#i liked this back in jan i think but i didn’t have the proper context to SCREECH ABOUT IT BC I DIDNT MEET CAS YET

[punkscowardschampions]

Bibi (and co.) Pt.1

Bobby: [We were coming home from school, 4ish so a couple of hours before any adult is due, making the racket we usually do, totally oblivious to the fact JC have probably not long left after the absolute scenes they were causing all over this house; all teenage boys are always hungry so it isn’t going to take you any length of time to go to the kitchen for scran and see this vague note; let us assume you text Janis like ?? and Casey too but he left his phone and she isn’t looking/replying right now so then you take a photo of said note and message it to Jimmy]

Bobby: That mean Case has 💀 someone or what?

Jimmy: Means I’ll have to find out

Bobby: Neither of ‘em is here, Jan wouldn’t be but he usually gets up to have a go for waking him and no 👀 after I just dropped the butter

Jimmy: I’ll give her a ring, sort out the or what

Bobby: Fair dos, don’t get cramp in your hand having a chat like that 

Bobby: ✍️ don’t come into her job, s’pose

Jimmy: weren’t giving herself cramp with the note, can’t be that bad

Bobby: Had time to write one, dunno where she plans on putting him, mind

Bobby: only get in more trouble if she drops him at Ian’s

Jimmy: she knows what she’s doing

Bobby: Much as can be done with him, yeah 🙄

Jimmy: You get your homework done and leave it with me

Bobby: Where do you suppose his missus is in all this 

Bobby: She wouldn’t be thrilled at the idea of them 2 going off together 

Jimmy: Oi, you heard

Jimmy: [one of his teachers, I shan’t commit us] can’t have set you questions like that

Bobby: Could be for film club, we reckon she’s a right 🐇♨️

Jimmy: I’m at work here, trying to get hold of her’s enough of a sackable offence without carrying on with you an’ all

Bobby: They’re not gunna sack you, you’re top at your job

Bobby: can’t expect their employees not to have lives, especially not with 2 brothers, 1 being a right dickhead 😁

Jimmy: tah very much, but trust us when I say they’re at the top ‘cause they’re massive dickheads

Jimmy: I’ll chat to you in a bit, alright

Bobby: Alright, I’ll let you know if either comes back and bothers to let me know, or I find any clues

Jimmy: 👍

Bobby: [Time to message Libi like guess what, girl]

Bobby: Reckon Case’s missus is full Glenn Close 🛁🩸🔫

Libi: *🔪

Libi: Anne Archer uses the revolver

Bobby: Touche 

Bobby: and may as well be her name, ain’t spending time working on a right good deaf one for her when I think she’s already 💀 to Case and that means us 🤞

Libi: Anne, Glenn, Beth or Alex, it’s all the same, yeah

Bobby: [send the picture of this note because what else could it be, honestly, Janis didn’t need to spell it out]

Bobby: You wanna come over and search his room with us?

Libi: ☢️⚠️☣️ want’s a 🤏 strong but 

Bobby: I will provide gloves and a clothes peg for your delicate 👃

Bobby: dunna, the note was giving major 2nd clue will give it more context vibes, don’t you think?

Libi: You’re right on both counts

Bobby: Jan ain’t replying to me but she’d have to you

Libi: 🤞 she’s driving and nothing more sinister

Bobby: 🤔 Would she draw the line at helping bury a body or what

Libi: For Case? Is there a line?

Bobby: Jim said she knows what she’s doing… like that’s necessarily a 👍 thing

Libi: He would say that

Libi: we know what he means by 👍 though

Bobby: Means piss off and do your homework today

Bobby: as if I didn’t just walk in the door to a murder mystery case

Libi: Cos you walked in on such a ??!!

Libi: he’ll be losing it under that 👍

Bobby: I just wish he gave us enough credit to know he can’t hide nothing from me

Bobby: and he don’t need to now, I get why he did when I was a proper kid

Libi: You’re still one to him 👶🏻 both of us are

Bobby: you should definitely graduate to toddler this birthday, at least 🤏 later bedtime, like

Libi: Aw, tah 🥳🌟🌜

Bobby: I know you’re as sick of it as I am

Bobby: if he’s gonna be full ??!! behind a 👍 you have to come stay here, I can’t deal with that alone

Libi: I’m right sick of Case dragging her into his mess

Libi: they could be banged up for my birthday

Bobby: She can’t make the garda lock her up too

Bobby: do you think it’s that bad, what he did, no more warnings left or whatever

Libi: He was with the girlfriend longer than the others, means more chances for him to have a go… I keep thinking about that

Bobby: If I was him I’d just steer well clear, no one winds him up more than the girls he knocks about with

Libi: But you’re not

Libi: if he had your sense he wouldn’t need Jan to be his voice of reason all the time

Bobby: He’s more of a kid than either of us, full-time babysitting, that

Bobby: Right again though, Libs, I just dunna what to do with myself now

Libi: I’m coming, promise

Libi: bus is late, but I’ll be there as soon as I can be

Bobby: 💕

Bobby: I’ll go and bin all the grottiest shit in his room, save your blushes and 👀

Libi: 💕

Libi: My own fault for not going back with you anyway, I had a feeling I shouldn’t have ignored

Bobby: Yeah? You’re usually not wrong, even when it’s less logic and more 🔮

Bobby: I thought she was a crank, yeah but maybe I was just hoping he was happy with it for once

Libi: It’s okay, I wanted to be wrong too, don’t beat yourself up and I won’t

Bobby: Too soon 😬

Bobby: I can’t even act surprised, that’s the bit making us feel proper thick, if he’s done it, ‘course he has

Libi: You’re not thick for having hope he was maybe sorting himself out

Libi: he’s more than old enough to be getting there, that’s the *😬

Bobby: Lads like that don’t, ever

Bobby: they turn into middle-aged dickheads like Ian

Libi: Sins of the father, you’re not wrong

Libi: not everybody can break the cycle

Bobby: If Jim hadn’t got me out, who knows

Libi: I’d get you out, we’d still have to meet somehow 🔮

Bobby: You could’ve when we met, remember when you tried to runaway with us

Libi: Yeah, and I remember your impression of Ian

Bobby: 😡😡🤬🤬😡 only be redder with drink and age, probs

Libi: I’d shout louder than him, had loads of practice, haven’t I?

Bobby: Keep trying, I might hear you one of these days 

Libi: You do, you’re a great listener, it’s just me who wasn’t

Bobby: I needed someone to talk to, fairness

Bobby: and you’ve always been good at that, fuck all competition you may have

Libi: I’d fight it off, too soon for another bad choice of those words or not

Bobby: Nah, ‘cos a fight between us is only ever for film or for fun

Bobby: you know I’d never hurt anyone how he will everyone, especially not you

Libi: It wouldn’t be us fighting, just me and whoever you’ve brought in as my talking understudy, for some reason

Bobby: You’re always gonna be the brightest ⭐️ I know

Bobby: you only need a stunt double if things get too ⚠️

Libi: I say one thing about how gross his room probably is…

Bobby: you rn 😤

Libi: A second ago I was ⭐️ rn

Bobby: 😏 you’re a lot of things

Bobby: wrong is not one of them though

Bobby: [pictures of things in Casey’s room that are gross but not like ew I actually don’t wanna see that gross lol, sorry boy, privacy whomst]

Libi: 👍 has never been more accurate

Bobby: Reckon Jim would be 👍 or 👎 if we ordered [some takeout you all fuck with, as shown by a pic of some old containers we’re binning rn] for when he gets back?

Bobby: somehow can’t picture those 2 rocking up in time for tea and I don’t want him distracting himself bothering his arse with it

Libi: He might not be bothered about eating none but it shows you are about him so 

Bobby: We can finish his portion when he deffo ends up leaving it

Libi: Shh, I’m starving

Bobby: I’ve already had [the ridiculous amount of after-school snacks you have consumed] 😘

Libi: 🐷!!

Bobby: I’m a growing lad!

Bobby: and there’s fuck all to do ‘til your bus sorts itself

Libi: I get it, you wanna tower over me cos you didn’t when we met

Bobby: 😱!!

