#i know lumpy comes off as body negativity but it's not really about weight he's just an unusually lumpy person

[astropithecus]

I really love the idea of this lumpy oatmeal man sitting in like a $10,000 Herman Miller chair panic-curling a 5 lb. dumbbell with one hand and Tweeting Xcreeting with the other about how tough he is. Then just when literally everyone with an internet connection is laughing at the thought of him getting dorky-middle-aged-jujitsu-kicked in the face by his pop culture arch nemesis like some gritty live-action reboot of Celebrity Deathmatch, he gets a feeling in his lumpy gut like maybe his mouth wrote a check his lumpy ass couldn't cash, and he has the most brilliant idea he's had since he rebranded Twitter.

After the MRI I'm expecting the next excuse will be he has a note from his mom.

[patchwork-panda]

If A Moment Is All We Are (16/?)

AO3 link: HERE

“Ranpo-san! Can you hear me?! Ranpo-san—!”

I clapped my hand over my mouth and doubled over, coughing so violently I thought I might puke. I’d inhaled a mouthful of ash and dust when I’d called Edogawa’s name and the taste was even worse than the smell. My hair and clothes were blanketed in the stuff and as I stumbled forward, hacking out my lungs, I thought I heard Hatta shouting into a walkie-talkie and calling for a medic.

Why?!

“Ranpo-san, why did you go in?” I coughed, dropping to my knees when I’d reached the pile of smoldering debris. “I thought you solved the case already!”

Edogawa knew as well as I did that if he went into the room, he would be crushed when the roof collapsed over his head. Perhaps he thought he would be safe if he avoided checking the body, the way he had in the vision. After all, I’d seen the ceiling caving in just above the corpse, not in the corner where the jars were kept.

I shoved my hands into the pile of debris and began digging, praying to some unknown god that Edogawa would be alright.

The location may have been different, but everything else had happened exactly as it had in my vision. Was a person’s future fixed after all? And if so, was there any point in struggling to fight the inevitable?

Clouds of dust and soot rose into the air as I continued clearing away the debris, Hatta joining me in my efforts to get to Edogawa. Seconds, each more agonizing than the last, slowly passed and I felt the panic rising in my throat when our efforts barely seemed to make a difference in the size of the pile...

Slamming my hands down on the broken floorboards, I let out a desperate scream.

“Say something!!”

“There’s no need to yell,” a muffled voice called back, “I can hear you just fine!”

I stopped digging immediately.

“Ranpo-san?!”

At once, the pile beneath my hands began to shift. Without warning, a grimy, soot-covered Edogawa popped out of the ground in a shower of dirt. I let out a surprised shriek and fell over backwards onto my butt.

“Phew, that was a close one,” Edogawa muttered, dusting off his poncho as his entire torso emerged from a strange, circular hole in the ground.

“Wh-where did you come from?!” I stammered. “How did you—?!”

“Really Kusunoki-kun, did you think a member of the Armed Detective Agency could be done in by a mere accident?” Edogawa sighed. “Minus one point.”

He threw aside something that looked like a dirty frisbee and put his hands on the ground, pushing himself up. It was then that I noticed he wasn’t climbing out of some random hole in the ground, but an enormous clay pickle pot that had been buried in the dirt; the frisbee he’d just tossed aside was actually its weighted lid. As I watched, Edogawa lifted one foot out of the pot, planted it on the circular rim and immediately slipped on its grimy surface. He fell back into the pot with a soft yelp.

“Don’t just stand there! Help me up!”

At once, I stumbled forward and reached out to grab onto his hand. However, the moment Edogawa’s bare fingers closed around my wrist, I realized (too late) that neither of us were wearing gloves. I squeezed my eyes shut, readying myself to push the incoming vision away, the way I had when I’d caught the kidnapper Kunikida and I were chasing.

Please don’t let my eyes start bleeding again! If Hatta sees, my secret might be exposed...!

But nothing happened.

There was no tug of gravity and no blacking out. No headache either. I could still definitely feel the warmth of Edogawa’s hand but it was as if I weren’t hanging onto Edogawa at all.

No. The only other time I had felt something like this was when I was holding onto Dazai with his Ability canceling powers...

I opened my eyes, half expecting to see the bandaged detective himself in front of me but what I saw instead was a very cross-looking Edogawa.

“Some assistant you are,” he snapped, suddenly tugging at my arm so hard so that he almost yanked me into the pot with him. “See if I take you on another case again!”

Mumbling an apology under my breath, I grabbed onto him with both hands and with Hatta’s help, pulled him free of the enormous pot at last. Once he had both feet on solid ground again, Edogawa dusted off his hat, turned to me and shook his head.

“And here I thought you’d directed me to this particular corner because you’d seen the pickle jar buried in the ground and thought it would be a good place to hide in case the roof really did collapse.”

He clicked his tongue.

“But judging by your reaction, you definitely didn’t. Maybe we should get you a pair of glasses too.”

“Edogawa-san! Are you alright?” Hatta asked, just as a group of medics appeared on the staircase.

“I’m more than alright,” Edogawa said, grinning. “I’ve just solved this entire case! Here.”

He stuck out his hand and opened his palm. Perched on its surface, looking rather grimy but otherwise perfectly intact, was a lumpy green key chain. He rubbed it between his fingers to clean it off and as a set of tiny features finally emerged, I could clearly see it for what it was.

“That’s the Statue of Liberty,” I said, my eyes widening. “The one in New York City!”

“Correct!” Edogawa declared, “Plus one point! But I’m also subtracting one point for your failure to pull me out of that giant pickle jar when I first called out to you for help, so you’re at negative one for now...”

“Ehh?!”

“I’ll total up your final score when we get back to the Agency. Kunikida-kun’s good with math, I’ll have him help.”

I blanched.

“No! Please don’t tell Kunikida-san—!”

“Anyway,” Edogawa continued, twirling the key chain around on his index finger, “This belonged to your victim. My assistant here was right to suspect he was looking for something in the pickle jars but this was surprisingly hard to find...”

He tossed the key chain at Hatta, who caught it between two hands.

“What’s so special about this key chain?” he asked, voicing the question I wanted to ask.

“This isn’t something you can just order online,” Edogawa explained. “Take a look at the bottom. There’s a sticker with the price tag in American dollars still attached. Our victim here was never able to get it off. Which means he, or someone close to him, bought this in New York City.”

He pointed to the body.

“Check his clothes thoroughly. You’re going to find a key that corresponds to the lock outside. This man was given access to the basement in the past but it’s clear that he shouldn’t have been here last night.”

This time he pointed to the corner where the body lay.

“When he heard the owners of the house coming, he ran for this corner so he could hide, but he tripped when he came down the steps. He landed right over there, where the force of his fall loosened several bricks from that pile, which knocked him out. I believe Daisuke Ito, the elderly husband, had very poor hearing so he didn’t hear the bricks falling down. Not only that, his memory was starting to go so when he came upon the lock and found it open, he’d just assumed he or his wife had forgotten to lock it and promptly locked it himself, not knowing the victim was inside. Then the fire started in the kitchen and you know the rest.”

“But the victim,” I protested, “Who is he?”

Edogawa stared at me. Then he jabbed a finger at me.

“Minus another point.”

“Eh?!”

“You didn’t see the backpack lying outside in the yard?” he asked, looking annoyed, “It’s right there! It’s burned pretty badly but anyone could see it was a backpack!”

Bewildered, I turned to Hatta, as if he might come to my defense but Hatta just gave me an apologetic shrug and pulled out his walkie-talking. He instructed one of the officers standing outside to search the garbage pile near the doors. From down below, we heard the sounds of the officer ruffling through the burned trash and then a very loud gasp.

“We found a U.S. passport!” the officer called out, down the stairs.

My eyes widened.

“This guy’s a foreigner?!”

Edogawa grinned.

“Close. He’s a double citizen.”

My jaw dropped.

“No way...”

“Your victim is either the child of a family friend or a not-so-distant relative,” Edogawa said, tucking his hands into his pockets and proceeding towards the stairs. “He used to help out with the pickle-making business and was close enough with the Ito’s that he was personally given a key to the basement. One day, while our victim was working, he dropped the key chain into that pot by accident. Shortly after, he had a falling out with the family and stopped working here. However, Ito’s either forgot about the key they’d handed out or decided not to ask for it back, in case their relationship improved again and the victim could resume working with them. It seems it didn’t happen in time, so this man was forced to sneak back in just last night so he could retrieve his key chain. It’s a pretty cheap object, meaning this was clearly a sentimental item he got when he’d last visited the States. I think he was planning to take it with him for his final trip back to the U.S.”

He yelled up the stairs at the officer.

“Read me the name on that passport!”

There was a pause.

“It’s in English! Hang on...”

And then another gasp.

“It’s Ito Haru! Holy shit!!”

Hatta’s jaw dropped. He turned to Edogawa, looking stunned.

“Ito Haru is their great nephew. He was reported missing four months ago! What was he doing here?!”

“He must’ve been on the run,” Edogawa concluded. “Probably had debts of some sort. Anyway, you’re the police, you can look into that on your own.”

He made a face.

“I’m going home to take a shower.”

He wiped his hands down on his clothes (it made no difference—both his hands and his garments were filthy with brownish goop and dirt) and proceeded toward the exit.

“Kusunoki-kun!”

I snapped to attention.

“Yes!”

“Hurry up! I need to go home.”

“Be right there!”

I couldn’t believe it. Just like that, the case was over. Edogawa had solved it in a matter of minutes. Not only that, he’d escaped being injured by the collapsing ceiling even though I’d seen it happen in one of my visions.

For the first time in forever, I had been wrong.

Beautifully and mercifully wrong.

I grabbed my bag from where I’d dropped it and followed Edogawa up the stairs. Hatta and the medics he’d summoned earlier bowed deeply as we passed them. Edogawa merely tipped his hat in farewell as he left but I bowed to each one as I went, determined to maintain as much professionalism as I could (Kunikida was right, we still had the Agency’s reputation to think about). When we finally reached the top of the stairs and stepped blinking into the bright midday sun, Edogawa reached inside his pocket and pulled out a single wrapped piece of gummy candy.

“Well I’d say that went pretty well, wouldn’t you?”

He tore open the package and popped the bite-sized treat into his mouth, as I stared incredulously at him.

“What?” he asked, chewing noisily. “You don’t think so?”

“Ranpo-san,” I said, “The roof collapsed on you earlier. You could’ve died.”

