed herself to slip enough, then killing would almost be second nature to her now. Shooting first used to be a motto she lived by, a life was nothing to her. Now, thanks to the help of friends, shooting is an absolute last resort - and used only to protect. If she’s going to shoot, she’ll aim for a non-vital area like the calf or forearm - just to disarm and shock.

In your opinion, what is the most evil thing any human being could do?

Beatrix realises that humans are capable of an astounding amount of evil - and she does not believe in one thing being ‘the most evil’, rather that all evil acts are practically on par with each other.

Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love?

No. Some days it’s hard enough to believe romantic love exists at all, nevermind true love; and if Beatrix can’t believe in that, she can’t believe in soulmates.

What do you believe makes a successful life?

Quite simply, survival. If you survive life, you win.

How honest are you about your thoughts and feelings (i.e. do you hide your true self from others, and in what way)?

Beatrix, while she does not always voice her thoughts, is never dishonest about what she thinks. The only thing she does hide is how well she’s coping with her PTSD

Do you have any biases or prejudices?

Tea is better than coffee, any day. 

Is there anything you absolutely refuse to do under any circumstances? 

Beatrix will always refuse to take part in illegal drugs - she’d rather not inhibit herself like that.

Why do you refuse to do it?

Purely and simply because it feels wrong - to feel so out of your own body is wrong in every sense to Beatrix.

Who or what, if anything, would you die for (or otherwise go to extremes for)?

Family - and friends that have become family to her. Beatrix wouldn’t give a second thought to giving her life to save theirs. 

PART 5: RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS

In general, how do you treat others (politely, rudely, by keeping them at a distance, etc.)? Does your treatment of them change depending on how well you know them, and if so, how?

Upon first meeting someone, Beatrix will be polite and civil. Where that relationship goes will define how she treats them - for example, if they are to become a friend, she will relax significantly around them, cracking jokes and smiling more. Even then, there’s still an element of that serious nature.

Who is the most important person in your life, and why?

At this point in time, I would argue that it’s either Penelope or Scott. Both mean a lot to her.

Who is the person you respect the most, and why?

Undoubtedly, Scott Tracy. Due to both having background in the Forces - Scott the USAF, and Beatrix the British Army, Bee understands how his mind may work at times and respects him as her senior officer out in the field.

Who are your friends? Do you have a best friend? Describe these people.

Bee has a lot of friends - between International Rescue, the Army, and her old rag tag group in Russia, she has a lot of people to laugh with. Though the best friend position goes to Penelope. 

Do you have a spouse or significant other? If so, describe this person.

Currently, no. Though that’s not to say that there isn’t someone on her mind.

Have you ever been in love? If so, describe what happened.

A first love, an unrequited love - and still, she loved him with her whole heart. Then, it got harder and harder. She always knew it was unrequited but, but one day she realised she couldn’t love someone that wasn’t even on the same planet as her half the time.

What do you look for in a potential lover?

A best friend. 

How close are you to your family?

With one half of her biological family dead and the other disowned, Beatrix finds herself having a second family in International Rescue. Kayo and the Lynch twins are arguably the closest of the bunch - though only marginally.

Have you started your own family? If so, describe them. If not, do you want to? Why or why not?

A family is not something Beatrix has her focus on. Between International Rescue, the Army, and her PTSD, she hasn’t much time to think about settling down and having children.

Who would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help?

Most likely Scott, Virgil, John, Kayo or Penelope. 

Do you trust anyone to protect you? Who, and why?

Only two people - Scott Tracy, and Matthew Lynch.

If you died or went missing, who would miss you?

Though she would never say it aloud, Beatrix would hope most of her friends would miss her.

Who is the person you despise the most, and why?

Her Mother - for all the things she’s done to Bee in the past.

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict?

This will largely depend on the situation. Both arguing and avoiding conflict are things Beatrix will do. For example, she will avoid confrontation with the media, yet is likely to argue with Jeff Tracy.

Do you tend to take on leadership roles in social situations?

Again, this depends on who she is with. If someone like Scott, John, Kayo, or Matt is there then Beatrix will step down. Otherwise, she will step up.

Do you like interacting with large groups of people? Why or why not?

Not at all. While large groups don’t make Bee nervous, they certainly do make her uncomfortable. In her mind she reasons that there are a lot of pairs of eyes that can stare and judge her, that they will somehow reveal all her secrets and she will be shunned. 

Do you care what others think of you?

Both yes and no - those who she cares for, she will care what they think. Anyone else can take a hike. 

PART 6: LIKES AND DISLIKES

What is/are your favorite hobbies and pastimes?