Bobby: If you’re checking I can hack it like Jim can, dead easy

Bobby: sure I’ll get my own model missus one day

Libi: I’d have said actress was more likely, and you’ll be alright, they don’t have to be tall necessarily 😘

Bobby: [the lady on whatever instructional sign language videos they’d have you watching for Irish sign language vibes] is most likely 😢

Libi: Boy, you stop it

Libi: she’s WAY too old for you but I’d be the one having a heart attack 👎👎👎👎👎

Bobby: I ain’t thrilled about my option (no s) so chuck a 🍔 my way and we’ll make it mutual, Libs

Libi: It’s a date, and what a date, like 🥰

Bobby: Can’t say we don’t know how to party 

Libi: Say the word and we’ll run away again

Libi: I know what I’m doing now I’m not a toddler

Bobby: We better wait out Case’s exile, wouldn’t wanna bump into him on our way out, awkward 

Libi: I only wanted it on record, I’m in, whenever and wherever

Bobby: 🥳🌟🌜 I remember and I promise

Libi: I have another feeling, I don’t wanna but it’s right there

Bobby: You can tell us, we’ll work out if we wanna ignore it together

Libi: You might need to eat my [whatever the takeout is] too

Bobby: I won’t show-off that that wouldn’t even be a record…

Bobby: we’re probably on the same page, same script

Libi: If I could demand rewrites, I would

Libi: and a change of scene, for sure, this bus isn’t helping with the knot in my stomach

Bobby: It’s weird, I know it’s weird

Bobby: but he ain’t once touched her

Libi: She hasn’t once missed this many calls from me

Bobby: She might be on the phone with Jim

Bobby: we can’t panic yet, we can make a plan though, me and you

Libi: For if they come back or if they don’t?

Bobby: If she don’t give you some sort of response before tonight, we’ll start there

Libi: [a time like yep you’ve got a deal] 🤝

Bobby: 🤝🩸

Bobby: She can handle herself, just like you

Libi: It was her who taught me

Bobby: I know, I got some benefit too, stopped 😭 as much

Libi: I still remember how to stop you myself if you fancy 😭 for old time’s sake, or you know, cos everything’s so weird sometimes

Bobby: Very weird

Bobby: but that kid who cried all the time still feels ages away, far away as the girl who used to shout at us

Libi: I’ll do it, as long as you warn Jim first, speed this bus is going he’ll get in before me

Bobby: Where’s Sandra and Keanu when you need ‘em 💔

Bobby: he’d get the memo you were ‘round before me, pisstake

Libi: We can’t have that

Bobby: Have to warn me some way else

Libi: Dead easy

Libi: I’ve got loads of tricks up my sleeve, no need for you to wear a 💔 on yours

Bobby: No one jumpscares me less, like

Libi: What happens when I’m as easy on the 👀 obviously

Bobby: Something like that, Libs

Libi: Save me [something that’s her absolute fave snack and hence all she can face eating rn despite being starving] and I’ll know it’s real

Bobby: [picture evidence like of course I shall]

Bobby: Case’s phone is here btw, so, can’t have been planning to stay away for long

Libi: [a lil vid of her signing something feelsy, I vibe from when they were bubs cos they probs had not like a full language of their own but like things instead of ILY and big stuff like that]

Libi: It’s a start, we can try and guess his pin until Jan’s deadline

Bobby: [give that same energy back and sign another thing from your bub speak because love that for y’all tbh]

Bobby: 🧠🧠 better than 💩🧠

Libi: Use her birthday for the first guess

Bobby: 😩

Bobby: nothing, I better check how many attempts we get…

Libi: Do you know your mum’s?

Bobby: Going for the big 🔫🔫

Libi: You said it, we might not get many gos at this

Bobby: Is it bad I don’t know?

Bobby: Didn’t exactly leave 📼 for us

Libi: *sad

Libi: but it makes sense you wouldn’t

Bobby: I got no memory of any 🥳s and it’s never been a priority or a sound idea to ask about ‘em

Libi: ‘course not, ditch that guess, I don’t know what I was thinking

Bobby: It might be the one but I can’t ask Jim so it’ll have to be ❌

Libi: [Suggest the date of another JC moment you’re aware of and hence it won’t be cos it’s too obvious]

Bobby: ❓

Bobby: not that either but you’ve got a much better memory than me

Libi: Is that bad? 👽

Bobby: Your heads like a 🎥 you pick up on all the important things

Libi: You give the best compliments, nobody’s ever said anything nicer to me than that just now

Libi: your heart’s like a … 

Libi: I can’t finish the analogy with something as good, you’ve proper flustered me 📌

Bobby: It’ll have to do as making up for me not knowing shit to crack this code to ease the knot in your stomach

Libi: Might make it worse instead, maybe you’re saving me 🦸🏻‍♂️🤴🏻👨🏻‍✈️👼🏻👨🏻‍🚒😎👩🏻‍🚀🧙🏻👨🏻‍⚕️🧚🏻‍♂️🤠👨🏻‍🔬

Bobby: Nothing can be as bad as the scenes that are looping in your head, right

Bobby: real life just don’t get that bad, not now

Libi: 🤞🌠 Bobs

Libi: All I want’s you to be right again

Bobby: not got your inherited 🔮 but its been known to occur enough I don’t feel too bad for you having to trust in us

Libi: You’ve got your own 🔮 and I do trust it

Bobby: Meant to make my other senses proper 🦸 will have to ask Ali if that includes my third eye 🪬

Libi: I’ll get back to you 😏

Bobby: Be a pisstake as I’ve just made you leave there to send you back with that kind of bollocks Q

Bobby: He reckons I’ve got too many but I know there’s more in his own 🧠

Libi: It’d be charming of you 🤴🏻 I’ve only got [however many] stops left

Libi: and yeah, exactly, like we said, I can’t leave either of you to it as if I believe the 👍

Bobby: I ain’t touched your snacks, got some self-control

Bobby: tried Ian’s birthday ‘cos I know that one, weren’t it though 😒

Libi: Are we 🔒 out of tries? 

Bobby: Think we have to wait for the tries to reset ⏲

Bobby: you can have your snacks and we can work out how we’ll find them if Jan doesn’t get back to you

Libi: It’s a plan

Bobby: is [an old lady who is always on the bus because you get CHARACTERS when you regularly use public transport] on today?

Libi: It’s [Whatever day it is] she’s on her way to [wherever you’ve made up that she goes cos y’all are making a story out of it as if they are characters lol]

Bobby: Ahh, you’re right 💡 it was [a day it is not] today 🥴

Bobby: got me fucked up

Libi: Reason not to do your homework how Jim wanted, you’d be reading up for all the wrong subjects 

Bobby: Fat chance that was happening but not like he’ll get his red pen out to mark and check it’s done if I tell him otherwise 

Bobby: Priorities, like

Libi: I didn’t bring a red pen either, you’re alright

Libi: barely have anything, my priority was running for the bus

Bobby: Good thing she had you trained for that an’ all 🏃🏻‍♀️

Libi: I’m meant to be bringing the rescue mission to you, not the other way ‘round, be awkward 🚑

Bobby: you better have your inhaler, more vital than a red pen, girl

Libi: [photographic evidence via her posing with it like a big nerd]

Bobby: 🤩

Libi: 😮‍💨

Bobby: I know, I know, take your breath away, me

Libi: Number 1 trigger, you

Bobby: bit less complimentary comparing us to dust mites but you know, fair if that’s the line I come up with after all this time 

Libi: I can’t help it if laughter’s not the best medicine for this, or nobody making me like you do

Libi: how complementary is comparing you to a 🤡?