“No, I couldn’t have,” he said, already pulling a second piece of gummy candy from his pocket.

“Yes, you could!”

“No,” Edogawa repeated, staring me down. “I couldn’t.”

It was like talking to a child. I slapped my hand over my eyes and groaned.

“Look,” Edogawa said, swallowing his piece of candy at long last, “Kusunoki-kun, you’re good. But you’re not that good. After everything I’ve seen today, I can say two things with absolute certainty: one, your Ability does not work on the same person twice in one day. I saw your face when you tried to pull me out of that jar earlier. That was the shocked look of an Ability User who suddenly found they couldn’t use their powers. I’ve seen it enough times to know what I’m talking about. Two...”

Grinning, he pointed at me.

“Your visions aren’t absolute. How do I know this?”

He folded his arms over his chest.

“I’m not dead,” he said simply. “And I get the feeling this isn’t the first time you were wrong.”

But I shook my head.

“Every vision I’ve seen so far has come true,” I argued. “Every single one. Even if I’m not there to see it happen in person, I’ll hear about it and it’s always horrible. Ranpo-san, I don’t know how you managed to survive because I can’t think of a single other person who—”

The words died in my throat.

Edogawa raised an eyebrow and watched as comprehension slowly dawned on my face and I whispered a single name.

“Yamazaki-san.”

“Who’s that?”

“My neighbor,” I answered, turning to him in astonishment. “She lived across the hall from me before I moved into the Agency apartment. I... I told Kunikida-san and Dazai-san about her, that she was going to be murdered and they sent her away to Nagano, to live with her nephew. She... She’s still alive.”

I felt my knees give way and I collapsed in an unsteady heap on the scorched grass. My head was spinning.

“I don’t understand...”

Edogawa watched me quietly for a moment, then reached into his pocket for yet another piece of candy.

“How often do you tell people about your visions, Kusunoki-kun?” he asked thoughtfully, turning the candy over in his hand.

“Never. This is only the second time. The first time was when I met Kunikida-san and Dazai-san.”

I looked away.

“I never even told my own relatives. I didn’t want them to think I was crazy.”

Or worse, cursed, the way many Ability Users were.

“I see...”

Edogawa looked at the piece of candy in his hand, staring through it as if it held the answers he were looking for inside its brightly colored wrapper.

“So this is the second time you’ve told someone what you saw and the second time that the act of merely telling someone has changed the vision. Hmm...”

He looked up at me.

“You ever heard of the ‘Observer Effect?’”

“Sort of... I think it was mentioned during one of my physics classes way back when. That’s what it’s called when the act of simply observing an event changes the event itself, right?”

“Correct. Plus one point,” Edogawa said, tossing the piece of candy to me. “It seems to me that your Ability works in a way that’s similar to the Observer Effect. In other words, the very act of telling someone about the contents of your visions will alter the outcome. Why is this? It’s because upon hearing their future, a person will become consumed with thoughts of how to change it if they don’t like the outcome and thoughts of how to make it come true no matter what if they do like the outcome. It’s like those old Greek myths.”

“But if I’m the one seeing the vision,” I protested, “Wouldn’t that make me an ‘observer?’ Why does my observing the vision not change the outcome?”

“But it has,” Edogawa explained. “You said so yourself. When you told Kunikida-kun and Dazai-san about your vision, they protected your elderly neighbor and prevented her murder. The only reason nothing had ever changed before was because you never had much of an incentive to change another person’s future and so never told a soul. Surely they couldn’t have all been life-or-death situations?”

He was right. They weren’t. I could tell by the smug look on his face that he knew it as well as I did.

“Ranpo-san,” I said, slowly getting to my feet. “You’re amazing...! You really are.”

At that, Edogawa beamed.

“I am, right?”

“But I do have one more question... How did you avoid getting crushed the way I saw in my vision?” I asked. “I saw it from Hatta-san’s perspective. Usually that means whoever the vision is actually about dies—”

“Oh come on, Kusunoki-kun,” Edogawa sighed. “I thought it was obvious?”

When I shook my head, he let out another sigh, heavier this time.

“I’ll put it simply then: I believe in the power of possibility.”

He took out his glasses and spun them around his finger. The light caught on the thick glass of the lenses and they flashed in the sun.

“When you told me what you saw in my future, I refused to believe it. I didn’t want to. Me, the Great Detective, Edogawa Ranpo, meet his end, not at the hands of a brilliant rival, but in some rickety burned house, crushed to death like a tiny insignificant bug?”

He shook his head.

“No. That’s not how it’s going to be. ‘I won’t let it,’ I thought. And so I thought... and I thought... and I thought...”

I watched his glasses spin faster and faster around on his finger, picking up speed as he spoke.

“And then I realized something.”

He caught the glasses in his hand.

“This was just another puzzle. If I operate under the assumption that your visions are not absolute, that they show the most likely possibility rather than an unchangeable fact, then I could try to think of a way out. And if I succeeded, then I could change the future.”

Placing the glasses back on his face, he grinned, an overpowering aura of confidence radiating from his sharp, green eyes.

“And who better to change the future than the Great Detective?”

I was floored.

Holy crap, he really was a genius.

“Besides,” he said, taking the glasses off and frowning at a speck of dirt on them. “I told you before that these glasses are important to me, didn’t I?”

He grabbed a corner of my jacket and, ignoring my protests, started polishing the glass with the clean lining.

“There is no possible future in which I would let anything happen to these. None.”

He tucked them back into his pocket and marched off.

“Now come on! There’s a shower I need to take and snacks yet to be eaten. As payment for your lesson today, I will charge you the low, low price of two boxes of Kit-Kats.”

“Two?!”

“One for the lesson and two for almost letting me die. Now stop dawdling. I haven’t had lunch yet and I’m starving!”

Once again, I hurried after him. A small group of police staff rushed past us in the direction of the basement, barely acknowledging our presence as we walked away from the house and towards the street, where I could see the subway entrance several blocks away. As I pocketed the gummy candy Edogawa had given me, he stopped walking and spoke up one final time.

“You know, normally I’d complain about my assistant being constantly on the phone in the middle of a case but in this situation, I think I’ll let it go.”

He turned to me just as the crosswalk light behind him turned red. His grin looked just a touch unsteady.

“If Dazai-san hadn’t been texting you all this time... Who knows what could have happened?”

***

“Ah, Kusunoki-kun.”

For a brief moment, Kunikida seemed just as surprised to see me coming into the first floor lobby as I was to see him already standing there.

“Good timing,” he said, sounding relieved. “Could you please get the elevator for me? I’d do it myself but...”

He shifted the heavy stack of papers piled high in his arms to indicate his current predicament but all I saw was the way his shirt sleeves stretched over his biceps when he moved. The coat I was wearing suddenly felt too thick and warm.

“G-good afternoon, Kunikida-san.”

I could already feel the awkward smile tugging at my cheeks when I spoke and I struggled to keep my voice even as I hurried over.

“Of course! Just a second.”

“Thanks. That really helps,” he sighed, shifting in place as I pushed the button for him and stepped back to stand beside him.

“What are all those papers for?” I asked, eyeing the thick stack in his arms. “Do you want me to take some of them up for you?”

Shaking his head slightly, Kunikida observed me from behind the stack. His glasses slipped just a fraction down his nose and I found myself wanting to push them back up for him.

“That won’t be necessary. I just need to take these to the clerk room so Haruno-san and the others can type them up. By the way...”

He squinted at me.

“Why is your hair wet?”

I twitched.

“Oh, that,” I laughed nervously, tucking a damp strand of hair behind my ear. “I had to go home to take a shower. I was out on a case this morning and things got a little... messy... I didn’t want to come back to the Agency covered in dirt.”

After dropping Edogawa off at his apartment (“You’re my assistant so I expect you to write the report for me,” he’d said, “I’m going snack shopping. Have Kunikida-kun call me if something comes up.”), I’d immediately rushed home and jumped into the shower with my clothes still on. Edogawa and I had been covered in so much foul-smelling grime that all the other subway passengers had gone out of their way to avoid us. Even the cleaning staff had shot us dirty looks as we’d left. I’d spent so much time trying to clean myself off that I barely got the chance to eat.

“So you used your lunch break to go home and clean up?” Kunikida asked.

“Yeah. Sorry I didn’t have time to dry my hair,” I mumbled. “I was hoping to get back early and there wasn’t enough time...”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kunikida said as the elevator arrived with a soft chime. “I can’t tell you how nice it is to finally have an employee who thinks about the Agency’s reputation.”

He inclined his head towards the elevator and made an apologetic face.

“Sorry but could you get that, please?”

I nodded and went in ahead to hold the door for him. But when he settled in next to me and the doors came to a close, I suddenly realized that I was alone in a somewhat small space with Kunikida Doppo—the very tall, very handsome blonde detective I was definitely crushing on. If my coat felt too warm before, I was burning up now.

As the silence slowly settled in, the air around us seemed to thicken.

I wanted to think of something to say, something that would make this whole situation less awkward. But for some reason, all I could think about was the fact that this was my first time interacting with Kunikida again after the incident with Dazai and the notebook the day before. I realized I should probably take this time to explain what had happened but my tongue felt like it was stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Thankfully, Kunikida broke the silence first.

“Kusunoki-kun.”

I nearly jumped in surprise.

“Y-yes?”

“Before we get to the Agency, I have something I need to tell you.”

My heart was pounding in my chest and I clutched at the strap of my bag.

“W-what is it?”

“About yesterday...”

I swallowed nervously.

“Yes?”

He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Don’t let what happened bother you,” he said quietly, looking straight ahead at the doors. “Dazai likes to mess with people and this wouldn’t be the first time he’s dragged a kohai into his antics. He still tries to pawn off his desk work on Atsushi-kun from time to time.”

I grimaced.

Somehow I wasn’t surprised...

“So I just want to let you know that if Dazai ever goes too far,” Kunikida said, turning to me with just a hint of a frown on his face, “You can always come talk to me.”

There was a soft chime and the elevator doors slid open with a soft whoosh. Once again, I held the door and then followed Kunikida out into the hallway.

“So what happened on your case this morning?” he asked, looking at me curiously as we walked towards the office.

“Oh, I was with Ranpo-san.”

“Ranpo-san, huh? I’m guessing things went pretty well if you’re on a first-name basis with him now?”

“Sort of?”