Sketching, playing the piano, gardening, beekeeping, tennis, archery, and horse riding.

What is your most treasured possession?

A small bee necklace, with her Russian nickname engraved on the back.

What is your favorite color?

Yellow, of course.

What is your favorite food?

Mangos.

What, if anything, do you like to read?

Fiction. Adventure, comedy, or murder mysteries.

What is your idea of good entertainment (consider music, movies, art, etc.)?

A night out to a classical concert, or a movie night in curled up with the Guns ‘n Posers.

Do you smoke, drink, or use drugs? If so, why? Do you want to quit?

Beatrix has a complicated relationship with smoking. She will most likely smoke while on tour with her troop, though not always. Its not until she sees a therapist in her late twenties that she finds the gall to quit completely. Alcohol is usually only consumed if things are really bad,  or if she’s visiting Russia.

How do you spend a typical Saturday night?

Keeping busy with house chores - gardening, laundry, ironing, changing the beds, scrubbing the bathroom, the like. 

What makes you laugh?

Largely sassy comments and witty remarks.

What, if anything, shocks or offends you?

If someone puts milk in fruit tea, consider Beatrix offended. In terms of being shock, she tends to be shocked by irregular, whacky things - take contortionists, for example.

What would you do if you had insomnia and had to find something to do to amuse yourself?

No doubt Beatrix would keep herself busy with something quiet - drawing, or laundry, or ironing. Something she could just get on with.

How do you deal with stress?

Grit her teeth and get on with it, only ask for help if absolutely needed. Both her job in the Army and her volunteer work for International Rescue are high stress jobs - she knows how to cope and unwind later.

Are you spontaneous, or do you always need to have a plan?

Surprisingly, Beatrix is more spontaneous - she’s more likely to get up and visit Russia on a whim than she is to plan a holiday there.

What are your pet peeves?

People running late, people who talk negatively about food, peope who stand in the way.

PART 7: SELF IMAGES AND ETC.

Describe the routine of a normal day for you. How do you feel when this routine is disrupted?

Awake at five, start laundry or meal prep for the day. Go for a run, have a cup of tea and some breakfast, start gardening. Take a shower, have lunch, more tea, run errands or complete more chores, have a small dinner, featuring more tea. Relax - probably by doing some paperwork, or reading. In bed by ten.

What is your greatest strength as a person?

Trained as an Army commando, Beatrix has the strength to endure - she will get up and push and keep going, even if it’s at a detriment to her own health.

What is your greatest weakness?

Her chosen family. She would drop anything and do anything for them.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Beatrix would love to get rid of her mental illness, if she could. She feels its the root of a lot of problems some days and wishes she could weed it out.

Are you generally introverted or extroverted?

Extroverted.

Are you generally organized or messy?

Organised.

Name three things you consider yourself to be very good at, and three things you consider yourself to be very bad at.

Do you like yourself?

Beatrix is the same as everyone else - there are days when she doesn’t mnid herself, and days when she doesn’t like herself.

What are your reasons for being an adventurer (or doing the strange and heroic things that RPG characters do)? Are your real reasons for doing this different than the ones you tell people in public? (If so, detail both sets of reasons…)

What goal do you most want to accomplish in your lifetime?

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

If you could choose, how would you want to die?

If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, name three things you would do in the time you had left.

What is the one thing for which you would most like to be remembered after your death?

What three words best describe your personality?

What three words would others probably use to describe you?

If you could, what advice would you, the player, give to your character? (You might even want to speak as if he or she were sitting right here in front of you, and use proper tone so he or she might heed your advice…)

[dumbassholesopinion-blog]

Catholic Church #1 Review

One thing I did not realize is growing up is that the Catholic Church tries to be very opulent. Especially compared to other religious buildings, it seems as if every Catholic Church goes out of their way to look like the freaking Pope lives there. The one I participated in was no different. Marble floors, beautifully detailed stained glass windows, a marble fountain that spouted holy water.

So walking in, it was very pretty. and VERY packed. I came a bit late so I had to stand in the back. Clearly Catholicism is pretty big in the United States.

I wonder how Catholic services were first organized? Who determined how things would run, typically? The service seemed to be exactly how I remembered it as a child. First some song and a prayer, then the priest tells a story, then more songs and prayer while they collect money, some bible verses, some more songs, a lot of prep work for communion, people kneel and shake hands, then communion, then another short prayer and then everybody goes home.