Bobby: It’s not mime, you’re still a 👼🏻

Libi: I don’t have the legroom nevermind any for a full wingspan

Libi: trapped 🦋 more like

Bobby: No dickhead better come at you with a 📍and some poison

Bobby: even for [bus number] that’d be well out the usual

Libi: As much as it would add to today’s murder mystery vibe, you’ve got enough sleuthing on 🕵🏻

Bobby: There’s limits to how many of us can go missing at once, yeah

Libi: MIA’s only the move if you’re in too

Bobby: What would you do, if you were Jim

Libi: I don’t know, but I know I wouldn’t be in his position

Bobby: It ain’t him, his fault

Libi: It’s Case’s fault, the but comes in cos I wouldn’t be around it, him, if I was Jim, that’s what I’m trying to say

Bobby: Yeah, it isn’t like that’s a choice though

Libi: He’s not a kid any more though, there are choices

Bobby: it’s not like you can just turf someone to the side the minute they hit 18, Jim wouldn’t, not when Ian couldn’t wait ‘til I was in double-digits

Libi: But he didn’t just hit 18 and making excuses for him ‘til he’s 28 or 38 isn’t helping him or Jim, is it?

Libi: I believe in second chances, third and forth even, he’s had so many who’s counting?

Bobby: I don’t know, I’m not the big brother, I never had to make any decisions about things like that so I can’t sit here and judge his

Libi: I don’t wanna sit here and come for his life, you asked me though

Bobby: I know you ain’t

Libi: I just think there’s a point where you reach the end of your tether, if you’re ever gonna, and this has got me at mine

Bobby: and I don’t wanna sit here and come for hers but who’s really given him all those chances

Libi: It’s not right

Libi: maybe they’re both bigger and better people than me, for having the patience I don’t with him, all I see is the toll it’s taking… where’s the upside supposed to be?

Bobby: I should hope so, they are the adults, after-all and we’re just 👶🏻👶🏻

Bobby: I don’t know, I wish I had some clue

Libi: We’ll decide what we wanna do together, there’s no deadline on specifically that part

Bobby: Fuck it, maybe this is the final straw, I dunna

Bobby: it just doesn’t feel like something that’d ever really happen, y’know

Libi: Yeah, if anybody would keep making more and more straws appear ‘til it feels like some sort of magic trick, they’re the ones for it

Bobby: Quite the double act

Libi: I always used to reckon so

Bobby: Why wouldn’t you, it was 🏰💕

Libi: What happened?

Bobby: Either we grew up or

Bobby: it was just a story

Libi: Swear you aren’t about to outgrow me, that we’re not gonna be a story

Bobby: as long as you swear not to walk out on me

Libi: never

Bobby: Then we’re gonna be just fine, like we’ve always been

Libi: 🏰💕

Bobby: 🤝💕💀

Libi: This took a dramatic turn, I seriously didn’t mean to make you swear an oath to me before I’ve even walked through the door

Bobby: Standard you behaviour, dunna what you’re chatting, girl

Bobby: and what else do 🤴🏻 even do, yeah

Libi: Oi!

Bobby: 🤡 too, but I won’t play that its a full-time job keeping you 😂 though

Libi: You couldn’t hack a full-time job anyway

Bobby: Oh, shall I get you the paper for the classifieds for your bday

Bobby: 👍 stuff

Libi: No need, I’ll be putting my name down for [a cool cinema they like or something in that vein] first chance I get, tah

Bobby: Free 🍿 for me then

Bobby: you’ll love that

Libi: Bring your own 🥄 then [random but I have pics in his folder of that because it’s a weird thing Brooklyn Beckham and his missus used to do and it gave bibi to me lol cos why huns ??]

Bobby: Wouldn’t leave for the movies without it, regardless of drug allegations

Libi: I could make a top final straw joke there, having one of them on you too, but it’s meant to be your job 🥤

Bobby: You dead keen to make me a wage slave today

Libi: You’re dead keen on bringing up my birthday

Bobby: It’s soon

Bobby: and a better thing to focus on that… this

Libi: Alright, what are you getting me and what are we doing? 

Bobby: Come on, can’t ruin surprises or you’ll have nowt to look forward to

Libi: But 🥺 if I ruin these you’ll think of more, won’t you? 🥺

Bobby: Am I going to let you have a rubbish birthday?

Libi: You better not 😤

Bobby: 😭 You’d think there was ever a possibility the answer to that question was anything but fuck no

Libi: You’d think there was ever a possibility I’m not only playing

Bobby: not my fault your 🥺 are dead convincing 

Libi: ⭐️🎬🎭🎥

Bobby: I’m relying on you to bring in a new silent era, no pressure superstar

Libi: Throw 🍿 - your 🥄 if I let you down, bringing it in an eyepatch is gonna limit me and my second chance 🤏

Bobby: Nah, even with one eye you’d still beat every actress out there today

Libi: I don’t know about that

Bobby: Come on, [drag some really shit actresses of your day, they’re always out there, doing the least or doing too much of the wrong thing lmao] 😶😶

Libi: Okay, okay…! 

Bobby: You’re properly talented, and I’d think that even if we weren’t best friends

Libi: 😁

Libi: you’ll give me jaw ache in a minute

Bobby: S’alright, permanent rest when you’re around me, very welcome

Bobby: maybe I’ll be a critic, your face, your eyes and your body language have to do all the work to convince me, can’t just memorize the lines

Libi: I’m glad you added language after my body

Bobby: Oi!

Bobby: you know it’s VERY important, sign language 101, you’ve had enough lessons by now

Libi: Oi is exactly right, it would’ve been so rude

Bobby: And I would never, tah very much

Libi: [signing her own tah very much as a lil vid, really being expressive about it for those sign language 101 vibes]

Bobby: 😏 what are you like…

Libi: Admit it, I could take over from [the sign language instruction lady]

Bobby: I’m just thinking of your jaw, no more compliments for you

Libi: Don’t get a job as a dentist… imagine all the kids 😭 when they see you

Bobby: SPECIFICALLY me or what

Bobby: ‘cos we agreed its a little too soon for a playfight 🥊

Libi: Neither of us need that level of rejection in our 9-5

Libi: I say with a straight face as we debate me becoming an actress… 

Bobby: If anyone can break that industry, I believe it’s you

Libi: Well now I’ve gotta

Libi: none of that is how I like to prove you wrong

Bobby: and if you can’t get in front of the 🎥 there are a million jobs behind it that you’d be just as top at

Bobby: Not worried about what you’re gunna do with your life for a reason, them pair

Libi: You’re a weight off my mind too, you know

Bobby: Yeah?

Bobby: what I like to hear

Libi: I wish we could just stay in this bubble of the future that’s my birthday and our career goals and none of the rest

Bobby: Me too

Bobby: the rest, what’s happening and what’s gunna when they are back… too uncertain

Libi: Do you think they’ll be back tomorrow?

Bobby: If the police showed here, I didn’t see the flashing lights or feel the door being booted down looking for him

Bobby: makes it feel like an overreaction so, why should they stay away 🤔

Libi: He’d stay to have her to himself

Bobby: She’s married so that’s not a good enough reason

Libi: What’s a good enough reason for her to go as far as really leaving in the first place?

Bobby: What he did had to be scary enough to make them panic

Libi: Then where are the garda?

Bobby: People don’t call them, you know that

Bobby: We never have, I don’t even know if they were told about Debbie… must’ve been but

Libi: I can’t make it add up, she seemed the type who would ring and report him, didn’t she? 🤔

Bobby: Dramatic, obviously

Bobby: I dunna, could be parents, or maybe they were both high or she did something to him too

Bobby: or the garda are just dragging their arses and will show up before Jan replies

Libi: Fuck, I don’t wanna talk to them if they show up before Jim’s home

Bobby: You don’t have to, pretend to be as mute as me, they’re not going to fuck around intimidating two disabled kids

Libi: What if I have to talk to them later, if something bad’s happened, or if she doesn’t come back?