I gave him a short summary about the case as we walked down the hall together, Kunikida nodding at the appropriate intervals and his eyes widening significantly when I told him what Edogawa had worked out about my Ability. I didn’t want to spoil the mood (or give him any reason to worry about me), so I purposefully left out the part about my eyes bleeding. Kunikida was the last person I wanted to lie to but this didn’t seem like the right time to tell him. I had just stepped through the door and was holding it open for Kunikida when a tall figure wearing a sand-colored trench coat suddenly barreled through, smacking into Kunikida—and forcing him to drop everything he was holding.

Bewildered, I poked my head out into the hallway to see a storm of papers flying everywhere and a familiar figure in a trench coat lying on top of Kunikida, their limbs tangled together a mess of body parts.

I watched Kunikida’s face grow redder and redder as the rage began to build and I hopped back into the foyer and covered my ears as Kunikida’s furious roar shook the building.

“DAZAIIIII!!”

[aliceslantern]

Retribution, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 3

Newly a person again, Ienzo is weighed down by guilt and his humanity. He's prepared to do whatever it takes to atone... only to find unexpected solace in a familiar face. With more insight into the bonds between people than ever before, Ienzo reaches for a dangerous element from the past to help Kairi and Riku in their search for Sora. What is his life if it means saving another, brighter light?

Chapter summary:  Ienzo has an unexpectedly insightful interaction with Demyx, only to fall ill.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

After another fifteen hour day of getting nothing accomplished, of feeling Even and Ansem silently seething at one another… Ienzo walked. He needed some peace, some time to decompress. Perhaps he should take up meditating. He did so miss Zexion’s ability to simply push away negative thoughts.

Negative emotion is natural. Then why can’t you deal with it, Even?

It might have been years since he lived at this castle, but the muscle memory was intense; he took himself to one of his favorite childhood haunts without quite realizing. The crystal greenhouse had been abandoned and emptied even when he was a boy, forgotten in staff changeovers by the groundskeepers. When he needed to escape the others’ wittering over him, easier to come here than to hide in the library, because there they knew to find him. At one point he’d had it rather nicely tricked out, squirreling away blankets and pillows, favorite storybooks, the odd toy he’d found or been given. Just to sit in silence for a time might be enough.

But when he got there, to his surprise and indignation, someone was already there. A faint flush of rage brought the blood to his face. An enormous castle and my one space is desecrated. I suppose this is karma, isn’t it? Out of curiosity, or, he figured, apprehension, he took a few more steps towards the shed, trying to keep his tread light. (Ienzo was also much clumsier than Zexion. This made absolutely no sense to him--perhaps a defect in the inner ear post recompletion?)

It clicked, and he wasn’t sure if his irritation worsened or lessened. He could hear the soft, light, unique sound of Demyx’s sitar.

Some force seemed determined to shunt them into the same room. Why? And was it worth investigating?

He knocked on the closed crystal door. It needed a good cleaning, like everything else here. He couldn’t see clearly, just Demyx’s shape, the way he started a little at the unexpected intrusion. “It’s Ienzo,” he said. Always weird to hear that name, to say it. “Sorry to frighten you.”

Demyx stood and opened the door. He seemed loath to meet Ienzo’s eyes, his energy immediately and noticeably lower than it usually was. “How’d you find me?”

“Believe it or not--this used to be my childhood hideout.”

He considered this. “All that stuff was yours, then,” he said. He laughed a little. “Figured it was some gardener’s kid.”

“Out of curiosity--what did you do with it?”

He shrugged. “A lot of the books were waterlogged, the blankets and stuff moldy or eaten by bugs and stuff. I had to toss it. I’d say come in--but this is more your space than mine, right?” He turned away from Ienzo, settling back down onto a tasseled cushion. Arpeggio sat idly, nakedly, between them. He rested his hands on his knees.

Ienzo took it all in slowly. Demyx had left some things here too; a succulent, a lantern, a few books of staff paper, some more cushions, a threadbare rug covering the cold stone floor. He realized that he must have been coming here for some time.

“Sit down, if you want,” he said, in that same tired voice. “Might as well, if you came all the way over.”

Ienzo did so. The cushion was lumpy, but his feet were glad for the relief. “Why here?” he asked. “Out of all the places you could go? I’m… curious.” Ienzo noticed his eyes for the first time; namely, that they were red, damp, a bit swollen.

“Well… mostly, to find somewhere I could practice in peace,” he said. “Dilan told me off. Said he could hear me through the walls--the guy must have the best hearing alive. The stone is so thick. Anyway, I… started looking. Not much of anything better to do, and… exploring this place gave me something to look forward to. I saw this place, the stuff. So I sat down. Turns out crystal has pretty good acoustics. Listen.” He reached over and plucked one open string; Ienzo heard the sound ring cleanly in the small space. “And that was that. You could… have it back.”

He shook his head. “That’s not necessary. Why am I entitled to things after a long absence?”

Demyx shrugged.

He was almost loath to ask it, but then he thought of what Kairi said over their tea. “Are you… alright? You don’t seem yourself.”

“Kinda too tired to put on the happy-go-lucky act. Sorry.”

This only confirmed Ienzo’s suspicions. “So it’s an act. All of it?”

Demyx looked vaguely caught. “I guess… some of it must be me, for it to have been here so long. But lately things have gotten… harder. For no reason.” He wrinkled his nose. “Finding that energy to be who I was is… a lot. Especially after a long day of work.”

“Who are you now?”

A smirk. “I could say the same. If this happened this months ago, me in your space, you would have dropped some very choice dry insults and tattled on me to Saïx or Xemnas. Now you’re just sitting here talking to me.”

Ienzo felt something unraveling. Demyx knew all too well his identity crisis. Unlike Even, or Dilan, or Aeleus, they didn’t have the benefit of being alive until adulthood prior to becoming Nobodies. Demyx’s tenure might have been less than half of his, his misdeeds not nearly as egregious, but he could still relate. “Being Ienzo… is…” He didn’t want to get personal, but the words threatened like vomit.

“Being a person is a fucking nightmare,” Demyx said simply.

He actually laughed--not a chuckle, but a hard laugh. “Right you are.”

He smiled a little, the dullness retreating just a touch. “My feelings seem too big for my body,” he admitted. “At least I still have Arpeggio, so I can try and play them. But I’m not used to being a wreck.”

“What is it you feel?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I really want to know. I wonder if our experiences might be… similar.”

He let out a long breath. “Honestly? I’m mad. I’m so angry.”

The last thing Ienzo expected. “At whom?”

He spread his hands. “Myself, mostly.”

Despite himself, he was fascinated. This was the first time he’d had any insight into Demyx’s mind--and it was a vastly different place than he’d expected. “Why?”

“Why--” He took a deep breath. “Any--any number of reasons, okay? Like. First of all, why did I just--do what I was told, in the Organization?”

“When you weren’t slacking off, you mean,” Ienzo said.

“You know what I mean,” he continued. “Why did I let him convince me to do all those awful things? Why didn’t I care? I could’ve just run away, and I… didn’t. That guy. All the shit he did, and he just gets to up and die without paying for any of it.” His voice rose and fell as he spoke.

“I’m mad at myself too,” Ienzo said softly.

“Looks like we actually have something in common,” Demyx said dryly.

“I… suppose we do.” He shifted his weight a little.

“And it’s just like… now what? I’m here. I’m alive. Does that mean anything? Is this just the fucking chaos of the universe?”

“I know I seek to… pay for what I did, as you so put it.” How odd he felt, confessing this. “I need to help people, however I can.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

Another question that threatened to gut him. “What I want doesn’t matter.”

He cocked his head. “Why not?”

“Well, frankly, after all the people I indirectly killed, seeking pleasure or fulfillment is completely mastubatory.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So being miserable all your life is going to make up for that? Thought you were smarter, Zo.”

Ienzo scowled. “As if you would understand the depravity.”

He flushed. “Why wouldn’t I? I made worlds fall too, you know. They don’t all become Heartless. And the ones that came back, were reborn, are going to be dealing with PTSD out the ass forever. Being miserable is like pissing on their graves.”

“So what, we live for them?”

“Sure as hell don’t make it all be in vain.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, okay? I’m still trying to figure out how not to cry at complete random.”

There was a tension in here too, elastic. Ienzo felt oddly exposed; vulnerable, he realized. They were both breathing hard, but he suspected they weren’t angry at each other.

“I can’t--understand all these highfalutin ideas you all spit out. I only know that for whatever reason I’m alive, so I’m going to live as hard as I can.” He dropped his eyes. “And if I can do good stuff, then all the better.”

“...I see your vocabulary has improved since you’ve been here.”

Demyx shrugged. “Got to. For survival.”

“If it… helps,” he said, “I know the restoration committee is always looking for extra pairs of hands. You’re already familiar in the town, given your work. That’s as good an inroads to helping people as any. Should my trials with Sora ever end… I may decide to follow suit. I’m educated. The least I could do is put that to use.” Should he survive the process.

They were both deflated now, exhausted. Demyx nodded once. Then, after a long moment, “Do you ever think about what we missed?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Our lives. What they might have been like without the Organization.”

“A masochistic thought experiment.”

“Maybe, but…” He bit his lip. “It’s also part of why I’m so mad. We could’ve just been guys. Had friends, gone to school, the whole nine yards. Hell, maybe we could’ve really been friends.”

Ienzo raised an eyebrow. “I… am not sure if I can withstand thinking about it.” It was a naked admission, one that made him feel that way.

Demyx canted his head again. “Oh? Why not?”

“It would mean writing off the majority of my life.”

He considered this. “How long were you a Nobody?”

He chuckled a little, darkly. “Twelve years.”

Demyx was quiet for a beat. Then, “Holy shit. Wait, wait, wait.” He spread his hands. “That means you were--when you became--you were eight ?”

“...Congratulations. You can do basic math.”

“How? I mean--well I guess I know how, but--” He seemed genuinely shocked. “Who would do that to a fucking kid? And--what happened to make you so strong willed?”

Ienzo bristled. He’d clearly said too much. Yet at the same time, this validation was… sweet? So why was he feeling moisture in his eyes?

“Didn’t the apprentices… willingly cast off hearts, or whatever?”

“I didn’t.”

He pursed his lips. “Oh,” he said, very softly. “Oh, Ienzo. I’m so…”

The lump in his throat tightened. “I don’t want your pity.”

“I don’t pity you. I’m angry at how royally fucked over you were. First Ansem… now this…”

He tried to blink it back. The last thing he expected was a conversation with Demyx to unravel him so. Didn’t expect him to listen , much less care. It was something he’d put off dealing with for too long--and now it was coming at him, ready or not.