Do priests get tired of this? The same thing, every single time. I wonder what the alter boys think. Are they that devout that they don’t mind the slog, or do their parents make them do this? They seem too young to be this dedicated to the cause. Instilling a religion into a child always seemed to be borderline abuse to me. There’s a fine line between naturally presenting your child with all of your ideological viewpoints, and forcing your child to participate in a religion to a certain level of devotion. Sometimes people feel bad for kids born to parents in cults because of the weird rituals and beliefs that they grew up performing.   One good thing about Catholic Church services: you know what you’re getting. They’re very comfort-food like. All you have to do is go and listen and follow instructions.

But I did find the services to be very cult-like. From the moment you walk in and have to bless yourself (make the sign of the cross) with holy water, to the moment you walk out and…do the same thing. It’s such a weird phenomena. Do these worshipers do this simply out of tradition, or do they believe in some sort of power that this water can bring them? Do they do it so they won’t go to hell? Will I go to hell because I did the water thing but I don’t believe in their god?

I love the kneeling thing the most because I find it to be the most cynical thing. It seems very subservient to me. I understand the desire to do this if you believe in a higher power and want to submit yourself to him (or her! or it), however my values and beliefs lie so far away from this need to submit to a higher power that it comes across and degrading. Can people not find happiness and meaning without religious dogma? Likewise the priest is not the best story-teller, which I think you have to be if you’re going to be a priest. His story was amicable, from what I heard of it. He spoke kind of low and I was in the back, so it was difficult to hear him. It was your typical sermon from my point of view. He was telling a story about how sacrificing for others is a good thing and can help you become a good person, and also Jesus. The Jesus and religion bits seemed really ham-fisted in this story, but ultimately it was a good message.

The priest also mentioned something about life on Earth compared to the eternal bliss of the afterlife. I really hate this line of thinking, because again it degrades the sanctity of life (in my opinion). I feel having this much confidence in the idea that your short 60-80 years is just the first phase of an even longer, better, fitter, happier, Not drinking too much, Regular exercise at the gym, three days a week, Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries, At ease, life eternal is a bad coping mechanism for the fear of non-existence. This ideology at best provides misguided motivation to lead a good life, and at worst can lead to the religious extremism that can negatively impact those who are not as devout. I get that the idea is a pleasing one, but I would rather have a harsh truth than a comforting lie….generally. Especially for the big things in life. Not only is the idea of an afterlife bad logic, but belief in it can have negative consequences.

My favorite part of Catholic mass? The money collection. Whoever came up with the way to integrate fund collection IN the religious service itself is most likely in hell, but was probably Sainted here on Earth. I always assumed Jesus was not really the type of guy who cared much for money, but Catholics need their $$$ to be able to upkeep their opulent collection agencies! Truly a genius idea. No other religion, as far as I know (not that I know much) has a designated donation segment as part of their religious services. As smart of an idea as it is from a business perspective, I feel it certainly detracts from the spiritual journey one is supposed to be on. It may also provide a poor lesson to the young and easily influenced: prayer services and money collection SHOULD go together. I would argue the opposite.

The whole event seemed like a very carefully orchestrated ballet, where priests, alter boys, and worshipers all did certain things at certain times. However ballets are typically choreographed for some sort of aesthetically pleasing reason or because it would move the plot along. Why are Catholic masses run this way? Will I become closer to God by watching the priest perform certain movements in certain ways? Finally: Communion. The big dog. It seemed like the final 20 minutes were dedicated to this, between the preparation, actually going through it, and the epilogue. I did not realize how big of a deal this is to every single mass. Again, it must get really boring for the priests. I wonder what it would be like for a person who is not used to Catholicism to go through this. I was very weirded out at both the Mosque and the Buddhist Temple because those were cultures I was not used to. But I know Catholic mass. This was weird to be me because I view all religions as cults which serve no purpose other than to provide a sense of security to people who have not found it without religious dogma, but I have to imagine if I were not used to Catholic mass I would freak out at this part. Everyone lines up to eat a cracker that is metaphorically a piece of the body of Jesus. Which part? His whole body? Did Jesus work out, would he taste good? Why are we drinking his blood?  It seems as if Catholics would get along with Vampires, even though Catholic symbolism helps keep them at bay. I thought the cracker tasted good, I wonder how many calories are in that thing. Do they make chocolate flavored Jesus Body? Can we substitute wine with pomegranate juice? 

Going to a Catholic mass again just made me want to become a religious leader. Not sure which religion, but I would love to get paid to spout a religion at people.

Then when everybody leaves, they all go to the holy water fountain. What makes this water holy? Who blessed it? Can I put a curse on it to make it unholy? Why does everybody do this? Such a weird thing to do. I wanted to take a poll about who was doing it because it is just “what you do” versus who was doing it because they found a deeper meaning to it as a part of the entire religious service.