Bobby: She’ll come back, don’t think like that

Libi: Getting in a car with him, both of them panicked, you know what I’m thinking, that I can’t not

Bobby: Shh, I’m putting my shoes on, get off the bus whatever stop you’re at

Libi: I’m almost there, don’t be silly, like

Bobby: it doesn’t matter, I’ll walk you

Libi: [do the ILY kid sign again obvs or one that’s even feelsier because that’s so cute of him]

Bobby: You know I’ll always look out for you

Libi: I’d do it for you too, anything

Bobby: [sign ‘I know’ and her name sign]

Libi: [a pic of this gal off this bus wherever she may be]

Bobby: 5 minutes 🏃🏻

Libi: [just her doing a lil countdown vid putting a finger down from 5 to 1 as if that’ll mean he’ll be there then]

Bobby: Already felt like my cardio was crap without that pressure 😮‍💨

Libi: [signing sorry instead of typing it purely so she can show she’s the least soz it’s possible to be lol, unnecessary close ups of her eyes and face and body language too, really making our point here]

Bobby: 😏 I’ll slow down to a power walk if you don’t behave yourself

Libi: I’ll see myself off home if you reckon you can tell me how I’m supposed to behave, boy

Bobby: 🤐 us

Libi: No, talk to me without telling me off

Bobby: Have we ever gone a day?

Libi: [Bring your memory back out cos if you have it for JC moments you defs have it for yours] 🎥🧠

Bobby: Hm, no, I don’t wanna remember that day 🥺

Libi: UM, no fair to 🐶👀!

Bobby: You started it

Libi: Which don’t mean you get to finish me off 💀

Bobby: I could’ve done 📸 evidence like you

Libi: Too late now, I’ve been warned, won’t even CARE if you do 😝

Bobby: [take the blatant bait, you are very puppy dog boy]

Libi: Nope, nothing 😐

Libi: 🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗

Bobby: 💔 I’ll just hurry up then, yeah

Libi: Yep, I’m VERY unbothered

Libi: even though your eyes are like [idk crystals but you would cos of that cali influence and therefore could name one that’s legit for his eyes which aren’t just dark brown af like his brothers] and it [likewise of a property of said crystal such as protects/calms etc something feelsy af] me

Bobby: What am I meant to follow that up with? 😳

Bobby: I’ve never seen no one with actually green eyes but you 

Libi: That’s not a bad follow up, but I still wouldn’t be 😤 if your feet followed on to [wherever she is] faster 🏃🏻‍♂️

Bobby: [show up boy, however long this takes you from when this message is sent, hopefully not too long]

Libi: [Getting is his grill like okay hug me cos not gonna be the one to put her arms around him first, she’s a diva lol, just like throwing herself in his direction with her arms out]

Bobby: [we will give you a big bear hug to prove we have shot up and are much taller than you now, thank you]

Libi: [hugging him back for a MINUTE cos she needs it and so does he, then doing little taps on him like how they do in wrestling when they’ve had enough and wanna tap out, freeing herself and signing ‘I can’t breathe’ like it’s pure bants cos he’s so tall and strong and she’s being crushed, giving it the grin and lols to sell that but there’s a cinematic tear rolling down each cheek at the same time from her sad eyes because she also means it seriously with how tight and heavy her chest feels from how worried she is about this jc situation]

Bobby: [tap her back like a pat on the shoulders because it’ll be okay, we’re not as worried as you because not thinking the worst here, it’s always been alright before so why wouldn’t it be now? ‘Come on’ like let’s go back to the house and sort this]

Libi: [at least how chill he is about this would be comforting because you’ve got no choice gal, it’ll be what it’ll be and we’re bringing the drama, soz, wipe your eyes and give him a Jimothy style thumbs up]

Bobby: [pushing your thumbs down like don’t do that because that’s not the vibe]

Libi: [a look like okay okay, my bad, before she’s just dragging him along in the direction they’ve gotta go]

Bobby: [soz Jimothy doesn’t talk to us properly right now and we can’t find it even ironically amusing, get in this house and back to the note and phone, the former you can pass to her like she needs to read it in person as if there’s something he could’ve missed]

Libi: [do read it and eat your snack that he saved for you, when the vagueness of this note is not calming cos you know that 1. It’s deliberate to downplay how drama this situ could be cos you know Janis and 2. You can tell she rushed it cos she did which really looks like needing to leave was urgent af not cos JC are in love but cos Casey did something BAD, blatantly messaging and calling Janis again even though she has not replied to any of the others cos what else can you do]

Bobby: [just watching her not get through on this call like yeah, I know and didn’t think you would ‘has to be his missus, right?’ because this note appeared after you’d gone to school aka not last night so it’s not as likely to be a issue at the club because he would’ve showed up early hours and you’d have been here]

Libi: [nod because you’d have obviously come to the same conclusion and it’s really not a reach even with the v limited interactions y’all would’ve had with this gal, looking at Casey’s phone cos I assume it’s here in front of y’all rn as if she can unlock it with her mind via sheer force of will]

Bobby: [‘she hasn’t text him’ meaning the girlfriend because that would’ve popped up even if you couldn’t unlock to read a full message]

Libi: [when you’re just like maybe she can’t come to the phone rn cos she’s dead but you don’t wanna say it so you don’t ‘He’s not been dumped before, it’s usually the other way round’ making a face remembering all the gals who’d leave the gaff when he’s done with them, how many there have been and the state of them ‘might be his pride’s hurt, nothing and nobody else’]

Bobby: [shrugging and making a similar face back because we think that’s stupid but also wouldn’t put it past him ‘no one will miss seeing her about anyway’]

Libi: [a look like HARD AGREE cos you can’t disagree, we all know what she was like ‘a close call like he has with you is the best we can hope for’ cos Casey has never hurt Bobby but he’s wanted to on many occasions and I don’t blame you for wanting to think that’s what could’ve happened here and he’s just beating himself up for the almost how he do]

Bobby: [just going quiet ‘cos you know that hope is a long shot because even if you can’t remember any of it, you’ve found out by-proxy how Ian was with your mother ‘do you know her socials?’ after this pause, signing without eye contact but a valid point like we might be able to piece together a better idea from this girl if she’s said anything recently]

Libi: [when you know damn well what that silence and lack of eye contact means cos of course you do, putting her hand over his and giving it a little reassuring squeeze after the question ‘I’ll be able to locate her from his or their mutuals’ cos I doubt she’s deleted every pic of him she’s ever tagged yet, priorities hun if that’s what you’re doing tbh, but adding a fingers crossed for if she has that any shared friends can give you the answer]

Bobby: [she might’ve posted about uni, idk I’ll let my boo decide, at least you’d know what their blatant row was about which is more than you’re getting from JC for a while, squeezing her hand back before dropping it like off you go then, sleuth it out girl]

Libi: [do because she so feels to me like the kind of bitch to be bragging about uni and you can either show him or tell him what she’s been saying if she’s running her mouth and he wouldn’t be able to understand, she probably has also deleted all trace of him if she’s the drama but you can’t force every friend you have to do that ASAP hun so]

Bobby: [doing a little slow clap like there we go, we’ve worked it out, go us ‘he ain’t going to uni’ bit rude you’re implying Casey couldn’t get in but it’s true, it’s not in his plans that any of you can envision ‘everyone knows what you do at uni’ again, the cliche of dumping whoever you were with at home to either fuck around or get a uni boyf, which is valid]

Libi: [a v judgey eye roll at this gf for being a cliche as if you’re so much better gal, love it, and at Casey too for behaving exactly like everyone would expect at this news]

Bobby: [‘she seems fine’ because that would be a relief that she’s got the time and pettiness to be posting about her amazing life news and deleting photos of Casey as she goes, which you wouldn’t do on your deathbed, we can assume, helping yourself to a handful/one of/whatever of her snack because we already feel better and we weren’t as scared as her to begin with]

Libi: [slapping his hand away like excuse you cos obvs also feel better that the gf is clearly not even half dead nevermind fully, RIP, but it’s clearly also playing on her mind and thus her face that if it’s not that serious why did they leave/why are they not back/answering] 

Bobby: [of course we can see this, even if we’re attempting to take more of your snack just ‘cos we must ‘he’s embarrassed, just like you said’ with a shrug like wouldn’t you be if this girl dumped you]

Libi: [lowkey playfighting him because obvs, JJ were always doing it and so you two have gotta ‘I would be’ with the shadiest face like yeah she was not it and it’s bad enough he decided to choose her as his gf in the first place of all peeps]