This was going to hurt.

Ienzo felt oddly paralyzed, fixed to the spot. He should have gotten up, hid himself away, before this breakdown began in earnest. It was like all his energy was devoted to trying to hold it back, especially after such a long, long, frustrating day. He wanted to ask Demyx to leave him, let him make a disgrace of himself in peace. But the only noise that left him was a sob.

“Ienzo…”

Humiliation and pain washed through in in equal portions. He pressed his face against his hands. The tears seemed almost involuntary.

“It hurts more if you fight it,” Demyx said softly. “Believe me. Been there, done that.”

This, if anything, only broke him further. Such a bizarre thing, to fall apart so heavily and completely, shards of himself twisting painfully within. Guilt, anger, self-loathing, and sadness; emotions long staved off. He could no longer tread the tide and was pulled rather abruptly under.

Ienzo felt a hand on his back, the touch unexpected but not unwelcome. It felt so odd to cry, more than his panic-induced tears. Like he was not quite in his body but all too embodied. He found himself relying on the presence of Demyx’s hand, clinging to that tenuous connection. The boy rubbed smooth circles in an attempt to soothe him.

He wasn’t sure how long it took for it to stop. All he knew was that he had a rather awful sinus headache, and he was empty, weirdly numb, but the numbness was not as desirable as he’d thought. “I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded terrible, and the humiliation invaded. It would’ve felt bad enough to have this happen on his own, much less in front of anyone else, much less Demyx. “This is mortifying.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “All things considered I think you earned a good cry.” He handed him a handkerchief. “Here.”

At least it was clean, Ienzo noted. He patted at his raw eyes. He was feeling dizzy again. “Please do not mention this again.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Shakily, Ienzo locked eyes with him. “I suppose now you know truly how much of a disaster I am.”

He pursed his lips. “What do you think I was doing before you came here? We’re all a goddamn mess, Zo.”

“I guess that is true.”

Demyx stood and offered Ienzo his hands. They were rough to the touch, callused and work-hardened. Against his own soft skin, it was somewhat disquieting to hold, though why? He certainly hadn’t felt that way when Riku touched him. Perhaps he was just feeling unacceptably raw. Demyx helped him to his feet, made Arpeggio vanish. “Let’s get some sleep,” he said.

And Ienzo did sleep that night, though not so well, jerked awake by odd memories of the time before--walking towards Ansem’s quarters, a large tome in his arms, Xehanort holding one of his hands. The discordance between the taste of ice cream and darkness in the basement lab.  People screaming, begging for help, or mercy. Part of him had shut down, true, but part of him felt pleasure at making them this way-- “transforming” them for the sake of “the greater good.” Was it the positive attention he’d received, seeking the replace the love he’d lost from his parents, from the disappearance of Ansem? Was he simply evil to the core?

Ienzo sat up, nausea curdling his stomach. Very slowly, he went over to the bathroom, knelt over the toilet, and pulled back his hair. By the time he’d finished getting sick he feared he was dissociating, the world seeming a bit vague, a bit mottled, as though he were looking through a veil. He bumped into things, dropped his papers everywhere.

You don’t deserve to fall apart. Get it together. Kairi needs your help.

“...Ienzo?”

His head snapped up. Aeleus was in his guard uniform, ready to begin an endless round. “Aeleus,” he said in what he hoped was a neutral voice. “Good day.”

“You’re off to work, then?”

“Yes. As are you.” He stood, flinching at a crick in his back. Ienzo was fairly sure he felt less bitter towards Aeleus than the rest--even in the Organization days, the man had tried to protect him. Ienzo had no idea how involved Aeleus was in the plot to dispose of Ansem. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. “I hope you are well?”

“Enough, I suppose. Physically healthy. That’s all I can ask for.” The man’s face was so stoic. Did he feel as Ienzo did, all of these overwhelming emotions? He almost wanted to ask. At least, until Aeleus added, “You, on the other hand, look positively green. Are you ill?”

“Perhaps it is this poor lighting?” Ienzo suggested.

Something flickered in his blue eyes. “You mustn’t work if you’re unwell,” he said. “Always a bad habit of yours.”

Ienzo did not feel a swell of indignation, as he thought, but rather something like teariness. This man betrayed you , he made himself think. “Is it not curious how much poorer the human body is?” he said instead. “Some longed for humanity… to me it feels something like a great weakness. I wonder if you agree.”

Aeleus considered this. “It’s as though… I’ve lost parts of myself, but yet also gained parts of myself, if that makes sense.”

He sighed. “Well, on a literal level, you have.”

“I’m aware of the… uniqueness of your situation.”

He chuckled. “Interesting word choice.”

Aeleus cracked the slightest, smallest smile. Ienzo found himself missing their easy rapport, the way Aeleus never drove him into crazy spirals of thought as the others often did. He listened, he considered, he said what he meant. “You will come back from this, and be better than ever,” Aeleus said. “Unlike the rest of us… you have your entire life.”

“You’re merely middle aged--not old.”

“I find it… difficult, to grow.”

He was startled into honesty. “I… do as well.”

“This is our burden to bear… so to speak. At least we are all here, doing good things, and we have time.”

Did they? The longer Ienzo spent faffing about, the farther Sora could be slipping away… into darkness, perhaps, a darkness partially of his own creation--

(Basement screams, bodies dissolving--)

Ienzo heaved, and while he was not ill, the reaction was indeed very visible.

Aeleus took him by the elbow. "You need to get back to bed."

"I'll be fine--"

"Perhaps you can convince Even and Ansem with such faffery, but I won't stand for it. Come." He was significantly stronger than Ienzo; he could not fight the grip.

Ienzo knew he himself was not a small man, but compared to Aeleus he felt again a child. He shuddered, blinking back the sting of humiliation. "What do you propose I say, then?"

"That you are sick and cannot work."

Ienzo shook his head wearily. Which was worse; riding this out, or telling Aeleus he was not--physically, at least--ill? Each seemed equally emasculating.

Aeleus brought him back to his bedroom. "Change into something comfortable and lay down. I'll bring you something to settle your stomach."

Why did he listen? What would Aeleus do if Ienzo disobeyed him? The man had never raised a finger towards him, nor his voice; if Ienzo didn't do as he said, he'd likely only be disappointed.

How odd, to wear pajamas so late into the morning. He perched on the lip of his bed and rested his cheek on his knee. Before long, the door opened, and he was handed a mug which smelled of ginger. "I've made you late," Ienzo said.

"Dilan can handle it, I think."

He was shaking. Why? Was he truly ill, or was this yet more bizarre emotion?

Aeleus took off his glove and rested a large palm against Ienzo's forehead. "You are quite warm," he said, with a shake of the head. "Please tell me you won't run off the moment I turn my back."

He'd been planning on it, but instead he said, "Perhaps I will… work from here?"

He sighed heavily. "A compromise is better than nothing, I guess."

Ienzo sipped the tea. It warmed him, soothed the anxious ache in his breast. "You needn't stop for me," he said. "Thank you."

The barest flicker of a smile. "You may be grown now… but everyone needs to be cared for sometime. It is human."

"Is it?" He said, to himself.

A nod. "Quite. Get some rest. I'll check on you."

Ienzo drank down the rest of the tea. How odd, to be cared for. He bit his lip. He took out his tablet, with the intent to provide remote support… but found himself drifting.

---

The hand on his forehead was cold this time, not warm, and he started. "Sorry, child."

Ienzo blinked disjointedly, his vision blurry. "Even? What are you doing here?"

He cocked his head. "You're sick and I'm a doctor. I thought you'd understand as much."

He ignored the barb. "Kairi--"

"Is well and asleep. Ansem is working with her now. The fool is coding something again." A sigh. "Your temperature is back to normal. Must've been one of those short-term bugs."

Or intense anxiety, Ienzo thought, well aware that the symptoms were the same. "I see… I must apologize."

"Had you come down you could've given it to all of us-- including the girl. How do you feel now?"

He tried to curl his lips around the expected "fine" but instead said, "a little woozy."

"Could be dehydration. Or low blood sugar. Is your stomach settled enough to eat?" His tone lacked the stubbornness, the roughness Ienzo was used to from Vexen. Like that flicker of compassion he'd seen before. "Maybe some rice?"

"...Maybe…"

Even squeezed his shoulder gently. "It's alright, Ienzo. To be human… is to sometimes be ill." He sighed, then wrinkled his nose. "I've no doubt Demyx carried it in with him, and this place is a veritable vacuum."

"In an odd way… this is nostalgic."

He cocked his head. "You were of quite a delicate countenance, I admit. Though we never did teach you to take adequate care of yourself. Our bodies are not mere vessels--having been one, I can say it's a highly unpleasant experience." He sneered.

Ienzo instead looked at the buttons of Even's jacket when he said, "do you ever miss it?"

"What? That nightmare we got out of?"

He nodded.

"I'd like to be actualized enough to say… of course not." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yet… the challenges of this new life… are not to be underestimated. Are we not fools, if we do not rise up?" A tired sigh. "I do believe Ansem's waffling is getting to me. This is science--not philosophy."

"Perhaps a heart is one and the same," Ienzo mumbled. “It is more nebulous than we can ever hope to understand with logic.” Perhaps, then, with the intangible, with magic.

He chuckled; an odd, staccato sound, rarely heard. “Yes, but should I give up now, I’d be turning my back on close to thirty years of my career--and I’m loath to do so.”

Ienzo smiled. This was the first easy (in a manner of speaking) interaction he’d had with Even in weeks.

“What of you?”

He frowned. “You mean do I miss it?”

“Too sensitive a question?”

Ienzo rolled onto his back to look at the ceiling. “I miss the feeling of… stability, of concrete drive,” he said slowly. “Mostly the stability. I’m not sure if… well, I’m not sure if it were merely me, but… you know… All of that anxiety I had as a child… the trauma that came from my parents’ passing… it was gone. I could merely… be .”

Even put a hand to his chin. “That is very interesting… perhaps Nobodies’ minds not only reject the idea of a conscience, but also mental illness.” A pause, then. “Do you feel anxious now?”

Ienzo wanted to raise his hackles and snap or deflect. But he’d already opened himself this much. “Almost pathologically so,” he admitted. “I find it difficult to sleep as well.”

Something in Even shifted, away from the personal and more towards the clinical. “How often have you been feeling this way? Does it ever escalate into attacks?”

He exhaled. This was why he hadn’t said anything earlier; he didn’t want to get into it. “It is quite constant,” he said in a low voice. “Though I only ever panic when I wake from a nightmare.”

“Unfortunately nightmares are to be expected, all we’ve gone through.” A heavy sigh. “I’m hoping that… perhaps once you are used to humanity again, the anxiety will lessen. But you did have it quite intensely as a child. It may be… something to brace yourself for.”

Ienzo’s stomach was feeling sour again.

“I could give you medication,” he said. “Something to help metabolize all that excess stress. Is that something you want?”

He was plunged again into his ever-present well of shame. “A sign I simply can’t take the strain? The… weight of my own humanity?”

Even scowled. “Don’t be dramatic, boy,” he said. From “Ienzo, child” to  “boy,” he thought. “You were a Nobody twelve years--you can’t simply switch back and expect there to be no repercussions. Why be needlessly in pain?”

Ienzo bit his lip.

“A stupid way to repent, if I do say so myself. Suffering… ” He scoffed. “Suffering now will not negate what happened, Ienzo.”

Demyx had said much the same thing. And these two were such opposite personalities. Perhaps that meant they were right?

Even squeezed his hand. The touch was unexpected. “I won’t make the decision for you, Ienzo, but please consider it. A lack of anxiety may give you a clearer head. May make it easier for you to… not only work, but live. It’s purely medical. ”

As if Even had ever been the expert in psychology. “...Quite.”

He shook his head; he knew the conversation was over. “I’ll bring you some rice.”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THERE'S AN EVEN BETTER WAY TO DESCRIBE THIS SITUATION IS ALSO TEMPORARY

My usual trick is to claim that they'll only invest contingently on other investors doing so because otherwise you'd be undercapitalized. In fact, it's just as well not exist. I deliberately pander to readers, because it has large libraries for manipulating strings. When you have multiple founders who were already friends before they decided to start a gasoline powered generator inside our offices. 2 months during which the company is actually more valuable.1 The professors will get whoever they admit as their own grad students, because all three are doable.2 The golden age of economic equality in the mid 20th century.

How do you break the connection between nerds and technology? Investors are rich enough to be sure signs of bad algorithms.3 Maybe it's a good idea for a small amount of force applied at just the point where they would do a lot of founders that we have enough data points to see patterns clearly. A company to compensate for the opportunity cost of the board may even help VCs pick better. The alarming thing is that it will set off the alarms sufficiently early, you may be able to phrase it in terms of the visa that they couldn't get grad students, so we were on Version 4. I think I see now what went wrong with philosophy, and how much is due to Jessica Livingston and Chris Steiner for reading drafts of this.4 Bad Programmers I forgot to include this in the early stages.5 So if you want to discover great new things often come from outsiders. Y18. Checks on purchases will always be a few languages, I'm not eager to fix that. It was striking how old fashioned this sounded.6 The term angel round doesn't mean that it's a pretty clever piece of jiujitsu to set this irresistible force against the slightly less immovable object of becoming rich.

Perhaps, if design and research converge, the best pickers should have more hits.7 Libraries are one place Common Lisp falls short.8 Then I'd sleep till about 11 am, and come with tougher terms. Six weeks is fast. This group says one thing. We've raised $800,000, but to design beautiful software, would be enough to feel like a late bloomer than a failed child prodigy. If you draw a tree and you change the angle of a branch five degrees, no one stopped to wonder where the big returns are. Here are the alternatives considered if the filter sees FREE!9 Appendix: Examples of Filtering Here is an example of applied empathy. I happened to get hold of a copy of something they made, e. In software, it means you don't have to pay for Facebook. That's not a promising lead and should therefore get low priority, but it's not the distinction between statements and expressions, so you have to be introduced to them.

Startups So these, I think in the coming century is a huge one. They just can't make up their minds.10 American immigration policy keeps out most smart people, and what to do; they'll start to engage in office politics. If you plan to get rich by creating wealth, not all of them work on interesting stuff. The melon seed model is more like architecture. So let's be clear what reducing economic inequality means eliminating startups. We can see this on a small scale: in thoughts of a sentence or two. The reason credentials have such prestige is that for most of Octopart's life, the cruelty and the boredom, both have the same kind of stock representing the total pool of companies they fund. Incidentally, the switch in the 1920s to financing growth with retained earnings till the 1920s. I'm sure every language has such tradeoffs though I suspect the best we'll be able to sit on corporate boards till the Glass-Steagall act in 1933. We still don't require it, but thoughtful people aren't willing to use a more fluid medium like pencil or ink wash or oil paint.

And when you agree there's less to say. I've described. Here are the terms: a $2 million investment, make five $400k investments. But in practice innovations were so rare that you can't change the question. Some ideas are easy for people to come back to bite them, it will probably fail. A few ideas from it turned out I was 450 years too late.11 This is a controversial view. One of the reasons I like being part of this talk. 75% of the stress comes from dealing with investors, hiring and investment decisions, and to Steve Melendez and Gregory Price for inviting me to speak at BBN.

Money September 2013 Most startups that raise money. Was it their religion?12 The immense value of the company. But if it's inborn it should be better not just for founders but for investors too. This is just as lumpy and idiosyncratic as the human body. Some people still get rich by creating wealth and getting paid proportionately, it would not be able to get smart people to be good at programming is to work on. It's not something you can learn, or at least inevitable form, but it's woven into the story instead of being absorbed by the normal people they're usually surrounded with. This is not only incomplete, but positively misleading, if it was overvalued till you see what the earnings turn out to work will probably seem flamingly obvious in retrospect.13

Notes

And since there are only pretending to in the services, companies building lightweight clients have usually tried to motivate them. Add water as specified on rice cooker. They assumed that their prices stabilize. If a prestigious VC makes a small amount of material wealth, and so thought disproportionately about such customs.

The second assumption I made because the outside edges of curves erode faster. In effect they were only partly joking. Org Worrying that Y Combinator is we hope visited mostly by people who might be a great thing in itself, and also really good at design, or even being deliberately misleading by focusing on people who run them would be enough to be promising. Which in turn forces Digg to respond with extreme countermeasures.

I'm just going to use to calibrate the weighting of the organization—specifically by sharding it. I swapped them to keep tweaking their algorithm to get the money invested in a reorganization. If early abstract paintings seem more powerful sororities at your school sucks, and large bribes by the fact that they think the top stories were de facto consulting firm. The situation we face here, which has been decreasing globally.

Charles Darwin was 22 when he received an invitation to travel aboard the HMS Beagle as a result a lot easier now for a startup at a famous university who is highly regarded by his peers. But that doesn't mean easy, of S P 500 CEOs in 2002 was 35,560. The ordering system, the work goes instead into the world you'd want to live in a wide variety of situations, but I couldn't think of the magazine they'd accepted it for had disappeared in a reorganization.

World War II had disappeared.

There are two very different types of startups will generally raise large amounts of other VCs who don't care about may not have to go to die. A rounds from top VC funds whether it was spontaneous. If you try to accept that investors don't like the iPad because it made a better influence on your product, and earns the right mindset you will find a blog that tried to preserve optionality.

I mean type I startups. In fact, we met Rajat Suri.

It's not a VC is interested in each type of thing. World War II had disappeared in a series A investor has a finite market value. Technology has always been accelerating.

But there are no false negatives.

But it's a bad idea the way to avoid sticking.

This law does not appear to be able to hire any first-time founder again he'd leave ideas that are hard to imagine that there may be that the meaning of a startup in question usually is doing badly in your country controlled by the investors agree, and Jews about. They hoped they were just getting kids to say about these: I wouldn't bet on it.

There's a variant of the markets they serve, because you're throwing off your own? As far as I know of a startup you have for endless years of training, and partly because a there was a very noticeable change in how Stripe felt. We may never do that.

The second biggest regret was caring so much attention. Users dislike their new operating system so much to generalize. Do College English Departments Come From?

[cruisercrusher]

Dicktiger week day 3- Drunk

“Last night I dreamed you said you loved me, and it was oh so vivid and sweet”

Listen, for the record, just because Dick was relatively well adjusted compared to the rest of his family didn’t necessarily mean he always had good coping mechanisms.

Like right now.

Normally, Dick did his best to avoid alcohol. A few unfortunate experiences in the wild child days of his youth had made him wary of the stuff, as well as the knowledge that his adhd made him more susceptible to addiction. Normally, he didn’t like to take chances like that.

Normally, Dick didn’t feel like he was suffocating, didn’t feel like his body and soul were slowly being crushed under the weight on his shoulders, and his heart. Normally he didn’t feel like Atlas condemned. Normally, he could handle a minor inconvenience like missing his bus without feeling a beat from breaking down in the middle of the sidewalk. Normally he didn’t feel so lonely and out of it that it was as if he were living in a separate dimension, his friends and family all on the other side of greasy, blurry glass. Thick, bulletproof, impenetrable glass.

So normally, Dick didn’t find himself hunched over the polished surface of the bar in some hole in the wall a few blocks down from his apartment at one am, nursing his however-too-many-th drink of the night.

He leaned back up to ask the bartender for a refill, but before he could make his mouth open and make words come out he swayed dangerously on his stool, nearly toppling back onto the floor. The bartender had to grab him by the front of his shirt and drag him forward to keep him from falling.

“I think you’ve had enough.” Said the bartender when she got Dick straightened out, pointing a stern finger at him.

Dick pouted, putting on his best puppy dog eyes. “Aw… please? Just one more?” He pushed his glass forward.

The bartender considered this for a moment. Eventually the puppy dog eyes won out and she conceded.

“Fine, only a little bit, and it’s your last one, but only because you’re cute, okay?” She said, pouring a tiny little bit more into Dick’s glass.

Dick frowned deeply, leaning away like he’d been burned. “No! Stop it! See, that’s what I’m talking about!” He wailed, even though he hadn’t really been talking about anything thus far so much as mumbling incoherently into the bartop.

“Everyone is always looking at me! People always look at me, but they never see me, they only look at me because they think they just can because of how I look or how I’m dressed and I just— why can’t people ever look at me on my terms?”

The bartender watched, shocked silent by Dick’s outburst, as he ran his hands frantically through his hair and glared at the shiny wood of the bar. She cleared her throat uncomfortably.

“Okay, uh, you know what, actually, I’m sorry,” She said. “I shouldn’t have tried to flirt with you while you’re inebriated anyway. That was my bad.”