Bobby: [just brawl because it’s comfortingly normal and familiar opposed to saying you can’t because of what Casey may or may not have done, just calling her a lesbian for bants sake as well, which I’m sure is an amusing sign, like Libi would seriously consider this random gal, even if she weren’t a massive cringe]

Libi: [get into it kids, it’ll make you feel better, as will her calling him a dickhead because we can all guess what that sign would be and that’s comforting and normal and familiar in itself for this fam]

Bobby: [nod and smile like yeah, that’s more like it ‘he’s probably talking her ear off’ like that’ll be why she can’t reply to you, nothing to worry about here, at all]

Libi: [miming drinking like yeah you’re so right he’ll be drunk af chatting away and she’ll be driving him home soon if not right now immediately, that’s why, it’s fine]

Bobby: [miming a golf swing, following it with your hand on your brow to getting it in the hole and celebrating like exactly, this isn’t actually anything new or weird, it was just a weird note that made us freak out for no reason]

Libi: [getting him more to eat and making y’all drinks and shit like this is now just a normal after school moment cos that’s what y’all have decided it is, picking a movie, cos she’s a diva who won’t let him pick, with a run time that’ll see you through until Jimmy gets back perfectly etc etc]

Bobby: [get on this sofa and get comfortable, we’re chilling lads, nothing to see here, no drama]

Libi: [It won’t be nice when Jimothy gets back and won’t talk or eat with y’all but you’d still be like it’s alright they’ll be back soon and then he’ll calm down too, thinking you’re just playing a waiting game, which you are gonna be but it’s for Janis’ reply not JC walking through the door]

Bobby: [you wanna do that now?]

Libi: [Come at me bro]

Bobby: [do you wanna send me like at least the last one so I have something to go from, obvs there’s multiple missed calls and probably a few texts but just so I got the flavour lol]

Libi: You didn’t train me in hostage negotiation, and if that’s what this is, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do

Janis: Sorry, sorry, I haven’t had much breathing room to check my phone today

Janis: but I’m fine and I think the situation with Case is going to be too, as much as can be predicted, so 👍

Libi: So you’re on your way home then?

Janis: Not quite yet, it’s definitely a 24-hour stepback needed still but I don’t see any reason that I won’t be back tomorrow after school

Janis: Are you at ours?

Libi: But she’s fine, I checked after Bobs found your note and summoned me

Janis: You did let Jimmy read it, right? It was mostly for him

Libi: Did you hear me? I said the coast is clear

Janis: You’ve not spoken to her, not that you should

Janis: you know social media can be total bullshit, or at least partial, it’s still best for the situation if Case stays away

Libi: I know she’d struggle to use it if he’d broken her arm

Libi: or worse

Janis: I didn’t say he’d done anything that bad, I didn’t specify because I can’t but he’s not in a state you’d want to see him in, any of you

Libi: I don’t want to see him at all, I wanna see you

Janis: And you will, tomorrow, like you would anyway if Bobby hadn’t called you over

Janis: have you told mum you’re staying over?

Libi: Yeah, cos I do this thing where I bother letting people know where I am

Janis: Um alright, I did

Janis: you’ve studied the note, allegedly 

Libi: You didn’t pick up when I rang, since when’s that something we’re trialling?

Janis: It’s been super fucking hectic, it wasn’t intentional or part of a plan, obviously

Libi: Alright, you didn’t intentionally scare the shit out of me, that’s fine then

Janis: Libs, I’m sorry

Janis: what do you want me to do? ‘Cos I can’t answer earlier now

Libi: Case’ll come home if you tell him to, you could do that

Janis: He needs looking after right now, you’re gonna be piss tired for school already if you went to bed now, never mind by the time we got in

Janis: it makes no odds, we’d talk even less if I had to bring him back when he doesn’t want to be there, you know that

Libi: It makes no odds to you, Jim wouldn’t say that, I’m not saying it

Janis: Seriously? That’s not fair

Libi: It’s not fair that Case kicks off at his girlfriend and you not only give him a free pass but you offer him a lift to wherever he fancies going

Janis: You don’t know what happened, or what went on between them, you reckon you’ve pieced it together from her socials but that’d only be one side and it’s still not even gonna be her full story, if at all true

Janis: He’s upset

Libi: It’s the same story all the time, whatever happens or whatever goes on between him and whoever he has a go at, you take his side

Janis: Why would you take the side of a random girl you don’t know over someone you’ve known nearly your entire life?

Janis: That makes no sense

Libi: You said it, I’ve known him almost my entire life

Janis: That’s a fucked up thing to say

Libi: It’s true, what else do you want me to say?

Janis: Are you not even slightly concerned how he is

Libi: I don’t know

Janis: It doesn’t matter, I’m here and he’s safe, pass that on to the other two, if they decide they’re bothered

Libi: You need to talk to Jim, he’s really bothered you haven’t done that

Janis: I put all I could in the note, you can tell him we’ve talked, then I’ll talk to him when I’m back

Libi: If you’re making me your messenger, you have to tell me things

Janis: Well I have, plenty 

Libi: I’ve known you my entire life

Janis: You don’t need to hear everything, it’s either not mine to tell or not yours to be told

Janis: you aren’t stupid, you know that this is delicate 

Libi: I’m not stupid, I know why it’s you he runs to every time 

Libi: and how it makes a shit idea worse

Janis: And it isn’t surprising, none of you have seemed even vaguely concerned how he is, he’s not stupid either, who else is he going to go to when things like this happen

Libi: It’s not like I’ve said I want him to go to Ian’s, or I would ever say that, but I’m sick of things like this happening

Libi: why is that bad?

Janis: We all are

Janis: that doesn’t mean ignoring it will fix anything though, from any of us

Libi: Don’t ignore me again, okay?

Libi: I thought… everything… every shitty thing there is to 💭

Janis: I wasn’t but I’m sorry that your head was there

Janis: I will make sure I reply quicker, even if it’s just a 👍 so you know I’m not being held hostage

Libi: Or in the morgue, unless someone who works there has a very fucked up sense of humour

Janis: You don’t need to worry about me, nothing bad happens to me, ever

Janis: well blessed

Libi: You just don’t want me to end up in your place on the slab, I get it, but I’m blessed with an inhaler, so don’t worry either

Janis: 14 is too young, even by our family’s shit luck, kid

Libi: My birthday’s soon 🥳

Janis: I know, ‘scuse me for betting on you not dying before you got to it even

Libi: 😏

Janis: Subtle hint not needed, you’ll get your 🎁 on time, girl

Libi: What is it?

Libi: and how’s that for subtle? 

Janis: as a sledgehammer 

Libi: 😤 Bobs won’t tell me either

Janis: He better not, you only get the one a year, don’t fuck it up

Libi: Promise you’ll be back tomorrow

Janis: Promise, I have to talk to him in person, already told you

Libi: I do care, slightly, if Case is okay or not… 🤏

Janis: He’ll be okay but it’s no secret he hasn’t been, for a while

Janis: it’ll all get sorted, promise that too, whilst I’m at it

Libi: It’s no secret she’s a… well, you know, without me needing to fully victim blame the girl in writing

Janis: Yeah, we don’t need to worry about her no more

Janis: She was a mistake, fair to say

Libi: And a catalyst, for something he was always gonna do

Janis: You can’t just ignore things forever and act like that means they’re dealt with

Libi: Right

Janis: I’ll see you tomorrow then

Libi: Try and get some sleep yourself, you must be loads tired-er than me

Janis: Pretty knackered but adrenaline works wonders

Janis: I will do though

Libi: Goodnight, I’m the most glad you’re okay

Janis: Of course I am, go have some sweet dreams yeah

Libi: I’ll do my best

Janis: You can tell either of them any of this, by the way, none of it’s need to know

Libi: Bobs’ll probably read it

Janis: 👋 like

Libi: I’d wake him up to, but that’ll take longer than it will you to fall asleep

Janis: about right

Janis: 🥿 usually works but save that for when it’s worth deploying

Libi: I don’t need telling what works, tah, I know everything that does

Janis: 😏

Libi: Maybe I’ll chuck a shoe at you though, next time you pull a move like this

Janis: because I do, all the time, just for fun, like

Libi: It’s a first, I’m not assuming it’s the last time too, like we’ve both said, I’m not stupid