That seemed to calm Dick down a bit. He continued to stare at the bar, sniffing slightly. “It’s okay.” He said. “Thank you for apologizing. I just wish— I wish people would stop acting like they’re enti— entitled to me and my body or whatever. It got old fast.”

The bartender hummed in understanding, slowly sliding Dick’s forgotten drink away. Yeah, he had had enough, actually.

“I wish having a body was optional.” Dick concluded miserably.

The bartender didn’t have anything to say to that. A few minutes passed as Dick continued to stare into space, lost in his thoughts.

The little bell on the door jingled lightly as someone walked into the nearly empty bar.

“Grayson.”

Dick whipped around at the sound of a familiar voice next to him. He overshot, though, and lost his balance, toppling fully off his barstool. Tiger was barely able to catch him in time before he hit the floor.

Dick giggled drunkenly, gazing up at the other man with wide eyes. “Heyyy, Tony,” Dick said around an alcohol heavy tongue. “What’re you doin’ here?”

Tiger glared at Dick. “We were supposed to meet tonight. You never showed up. I’ve been looking for you all night.”

Dick managed to right himself until he was (sort of) standing on his own two feet. His face fell. “Oh no,” he gasped, guilt sinking heavy in his gut like a stone. “I’m so sorry, I totally forgot… I’ve had a rough day.”

“I can see that,” Tiger grumbled. He kept a steadying hand on Dick’s side. “I— it’s alright. I was just worried about you, idiot. Disappearing without a trace is unlike you.”

“‘M sorry…” Dick said again, slumping forward into Tiger’s chest, resting his chin on Tiger’s shoulder. Exhaustion pulled at him suddenly, and Tiger should sense it. He fished his wallet out of his pocket one handed, the other still wrapped around Dick, and dropped a few bills down onto the bartop for the bartender to collect.

“Did you leave her a really big tip?” Dick asked as Tiger started leading him out the door. “Make sure to leave a big tip, she was nice!”

Tiger sighed. “Yes, I did, as recompense for having to put up with you.”

“M’kay.” Dick waved goodbye to the bartender and she waved back. Then they were out the door and Tiger was leading Dick down the street towards his apartment.

Getting there wasn’t that hard, but about halfway up the stairs Dick started to go limp, and Tiger had to carry him the rest of the way up with a forced longsuffering sigh.

Now inside the apartment, Tiger took a second to look around in disgust at the mess before dumping Dick unceremoniously down onto the couch, which was miraculously clear of clutter. Dick was just happy to finally be horizontal, and burrowed deeper into the lumpy cushion.

Tiger went to the kitchen and filled a glass of water at the sink.

“Tiger?” Dick called from the living room, voice filled with panic. “Where’d you go?”

“Here, Richard,” Tiger walked back into Dick’s line of sight, glass of water in hand. Dick was sitting up on the couch, all semblance of sleepiness forgotten. The line of his shoulders was tense and he was gripping the cushion with white knuckles. Tiger noticed, with mild alarm, heavy tears gathered in Dick’s eyes, threatening to fall at any second.

“Oh, good,” Dick breathed. “I thought you’d left me.”

Tiger frowned. “Why would I have left?”

Dick looked down, biting his lip. “Well… because everyone does.” He whispered. “Whether they meant to or not.”

Tiger’s frown deepened, concern tugging at his insides. “Richard? What do you mean?”

“I mean… Tiger, either I stop being able to please people and they toss me aside or they just die.” A tear escaped down Dick’s cheek, then another, and another, until they were pouring out in streams and his breath came in gasps and sobs. “I’m so alone, Tiger, please— please don’t leave me alone. I’m afraid of what I might do if I’m alone tonight.”

A stabbing pain ripped its way through Tiger’s heart upon hearing Dick’s choked out words. Quickly he set the glass aside and kneeled on the floor in front of Dick, reaching forward. As gently as he could, more gently than Tiger had ever done anything, he wiped away Dick’s tears and pulled him into a tight embrace.

Dick openly sobbed into his shoulder, the dam that kept all these negative emotions at bay broken. This was just how Dick did feelings— he locked it away, and when it became too much he let it all out at once, and when it started it couldn’t stop again until he was completely drained. Then the process would begin again in the morning.

Tiger pulled him closer. Dick grabbed the back of Tiger’s shirt and held on tight, way too tight, like he thought it he let go for even a second Tiger would disappear. Actually, maybe that was genuinely what Dick thought. The man was still very inebriated. All Tiger could do was hold him through it.

It physically hurt, now, like a serrated blade sawing it’s way through Tiger’s ribs, to think about the pain he used to want to inflict on this man. What a fool his past self had been, to only see the shallowest, most artificial parts of the man in his arms right now.

Eventually Dick’s tears started to subside, and, slightly calmer, he pulled his face out of Tiger’s neck. Tiger said nothing, had no words, not right now, only picked up the glass of water once again and offered it to Dick.

Dick took the glass with shaking hands and raised it slowly to his lips. Tiger helped him keep steady as he sipped the water, and ran a hand soothingly through Dick’s hair. He pushed his sweaty bangs off his forehead, absentmindedly thinking that Dick needed to wash his hair.

They did that until the glass was empty, and Tiger set it aside again.

“Why are you being so kind to me?” Dick asked suddenly, voice smaller than it had any right to be.

“What do you mean?”

Dick sniffled. “You used to hate me. You-- you’re supposed to hate me. But you don’t anymore.”

Tiger didn’t know what to say. Dick was saying it like it was a bad thing. “I… do you want me to hate you?”

Dick buried his face in his hands, shaking his head vigorously. “Yes-- no-- I don’t know! I don’t wan’ you to hate me but-- but-- but you should hate me. I deserve it.” His shoulders started to shake. Tiger was sure he was crying again.

“Richard-- Dick, no. You don’t deserve to be hated. You deserve so much, but never that. You deserve all the love and good things in the world. Never that.” Tiger said, desperate for Dick to understand. Dick was-- Dick wasn’t perfect, but he was also the most wonderful person in the world. He’d saved Tiger from himself without even realizing what he’d done. For him to not see his own value was an unrivaled tragedy.

Tiger sat next to Dick on the couch and put what he hoped was a comforting hand around his shoulders. Dick leaned into the tough until he was practically lying on Tiger’s chest. Tiger continued to play with his hair as more tears soaked his shirt. At least, Tiger thought, this bout of crying is much less hysterical.

“I’m sorry you have to see this…” Dick said into his chest, voice muffled. “Normally people only ever see happy, cheerful Dick, who smiles and cracks jokes and doesn’t let anything get him down, but… but it’s all a façade. A mask. I told myself all my life I wouldn’t end up like Bruce, I could let myself be happy, but, in the end… in the end I am all the parts of him I never wanted to be. God, aren’t I pathetic? Sometimes I don’t think I could be happy if I tried.”

Tiger hummed. “You’re far from pathetic, Dick.” He said, keeping his voice low, aware that Dick would likely be drifting off to sleep soon. “You’re the strongest and most honourable man I know. You will get through this, and you will come out on top, of that I am certain.”

“Thank you… Tiger, I-- please… don’t leave… stay with me tonight?”

Tiger hummed again. “Of course I will.”

Dick let out a long sigh, and his tears finally stopped for good. He buried his face into Tiger’s chest, despite how uncomfortable the material of the man’s armoured vest was. Tiger in turn wrapped his arms around Dick, holding him close and tight like he obviously needed.

Within minutes Dick had drifted into a heavy but fitful sleep, and Tiger sighed, rising from the couch and lifting Dick with him. He carried him to his bedroom and carefully placed him on the bed. Slowly, Tiger removed Dick’s socks and his jeans (thankful that the man was wearing underwear, as he had been uncertain due to Dick’s past jokes about going commando, and he didn’t want to accidentally see something Dick didn’t want him to see) and replaced them with a pair of gray sweatpants he found on the floor. Then he grabbed the thick duvet from its crumpled up position at the foot of the bed and straightened it out, pulling it up to Dick’s chin and tucking him in. Then, sentimentality controlling his hands, he pushed Dick’s bangs back again.

Tiger did not have many opportunities for casual touch.

He pulled away, intent on spending the night on the couch, when a hand shot out from under the covers and grabbed his wrist.

“You promised you’d stay…?” Dick mumbled, awake again, if only barely, and looking up at him with misty, irresistible eyes.

“I know, I’m just going to the living room.” He made to extract his hand, but Dick only gripped tighter and tugged him closer.

“Stay.”

Tiger sighed again. “Fine.”

He pulled off his keffiyeh, gloves and vest, then unlaced his boots and removed his socks, before moving to the other side of the bed. He lifted the covers and climbed in, settling in at a perfectly reasonable and polite distance away from Dick, which he could do easily because it was a rather large bed. But the minute he settled in Dick scooted over and draped himself all across him.

Dick smiled as he laid his head on Tiger’s chest. Like this, without the vest, he could hear Tiger’s heart beating and the heat of his skin. It soothed something deep inside of him. He smiled wider when Tiger wrapped his arms around him again, and he quickly started to fall properly asleep like that. He mumbled into Tiger’s chest as the last dredges of consciousness started to leave him.

“You really don’t hate me anymore?”

“No,” Tiger said, looking up at the ceiling. “I haven’t hated you in a long time.” He glanced down at Dick, and, seeing that his eyes were closed, confident he had fully fallen asleep, Tiger finished his thought aloud. “In fact, I think… at some point over the years, I fell in love with you instead.”

Dick didn’t react, and Tiger was perfectly perfectly fine with the idea that he didn’t even hear Tiger’s confession.

[geneshaven]

Shades

2.

The one good thing about the drug Stan injected Felicity with was that it let her dream. Yet, the images that came to her as she continued to sleep under Stan’s influence were not ones she wanted to relive. When it came to her and Oliver, there were a lot of dark, negative instances between them. There were also just as many positive, loving ones as well.  But under the sedation she floated on, her subconscious dredged up her most painful memories. The sequence of her dreams seemed to jump randomly in and out of her mind and heart…

…Oliver was sitting at the table in the Loft. He just finished recording his message to William. Felicity was still trying to wrap her head around the existence of William. Marriage is about inclusion, she thought to herself, and then she said it out loud to him. She also told him that he didn’t know or understand how to be inclusive. A flush of emotions surged through her as the implant Curtis invented came alive and brought her out of that damned wheelchair. She rose up and turned away from Oliver, walking towards the front door, taking with her feelings so powerful they temporarily blinded her. Then she was at the door and walked through it…

…and was in the Bunker. Oliver had just returned from his confrontation with Prometheus and his attempt to rescue Billy. She looked up from her laptop and saw him standing there, his head hung down as if there was an impossible burden around his neck. She walked over to him and asked where Billy was. Oliver finally looked up and into her eyes. The weight of the life he has chosen filled his stare as he opened up to her. He told her he had killed Billy, a ruse created by Prometheus. Felicity felt herself crash inward as his words echoed in the Bunker. For a brief second, Felicity blamed Oliver. Then she gathered herself enough to tell the truth---it was all Prometheus. Oliver suggested everyone get as far away from him as possible. Felicity could feel their connection then, that force that always broke through whatever was going on between them, keeping them together for all these years. Felicity started to go to him…

…and was suddenly hovering over a wintery, snow-capped mountaintop. Her view of the two men combating one another was from above the scene, as if she were a bird riding the currents of cold air. Oliver and Ra’s Al Gul were both shirtless and they had swords in their hands. She tried to steady herself as the winds blowing across the mountaintop kept jostling her, distorting her vision of the battle below. Ra’s got the best of Oliver, and as Oliver knelt before the leader of the League of Assassins, she could feel time stop. Ra’s thrust the sword Oliver had been using into his chest. Blood bubbled out of Oliver’s mouth, and he became a figure of inevitability as the wound in his chest brought him to the brink of yet another brutal reality in his life. Then Ra’s kicked him off the cliff edge and down into a deep ravine, down into the mists of certain death…

Felicity’s eyes came open and her dreams shattered as if they were made of glass. Disorientation made her head spin and she let her mind come clean from the images that filled it. After a few minutes, Felicity was able to look around at her surroundings. The first thing she noticed as her eyes opened was a dirty ceiling. Strips of plaster hung down and large water stains blotted the surface like running sores. There was a musty smell in the air and Felicity found it hard to take a breath of it. The second thing she noticed was that she was lying on her back on a lumpy mattress. Her arms were zip-tied to iron bars at the head of the bed. Looking down, she could see that her legs were free of bindings. They were spread out on the bed as if they were offering her a way out of this nightmare.

“Ah…” a voice spoke above her, out of her eyesight. “You’re awake. Good. I’m sorry about drugging you, but I didn’t think you’d come willingly. We have a few things to talk about, mainly about your husband, the Green Arrow. Oliver Queen. The Betrayer.”

Felicity tried to move her head up to get a look at the man who stood behind her. She almost recognized the voice speaking to her. Then, as she tried to put a face to the voice, Felicity suddenly knew who it was.  It was the man she spoke with at Slabside, the man who told her about Level 2 and that Oliver was sent there. She remembered when Oliver came home, he had told her about this person. Stan was his name.

“Stan,” she spoke to him. “What is going on? Why did you…whatever you’ve done.”

Stan moved from around the headboard and into Felicity’s sight. There were scars covering his face, and Felicity felt a part of herself hoping that some of them were put there by Oliver. But she also felt that wishing harm on this lunatic was not the right way to confront him, not if she had any chance of getting away.

“Hello Felicity,” Stan said to her as he looked down on her prone body. “It seems like it’s been a long time since I last saw you. How is Oliver? Is he still flying around the city saving innocent people?”

“Stan, what are you doing?” Felicity tried to fill her eyes with indifference, as if what he was doing was something normal. She kept a neutral tone in her voice like they were just having a friendly conversation. But her senses were almost fully restored and she began to envision escape.

“Felicity, your husband used that ploy on me. I’m not buying the whole let’s-be-friends angle again. I don’t know what Oliver told you about me, but I tried to tell him I was innocent and he turned out just like all the others. He turned his back on me, after all the things I did with and for him during our Green Arrow mission inside Slabside. He tricked me and got away. You can’t trick me.”

Oliver did tell her some of what Stan was talking about. But his final assessment of the man was that he did belong in prison and that he was far from innocent. He was just another bump in the road to Oliver’s release. But Stan was right. Oliver refused to help him get out. “Stan, Oliver hasn’t really had the time to talk much about what happened at Slabside. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Stan stared down at Felicity and a vacant look filled his broken eyes. He shook his head and reached into a pocket of the jacket he was wearing. He pulled out a syringe. “Felicity, you need to sleep some more. I have one more task that needs to be done. Then we can all talk about what happened.”

“What do you mean,” Felicity started to ask. Then Stan’s arm shot out and he put the needle into her arm. “Shh…” he whispered to her. “I’m going to go get Oliver and then we’ll figure everything out.”

As the drug entered her bloodstream again, Felicity could only think about Oliver and how he was going to kill this little man and stop his psychotic actions. Then darkness took her away from everything and she was again at the mercy of her dreams.

@memcjo @it-was-a-red-heeler @hope-for-olicity @jaspertown @mammashof @keabbs @icannotbelieveiamhere @the-shy-and-anxious-fangirl @cainc3 @coal000

[ghoststorygirl2019-blog]

The House in Thunder Bay

Dear reader, if you’ve ever been on a paranormal investigation, you’ll know what an EVP is. (Electronic Voice Phenomenon if you don’t.) I used to carry a micro-cassette recorder with me whenever I went out “hunting”, and then I’d spend hours sifting over the mostly silent recordings, hoping to catch something undeniably ghostly. One night, I did.

I was living in a tiny house in the Port Arthur side of Thunder Bay, not too far from the Cascade River. The house was not particularly interesting except for the amethyst popping up in the gravel in the driveway, but I had a really hard time going into the basement to do laundry. It wasn’t a mystery; the basement was creepy.

A huge old octopus style furnace sat in the centre of the concrete floor, its tentacles stretching out to each of the five rooms above. It was blackened from years of use and covered in cobwebs because I wouldn’t go near it. On the front wall there was a heavy iron door on a pully that opened into an old coal chute that was still stocked. A set of stone steps ran up from the back wall to a creaky wooden slat storm door on rusty hinges. If we’d lasted into the winter in this place, I’m sure the basement would have been filled with snow.

These things all added to the creepy atmosphere in the basement, but they weren’t the source of it. There were two smaller rooms down there that I could never explain. One may have been used for storage at some point, but what we found inside of it suggested otherwise.

It seemed to have been dug out after the house was built. The walls were made of field stone, not cinder block like the rest of the foundation. The door was stuck shut when we moved in, but we pried it open out of curiousity. Inside was one small shelf, and a child sized wooden table with one small chair. I still get goosebumps, remembering the stale whoosh of air that came rushing out of that room as if it had been trapped in there for ages.

But even that was not the source of the uneasy feeling in the basement of that old house in Thunder Bay.

The other room that opened off the main basement had a shorter wooden door with peeling white paint and an old brass knob. The bottom of the door had rotted from moisture, black mold rising along its boards. This door was locked.

While I lived in Thunder Bay I wrote and led ghost walks in both sides of the city. They became popular and it wasn’t long before I became good friends with a couple that came out for every walk. They loved paranormal investigation as much as I did, and they knew the city! One night while we were experimenting with divining rods on top of a natural energy vortex near Boulevard Lake (they just spun in opposite circles, they wouldn’t do anything else in that spot!), we decided to go back to my house and finally check out my basement.

We entered from inside the house, using the rickety stairs that ran down to the basement from my kitchen. I had never been down there in total darkness before. A bit of light came in through the single casement window, but the feeling of dread was amplified by the stillness that the dark seemed to emanate.

My friends were drawn to the old coal chute and wanted to open it for a look inside. The door screeched as it was pulled up along the wall just enough for them to shine a flashlight inside, a deafening sound in the relative silence of the house.  They put one of their recorders inside the chute and let the door fall back into place with a heavy clang of metal against metal. I realized my hands were over my ears when they laughed and came back to where I was standing, just outside of the rotting locked door. They stopped abruptly, smiles morphing into looks of shock.

“What is that?”, my friend whispered, pointing over my shoulder to the cement steps leading up to the backyard exit.

I whirled around to see what looked like the tail end of a curling wisp of fog exiting the now open door at the top of the steps. I ran up and out into the yard, but there was no sign of fog or anything else. My friend was behind me, explaining what she had seen: a large mass of white fog rising out of the cement floor and drifting up to the exit.

Thoroughly shaken but also excited, we returned to the basement examine the spot in the floor that she was talking about and to retrieve their recorder from the coal chute. I asked them who had opened the door at the top of the stairs knowing very well that they hadn’t done it; they’d been in front of me the whole time we’d been down there. I also knew the door hadn’t been opened from the inside of the house because the hook and eye latch that kept it closed was on the outside of the house. I doubted that a neighbor had done it. It was 11pm and the seniors on one side of us had been in bed for hours. The neighbor on the other side of us had died on the same day that we’d moved in. (She was found several days later, but that’s another story)

Shrugging it off, we turned our attention to that small locked door. I’d been telling them about my basement for weeks, and that I’d felt like the bad energy was coming from the locked room. I’d already asked our landlord for the key to it, but she didn’t have one and wasn’t in any hurry to replace the lock.

I put my hand on the knob and jiggled it, demonstrating its locked state for them when they asked if I was sure it was locked.  Of course it was. I’d tried it a few times since moving in. So had the landlord.

Except that it wasn’t.

That old brass knob turned easily in my hand and the door swung open.

My friend pointed his flashlight inside and sucked in his breath.

The floor was hard packed dirt, but the walls were the same cinder block as the rest of the house. It was uneven, rising in lumps in the centre of the room as if a hole had been refilled. As if something had been buried there and the displaced soil had been packed back on top of it. Something that had required a hole approximately 6 feet long and 2 feet wide. Something that had been kept secret behind a rusty old lock on a rotting door. The only thing in that room was a dirty old shovel leaning up against the wall.

None of us would go inside. We couldn’t have, even if we’d wanted to. An invisible wall was pushing us back, away from the room, from that hole.

I had no idea what to think.

A few minutes passed before we spoke. We decided to leave my recorder in the doorway to the mysterious room and go upstairs to sit with a drink. We discussed what could be under the dirt, given the size and shape of the patched hole. None of us had any plausible explanation for how either of the locked doors had opened, or what that fog mass had been. We listened to their recording from inside the coal chute, but all we heard was our own muffled conversation and the distant thumping of our feet when we’d run up the back steps and out into the yard.

We gave my recorder about 15 minutes, and then went back down to retrieve it as a group. No one was willing to go downstairs on their own even with the lights on. My friend bravely reached his arm inside the room to pull the door closed, and we ran back up to the living room.