Janis: I wouldn't promise otherwise but

Janis: it isn’t how I plan to deal with things, on the whole

Libi: You’d get called the worst role model again, if nothing else

Janis: You’re smart enough not to need one

Libi: Have you forgotten what 14 is like? I still need you

Janis: Not to tell you what to do, you’re much smarter than I was at that age

Libi: I don’t know about that, I didn’t feel smart today

Janis: Yeah but you didn’t do anything dumb about it, however bad it felt

Janis: you stayed put and it paid off

Libi: I would’ve gone anywhere he wanted me to, further than you, for longer, and cared less about it

Janis: You didn’t want him to feel as shit as you did

Libi: But it wouldn’t have been smart, the search party would be massive, and all FUMING

Janis: Alright, princess, I get it 👑

Libi: Another reason I need you around, you get it, so many other people think it’s weird how much I’d do for that boy

Janis: You’ve known each other forever, it’s family by choice, not blood, it makes it more important

Libi: Yeah

Janis: I understand

Libi: It’s something I could build sweet dreams from anyway

Janis: You know you can tell me anything, whenever you need to

Libi: Ooh, I love how cryptic that was

Libi: the NERVE to say I’m not subtle and then say that

Janis: Ha, you know what I’m saying perfectly well

Janis: some thing you might not want to share with Bobby, or can’t

Libi: We had the same puberty talk at school, they aren’t allowed to split us by gender any more

Janis: Cheek, they didn’t do that when I had it a few years prior, you cow

Libi: 👑

Janis: 🙄😘

Libi: *🥱😴

Janis: Piss off then, I ain’t taking the blame for you falling asleep in lessons

Libi: You could write me a note, you’re not at all crap at it, like

Janis: Only if it’s to Lucas otherwise I can’t be bothered

Libi: No girl is falling asleep in an English lesson

Janis: Hmm, riveting, ain’t he

Libi: He wishes, but instead, it’s too dangerous

Libi: I’m not ending up duct taped into the back of his [a shit car idk but you would cos of Ali and Billie] cos Case was upset by his breakup, tah very much

Janis: That’s really helpful, tah

Janis: no need to be quite so cinematic about it

Libi: I can’t help it if his idea of an after school club is making a snuff film in his garage

Janis: I’m well aware, the preview was enough

Libi: Shh, you’ll ruin my dreams now all this talk of sir

Janis: Go to bed, he wouldn’t mess with you, he’s not quite that dumb, however creepy

Libi: See you tomorrow

Libi: oh and I love you

Janis: Love ya Libs

Libi: Necessary last words if either of us get kidnapped and murdered

Janis: 🤞🤞

Libi: [The way she would have to be dragged out of this house by Casey for this dog walk is just reminding me of her throwing herself at him drunkenly and being dramatically pushed off cos it’s all so physical, I’m FINE]

Bobby: [When neither of you has any clue what’s going on just that it’s clearly bad and there’s nothing you can do about that and also there’s a random dog, for no reason at all, like hello]

Bobby: Are you okay

Libi: [when you don’t reply for ages because you’re too busy having a full go at Casey because like we said in the OG coats or not JC are literally covered in lovebites and Libi is not stupid, but she’s not signing any of this convo which is rude and so unlike her because she just automatically would to the point it’s clear she has to make the effort to not]

Libi: No

Libi: you?

Bobby: Did he hurt you, when we were getting out the door

Bobby: I didn’t see, I was looking at them and then

Libi: I don’t think so

Libi: or not enough for me to care right now

Bobby: That’s something

Bobby: 1 thing

Libi: I’m sorry

Bobby: Why would you be, you’re the only one who doesn’t need to be

Libi: that you had to ask me if I’m hurt cos I wouldn’t just go and it meant he had to touch me, that I left you out of having a go at him when it’s you who has the right to not me, that I didn’t push Jan harder last night to find out what the fuck was happening

Libi: so many reasons

Bobby: I don’t wanna talk to him no more than he does me

Libi: I’m never talking to her again, she said I wasn’t stupid and then made such a fool of me, of all of us

[teacupfulofstarshine]

sunshine on my sunday best

summary: janus and remus get ready for a party, featuring fancy clothes and soft gays. (OR: my entry for dukeceit week 2021 day 4, free day)

a/n: i got seized by the inspiration bug, so i churned out some sappy gays for day 4 (free day) of @dukeceitweek

CW: brief, nonspecific mentions of funerals and corpses in a professional context (remus is a mortician), swearing

wordcount: ~1.3k

read it on ao3!!

“Darling, are you nearly done in there?” Janus calls, opening a polished wooden box and examining the gloves laid out within it. He plucks out a pair of golden-yellow gloves that he reserves for the most special of occasions and lays them on his vanity. “Remus?” Remus clatters around in the bathroom, doors locked, and Janus sighs. “May I take that as a yes?” 

“I’m trying not to stab my eye out with my mascara!” 

“A simple yes would have sufficed,” Janus says, rolling his eyes. He steps to the door of their bedroom, pulls it open, and calls down the hallway to their children.

“Are you two getting dressed for your cousin’s graduation party?”

“Yes, Papa!” they respond. Janus steps back into his room, opening his jewelry box, and tilts his head, considering. He selects a pair of golden cufflinks with “JS” engraved on them, a brooch shaped like a coiled golden snake with gleaming emerald eyes, and a golden tie pin. 

“Are you dressing up fancy?” 

“Of course I am! It’s not every day that our nephew graduates with a master’s degree at twenty-two. I assume you’ll be wearing something fancier than a crop-top hoodie and booty shorts?” 

“But I like the booty shorts!” Remus whines. 

“I put on good makeup for this,” Janus says. “I broke out the lace gloves for this. It is a nice dinner at a nice place.” 

“Chill out, Jan, I promise I dress up nice. Besides, I think Roman would kill me if I didn’t look nice for his son’s fancy party, and that’s not the way I plan to go.” 

Janus glances over to the framed photo on his vanity. It shows a younger Remus, only one white streak in his hair instead of his current salt-and-pepper gray, wearing a deep green wedding gown accented with silvery ocean patterns. Janus stands opposite him, in a gleaming golden tuxedo decorated with snake scale patterns and a motif of coiled snakes on the back. They are holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes, framed by an arch of golden-orange sunset roses. Janus smiles, drags one finger along the shining frame, and adjusts his wedding ring. 

“I know, my love. And you know that despite my . . . fondness for fancy dress, I will love you no matter what you choose to wear?” 

“I know, Jannie. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

“Only one?” 

“Oh, trust me. There’s far more, but if I get started on that I’ll wax poetic for days and we will almost certainly miss the dinner, and I think that’ll upset you.” 

“You know me so well, my love. You’re so sweet to me, and only me.”

“Only you!” Remus laughs. Janus hums, pinning his brooch to his lapel and clipping his tie. He looks in the mirror, admiring his face - glittering eye makeup, eyeliner sharp enough to cut a bitch, highlighter like diamonds, and a full, blood-red lip. For a finishing touch, he picks up a diamond lip gloss and swipes it across his lips. 

The bathroom door opens, and Janus turns to Remus to examine his outfit and promptly freezes. Remus has silvery eyeliner with curled eyelashes, no eye makeup to cover the laugh lines around the corners of his eyes that Janus adores so much. His face is contoured, bringing out his cheekbones, and he’s wearing pale green lipstick that matches his green gloves and four-inch green heels and emerald necklace. He wears a long, sleek black dress that hugs him in all the right ways, and Janus cannot stop staring.

“Janus?” Remus says, reaching over to set a hand on Janus’s shoulder. “Babe, you’ve been staring at me for like, five minutes. Is everything okay?” Janus blinks, clearing his eyes, and his husband’s concerned face comes back into focus. 

“Yes,” he says softly. “Yes, I - I’m sorry, my love. I lost track of my thought when I was looking into your eyes.” Remus flushes slightly, leaning down to press his forehead to Janus’s. 

“You can’t keep flustering me like that, Jan, not when I don’t have the time to throw you upon the bed and ravish you properly.” Janus lets out a very undignified giggle (one that he will absolutely deny if Remus tries to call him out about it later) as Remus sweeps him off his feet and spins him around. 

“Remus, please!” Janus gasps. “I’ll mess up my makeup! And you’ll mess up yours! And we have to leave, soon!”  

“Fine,” Remus pouts, setting Janus down and using the advantage his heels give him to lean down and press a little kiss to Janus’s hair. Janus shivers happily, leaning in to gently press his nose to Remus’s neck, before leaning back. 

“Fix your lipstick, dearest,” Janus says, primly smoothing Remus’s dress. “I’ll go check on the boys.” Remus grins, adjusting Janus’s tie clip before sending him off into the hall.

Janus sweeps down the hallway and knocks on the bedroom door, admiring the pale blue and dark purple origami butterflies adorning it. “May I open the door to check on you?”

“Yes,” Virgil calls. Janus opens the door and sees one of his children standing in front of the floor-length mirror. Xe’re adjusting xir purple and black suit, playing with the iridescent bow tie and frowning at xir sleeve. “Do I look alright, Papa?” 

“You look wonderful, dear,” Janus says. “Let me fix the cuff of your jacket, hmmm? It looks like you’re having trouble.” 

“Yes please,” Virgil exhales. Janus steps forward and fixes the cuff in one swift motion. He carefully readjusts the crescent-shaped silver hair ornament keeping Virgil’s bangs pinned out of xir eyes and makes sure that xir makeup isn’t smudged. “Thank you, Papa.”

“Of course. Is your brother nearly ready?” 

“I’ll meet you downstairs!” Patton calls from the attached bathroom. “Go on ahead without me, I’m just putting on the finishing touches. Won’t be more than a minute or two, I promise!”

“Very well, Patton. The car will be here shortly.” Janus heads for the long, spiralling staircase that leads to their foyer, with Virgil close behind him. Remus is waiting for them, draped in an elegant green lace shawl that Janus and Virgil wove for his birthday last year. Janus walks over to him and takes his arm, smiling at his husband. Virgil gags at them sarcastically as xe approaches, and Janus takes a minute to gaze over his family’s outfits, huffing out a laugh.

“What’s so funny, Jan?” Remus asks. 

“We certainly make an . . . interesting bunch all together, don’t we?” Janus says

“We look like we’re going to a funeral,” Virgil says, rolling xir eyes. 

“Oooh, I hope it’s open-casket! I want to roast the other morticians who don’t know how to to apply makeup to a corpse correctly. They never ever do it right, I’m the only one who does, and it pisses me off!” 

Remus continues to infodump about proper mortuary preparations for nearly four minutes. Janus glances at the grandfather clock near the staircase. “We should be leaving now . . . where is Patton?” 

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” 

Patton hurries down the stairs, and Janus gazes at his oldest child. He’s wearing a sky-blue dress with a pleated a-line skirt, patterned with cherry blossoms along the hem, and a pale pink cardigan sides around his shoulders. His purse is shaped like a pink kitty head, matching his pink tights and sky-blue kitten heels, and the clip in his hair is three crystal cherry blossoms. If it weren’t for his dark hair and abnormally silver-grey eyes, he wouldn’t look anything like the rest of his family. 

“The golden retriever arrives,” Remus says fondly, reaching over to ruffle Patton’s hair. Patton laughs, sliding his phone into his purse. “That makes all of us, then. Ready to go?” Virgil and Patton nod, and Janus snaps his fingers twice. 

“I’ll summon the driver.” 

[robotslenderman]

Idea: Stasya decides to prank Evie as revenge for all the pranks she's pulled. What's her plan and how does it go?

First she consults with Sullivan:

Nastasya: So hey, Evie was a kid when she was Embraced, yeah?

Sullivan: *Looks at Stasya like she's an idiot*

Nastasya: Does she still CONSIDER herself a kid?

Sullivan: When it serves her, yeah. She likes to lull people into a false sense of security with her "I am baby" act.

Sullivan: Seriously though, she had a rough childhood and I think rather than being upset she'll never get older, she's happy to have a second one she'll never leave. A lot of people Embraced at that age are close enough that they consider themselves adults after a while but I don't think that's the case with Evie. So let's assume yes. Why?

Nastasya: I was just wondering if it would be inappropriate to drop her into a pit of dicks, that's all. I want to get my own back and my pranks tend to be en-ess-eff-doubleyoo.

Sullivan: My gut tells me she'd think it was funny, but I tend to get the sense with Evie that it's better to play it safe. Especially if the dicks are squirming. Like they tend to be when you're involved.

Nastasya: o7 Got it.

So I KNOW this question meant Evie, but this turned into a prank on Beckett put on as a show for Evie (both figuratively and literally). Hopefully that still counts lol. There is another prank at the bottom tho which is on both of them!

She ultimately decides to prank Evie by going for Beckett himself. She approaches everyone that Beckett's ever pissed off uh, some of the people who Beckett's ever pissed off because I don't think even Nastasya has that much free time, and goes, "hey, want to help me play a prank with Beckett?"

"What's in it for me?"

"I will do it as a favour to you."

Naturally the answer is a unanimous "fuck yes."

In Maddyverse, this takes place after BJD and therefore post-Dracon, but before Sascha and Beckett become friends. (I don't know if Sascha and Beckett ever become friends in Evieverse but I'm sure this could happen there too.) So Sascha's not talking regularly (if at all) with Stasya either, but they get wind of what's going on and offers to be bait, which Stasya gladly (if a bit warily) accepts in exchange for free access to one of her journals.

Nastasya: which journal.

Sascha: whichever one has information on *me*.

Nastasya:... not to be an embarrassing stalker on main -

Sascha: You've always BEEN a stalker on main.

Nastasya: but I've got like. Eight of those.

Sascha: ugh. I skim through all of them and choose one, then. Deal?

Nastasya: Deal.

So one night, Beckett learns that Sascha is going after a Gehenna-related artefact. Naturally, his response to that is "oh no you DON'T" and picks up the trail and races to catch up.

Once Sascha is aware Beckett is on their trail, they "accidentally" lead him to the beginning of the chain then drop back, grab the popcorn, and watch.

So Beckett ends up visiting a lot of people from Beckett's Jyhad Diaries, who are like, ohhh, you just missed it, I just found out that X is involved! and sends Beckett further down the chain. Every time Beckett appears to lose interest and chase after something else (he tends to do that in BJD), Sascha just casually dips back in to increase the sense of urgency.

But then it gets weird: it becomes apparent that Evie actually has the artefact and is slowly making her way through Beckett's contacts on some kind of misadventure. The story appears to be that Evie stole the artefact from Beckett, and is now appealing to people she knows Beckett's pissed off for help to hide from him and sharing blackmail materials along the way. The "blackmail materials" are videos of Beckett being really silly -- dancing with underwear on his head, casually filming an entire parody of a Rick Roll where he's the star, reciting memes in a cringy context, waxing lyrical about Dracula, replacing the Screaming Cowboy in that one meme, etc. The contacts all know the videos are fake, but they pretend to take them seriously and there's a few running gags of "hey, Beckett, there's a production of Dracula that'll debut in Edinburgh where I hear the actor playing Dracula is very attractive!"

(I'm sure by now Evie will have caught on to what's going on. Beckett will realise Vicissitude's involved, especially as Evie's been by his side the whole time so he knew all along it wasn't her. also because he definitely did not star in any embarrassing videos. Nastasya is hoping by this point that Evie keeps going along for the ride instead of telling Beckett what it is.)