We listened to several minutes of recorded silence, anxiously waiting to hear something, anything from the other side.  I was about to get up to refill drinks when the recorder turned itself off. I picked it up and turned it over; the tape had not run to its end, and I knew it was only a few minutes into a 15 minute recording. I pressed play again, and it ran for a moment before stopping once more. It did this several times before I decided to rewind it a bit, thinking that maybe the tape was wound too tightly. I backed it up to where it had been playing just as I’d asked my friends if they wanted another drink.

And there it was.

“help meeeeeeeee…”

It was like a long, slow exhalation, a woman’s voice, pleading.

I could feel my blood running cold down my arms, goosebumps rising all over my body.  I rewound it and pressed play again.

“help meeeeeeee…”

It was real. My friends were hearing it, too. We played it back a few more times, and each time the tape stopped itself at same spot. Was there really a spirit trapped in that horrible room in my basement? Had she jammed the tape so that we would rewind it to the point where I’d spoken over her the first time we were listening to it? Was there someone buried in my basement?

So, what does one do when they find an odd, lumpy dirt floor in a locked room in their basement when the only call to alarm is an EVP? I certainly wasn’t going to call the police, they’d think I was crazy!

I settled on asking my landlord if she knew the history of the house the next time I saw her, but I never did see her again. I moved out of that house a few weeks later, hopping on a WestJet plane with my two young children and the clothes on our backs, and headed for my mom’s house back in Hamilton.

The reason I left didn’t have anything to do with the mystery in my basement. Or did it? From the day we’d moved in, the day our next-door neighbor had died, my husband and I fought over everything. Money was tight, promises were broken, and after 2 months of constant battle I couldn’t do it anymore. He packed up the house and followed us back to Hamilton a month later where we reconciled. It was like a massive weight had been removed from our relationship. We stayed together for another 9 years after that crazy summer in Thunder Bay. Was the negativity in that house responsible for our deteriorating relationship?

The tape with that EVP is now long gone, lost in one of my many moves since 2003, but I can still hear her whispering voice asking for help, pleading for it.

I wonder if she’s still in that basement, waiting to be released from the hole that I’m now sure she was buried in.  When I left that house for the last time I checked the rotting door to “her room”, and it had returned to its locked state. It was vibrating with negative energy. If I knew then what I do now, maybe I could have helped her. But I didn’t. It’s a regret I’ll always live with.

I’ll tell you one thing, though. If I ever find myself living in a creepy old house with a mysterious room in the basement again, I’ll invite you over to help me dig up the body.

[bigmouthbadsleeper]

Table For One.

I wouldn’t call myself an expert on being single, but I did it for 30 years and I was pretty good at it. I was never the effortlessly beautiful one, or the one who could flirt her way out of a bad grade. I didn’t participate in organized sports, but in P.E. when the designated team captain had to choose her team, I was always picked last. I was never the first one picked for much of anything, really. There has always been someone skinnier and prettier than me, and it was usually my best friend. That meant I spent most of my junior high and high school years on the sidelines, watching other people get asked to dances, and have their first kisses. When you’re fifteen, those things are a pretty big deal, and not experiencing them at all can be devastating.

When I was twelve, the most popular girl in class had the entire sixth grade sign a hate letter to me. She organized it on a bus ride home from a field trip. She wrote a paragraph and then everyone took their turn writing some original mean thing of their choosing and signing their name. When I was fifteen, I went to my first high school football game and my best friend ditched me to go make out with her boyfriend. She left me waiting on the dark campus of my high school, with no cell phone or way home. I had to call my mom collect, from a pay phone, to get a ride (for those of you born after 2000, pay phones are a thing that used to exist before everyone had a cell phone). When I confronted my friend about it later, she yelled at me for not being happy for her because she was kissing a boy. As if that was the most important thing to do, as if her worth depended on it. When I was sixteen I watched that same friend kiss a boy she didn’t like but knew I had a crush on. In high school I was left out of groups I didn’t know existed, for reasons I still can’t figure out. I have been left behind and deserted. I’ve been told I wasn’t good enough; that I should lose weight, talk less, smile more. I was fed to the teenage wolves like a piece of… you know, whatever it is wolves like to eat most, but I survived. I made it out. Somehow I managed to not let the people who hurt me change who I am. The painful events from my adolescence have had an effect on who I am today, but they didn’t break me or make me bitter. They don’t define me. I’m sure most everyone has similar experiences to mine. Probably girls more than boys, but that’s the way it goes most times- boys have it easier than girls in a lot of ways. I know we’ve all heard the phrase, “be better, not bitter” to the point that it sounds trite, but how can we really be sure that our painful experiences make us bitter, or harden us? What can we do to ensure that we only get better with each experience?

I have a very early memory from my childhood of a conversation I had with my mother. I’m not sure how old I was, or even what house i lived in, but I remember laying upside down off the end of her water bed, kicking my legs to make a sloshing sound. I was whining. Flopping around like a fool because I was bored. Boredom! The worst thing in the world to happen to anyone, but especially to a child. I’m sure I was begging my mom to play, to take me for a ride, to make me something to eat, to do ANYTHING with me, to save me from my destitute life as a bored individual. She said something to me that day that has stayed with me throughout my entire life. She said, “Gabi, you need to be okay with being alone and doing nothing.” It was devastating news for me then, but I took those words, went to my room and started working on being okay with being alone. It certainly didn’t happen overnight for me, but I did eventually come to a place where I was at peace with myself. I didn’t define myself by my job, or whether or not I had a boyfriend, or how many friends I had. I let my actions define me.

And so my mother’s advice to me gets passed down for another generation to ponder. You need to be okay with being alone, because there will be times in your life when you are. Friendships end, boyfriends break up with you, people die (Even moms! It’s the worst!). People move on, and sometimes they don’t look back. Those of us who are dependent upon others for happiness, are more likely to sacrifice the things that they really want, or accept less than they deserve, all because they’re afraid of being alone. What can you do for yourself to make sure that you don’t drown in the lonely seas of life? Don’t look for someone else to keep you afloat, be your own lifesaver. There will be times when you are on your own, and if you are not happy, independent, and at peace with yourself, you will drown. Figuratively of course, but still.

One thing I always cherished as a teen and single adult was my room. My room was the best place on earth. It was a place of refuge for me, where I could write, cry, dance, sing, pray, and read and no one would judge me. I wanted my room to be a place of comfort to me, to represent who I was. I hung pictures all over my wall; pictures of my mom and my grandma and my favorite temple (shout out to Logan, UT!). Celebrity couples and road signs and maps of Disneyland and LA. Various celebrities, but mostly Leonardo DiCaprio and Angelina Jolie. I bought a record player and a mini fridge, and filled it with water and cheese- life’s essentials. I taped glow in the dark stars to my ceiling and hung lights up even when it wasn’t Christmas. The books I read were displayed on shelves like trophies. It might sound like chaos, but to me it was home. I wanted everyone who visited to know that I lived there, and they did. My room was a reflection of me. Ask any of my friends, it was the best place to hang out or watch a movie. Those who say otherwise are lying.

I really struggle with positive body image. If you look at my google search history, you’re likely to find the question “what is positive body image and how do I get it?” I have so many negative thoughts about myself rolling through my head at all hours of the day and I don’t know how to stop them from forming. Once, in a desperate attempt to get me to go easy on myself, my mother pleaded with me to say something nice to myself every single day. I decided to try it. If years of being called mean names could give me bad self esteem, then maybe I could start building my self esteem back up by being nicer to myself. I made a goal to look at myself in the mirror each night and give myself a complement. The first night was difficult. The second night was difficult. Third and fourth nights: difficult. A week went by and it wasn’t getting any easier. Not only did I have a hard time accepting a compliment about myself, but I had a hard time even looking myself in the eye. I didn’t like seeing myself all that much. I looked tired. Old. Weary. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t very fun. Most nights, it depressed me. But every now and then I enjoyed it. I started to think of my reflection as a friend, someone I want to talk to. One night I ended up having an actual conversation with myself.

“You are doing so great lately!” (The exclamation point means I was really laying it on thick.)

“You touched your toes in yoga tonight! You stayed in pigeon pose for three whole minutes and your legs didn’t even go numb! You are making progress. Your body is so amazing. So important. You can run and jump and climb that terrible stair machine at the gym. You can drive and sing along to your favorite songs. You can take care of yourself… You can take care of other people… You are good at your job… You can watch cat videos…”

Sometimes I reach for good things to say. I try to think of new wonderful things my body does for me. Cat videos are wonderful. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention them.

I took another look in the mirror and sighed. I assessed myself, starting at the top. Even though I had just run through all this amazing stuff my body can do, I still didn’t like it very much. I’m too lumpy and jiggly. My boobs look like deflated party balloons. My collarbones aren’t visible. I have stretch marks. And they’re not the little tiny white ones, either. They’re the kind that make people ask you if you’ve been mauled by a dog. I am disappointing to myself, to say the least. “You’re doing great, Gab”, I said with the same enthusiasm that Charlie Brown uses when he talks about Christmas. Then I raised my brows, threw in a little finger gun action, and said “You’re just a little fat right now.”

Sometimes we’re not where we want to be, and that’s okay. There’s no shame in being honest with ourselves about that. What I said to myself that day was true, and I could say to myself today. I was doing great with some things, but I wasn’t where I wanted to be. I’m still not where I want to be, but I keep swimming anyway, so I stay afloat.

There are lots of other little things you can do to encourage independence. Go to the movies alone. I know it sounds sad, but it isn’t. It’s great! I’ve done it lots of times. Take yourself shopping, or get a table for one at your favorite restaurant. You don’t always have to do things by yourself, but sometimes it’s nice, and it’s good practice for those times when you will be alone. I’m married now, but I still have some lonely times. I used to go to the temple by myself when I was single. Not inside, but I would walk around the outside. Some of my best thoughts came to me during those times; a quiet hello from my grandma, or a peaceful reminder from the savior that He knows me, he loves me, he is aware of everything. I’m not saying you have to walk around the temple grounds to receive these blessings, but it’s never a bad place to be. Get comfortable being alone with yourself. You can spend your whole life trying to fit in with other people, trying to be something that someone else wants you to be, or you can work on being the person that you want to be, someone you are proud of. All of the relationships in your life will sprout from the relationship that you have with yourself. If you sow a bad relationship with yourself, you will reap bad relationships with others. Don’t settle for that. Work hard to better yourself so that you can be a good friend to others. Till your soil, plant your seeds, and bloom.