The treasure trail leads to the final dress rehearsal of the production of Dracula that Beckett's contacts have been joking about the whole time, which is being treated as the production itself, but with a friends-and-family audience before the debut. Beckett's assured that one of the actors is a ghoul of the vampire responsible and has the artefact in their possession. They end up with two free tickets and are encouraged to watch the show and wait to investigate until after the play is concluded. Beckett, naturally, would rather spend this time backstage picking on actors but maybe Evie encourages him to watch the show first, maybe she doesn't. Either way, they'll quickly notice that the cast has been a bit genderbent -- Van Hellsing is now a woman that looks rather a bit like Evie, and Mina is now a man that looks a lot like Beckett. There is a lot of homoeroticism between Dracula and "Beckett". Like a LOT.

After they go backstage after the show they find "Evie", who makes a big deal out of "protecting the artefact" in her arms. Eventually Evie and Beckett wrangle it out of her, and she disappears.

It's a book. Specifically, it's a hardcover copy of Dracula. It's been embossed with gold leaf and rebound into a fancy leather cover, but it's definitely Dracula.

It's signed by Beckett. It has a letter inside the cover.

Dear Evie,

I wanted to get you back for all the Beckett-related pranks, but Sullivan veto'd my idea of dropping you in a pit of dicks, so I thought I'd play one on Beckett for you instead. I hope you enjoyed the show. I certainly enjoyed arranging it. The actors are stand ins - sadly the real run will have a "proper" Mina and Van Hellsing. Absolute tragedy and a waste, I say.

Oh, and, enjoy the gift. No matter what Beckett says, he absolutely signed it. I was the one who asked him to, even if he didn't recognise me at the time. I've been waiting to spring this on him for years.

Love,

Auntie Stasya

xoxoxo

PS -- They were all in it. Do remind Beckett that it's wise not to anger everyone he meets. I managed to cultivate quite a few favours just for the opportunity to fuck with Cuthbert Beckett. I hear some of the Kindred I roped into it showed up to the performance.

Nastasya probably doesn't see Evie that often - Sullivan mostly works on the west coast, though I'm sure he brings Evie whenever he needs to travel if she's not with Kara or Beckett - but she is genuinely fond of her "niece" and finds her pranks hilarious, even when they're at her own expense.

I'm sure at some point or other, when she and Beckett are on actually friendly terms, she'll play a prank on Evie herself. She and her coterie fleshcraft themselves to look like Beckett while they're in NYC, and when Beckett briefly steps out for whatever reason, a fake Beckett comes back and wanders off with Evie, first starting subtle then slowly acting more ridiculous until it's obvious it's a fake Beckett. At which point they track down the "real" Beckett (it's another fake) who gets offended at this prank... rinse and repeat until the real Beckett actually shows up (he got distracted with a fake Evie) and they're being followed around by 3-6 Becketts (depending on whether or not Ilias, Sascha and Sullivan are available/want to get involved. Possibly 7 Becketts if Rose joins in - I think having ONE Beckett who looks exactly the same as the others but obviously hiding her forehead would be hilarious - or even 8 if Evie uses her Chimerstry) all claiming they're the real one and "clearly this is a sign of Gehenna!" no this is not based on the prank the squad once played on Jan Pieterzoon at a convention.

[andreagourley]

I woke up on Boxing Day and decided to go feral: here's my S15 fix it.

Dean's in purgatory praying as normal but we hear a proper declaration of "I love you". When he meets up with Cas again who's all like "I heard you", Dean's like "But let me say it again: I love you" and Cas just stands there for a few seconds, taken aback, but walks past Dean. Dean's standing there like "omg he didn't say it back, omg he doesn't love me, omfgnooo-", and Dean's in that limbo of "Cas didn't say it back" up until 15x18.

Also, the Jack+Dean relationship is gonna be better btw cuz it's bs this season. Imagine being Dean, having an abusive father who mistreated/neglected you virtually your whole life, left you to be a father and mother to your baby brother when you yourself are a child, forcing you to abandon your childhood at age 4, right? Naturally I would think (especially after s14) that Dean would do anything in his power to not repeat this behaviour and value the people he loves above all, yet Jack is an exception????? and not a 'real part of the family'??????? Sure, Jan. ANYWAY-

Cut to The Scene (15x18) where Cas spills all the romantic, profound tea. It won't be cut janky and we're keeping the og script dialogue cuz Dean saying "Saying what, Cass?" is perfect in this context; he's been waiting for him to say it back. This scene plays out pretty much the same.

Cut to the scene w/ Dean and Sam talking (15x19) btw this episode was just so lame, plz make it better where Dean tells Sam what Cas said and is all like "Y'know, back when we were in purgatory, I told him that I loved him. He didn't say it back. And I kept wondering what I'd done wrong, if he even cared about me. But then I realised: he couldn't. He sacrificed himself for me- for all of us- out of love. He couldn't tell me he loved me because the price of doing that was his life. That's not fair, Sam." And this gives Dean this newfound determination to go to the Empty and get Cas back.

So Dean goes; it's all a whirlwind. Cas realises the only thing holding him to the Empty is the fact that he's an angel, so he rips out his grace and gives it to the Empty, leaving him human. Dean pulls an uno reverse card and saves Cas from perdition.

Then they get back to the Bunker/maybe they could do a ritual to go to the Empty in the same barn he met Cas in??? and have their "ily/ily2" scene w/ a big ole smooch. And then it ends with TFW2.0 living their best lives, free of the clutches of Chuck, writing their own story together.

And because I feel weird about Jack- a literal child who deserves his own life- becoming God+taking on the responsibilities of God, Dean decides to give him the Impala (reinforcing the father-son dynamic, reference to Dean teaching him how to drive in s14) this might be a stretch idk They all drive off into the sunset, blah blah.

FIN.

[duhragonball]

Hellsing Liveblog Ch 28-34

“Alucard, you’re the laziest vampire on Mars.”

So, I’ll be wrapping up the “D” arc in this post.   Previously, we saw a squad of Millennium goons commandeer a British carrier.  Their leader, Lt. Rip Van Winkle, has a musket that shoots magic bullets that can change direction in mid-air.    Also, Integra cut her own finger and made Seras lick the blood off.    As for Alucard, he’s been binging medical blood and taking a nap.

This is all to set up a one-off gag where Alucard has a dream similar to the one Seras had back in Brazil, where she was visited by the spirit of her cannon, which looked a lot like the guy who played Lord Harkonnen in the Dune movie.   Not the new one, the one with Sting in it.    Not the wrestler Sting, the musician.  

I don’t know why, but the spirit of Al’s gun, the Jackal, is Bruce Willis, but then Bruce gets killed by another guy who looks like Muldoon from Jurassic Park?  Maybe?   I just googled Muldoon and he doesn’t quite look like I remembered, but there’s no point to any of this, so let’s just move on.  

Aboard the H.M.S. Eagle, now renamed the Alder by Milennium, Lt. Winkle has painted a swastika on the deck and she’s taking a nap in the middle of it.  Her team is all holed up inside, and they talk about how they’ll never be able to venture out in the sun again.   This seemed like a continuity gaffe to me, but then this one dude points out that unlike them, Winkle is a werewolf.   So that’s why she can go out in the sun and they can’t.  

Maybe the Hellsing Ultimate anime covered this, and I just missed it, but when I watched that series in 2016, I found it strange how there only seemed to be two werewolves in Millennium: The Captain, and Warrant Officer Schrodinger.   And yet, Schrodinger speaks of his fellow werewolves with some pride, as if there were more than just two of them, and it turns out that this was what he meant.    Rip Van Winkle’s a werewolf, and I’m starting to think Zorin Blitz must be a werewolf too.   

And that explains a few things, because the real inner circle of Millennium is those four characters, the Doctor, and the Major.   Their 1,000 soldiers are vampires, but their leaders are not.   Like the guy in this scene observes, Millennium’s vampire corps are “mere rookies” compared to the werewolves, and that’s why they’re the ones the Major put in charge.   

This also puts the Dandyman in context.   The Doctor seemed to have high hopes for the Dandyman, but he failed to put a dent in Alucard.   I never understood his confidence, seeing as Winkle and Blitz were stronger, but now it makes sense.   The Doctor’s been trying to perfect artificial vampirism for the last fifty-odd years.   Dandyman represented the most powerful vampire he could produce, and he paled in comparison to the real thing.    Millennium’s werewolves are far more capable, but I don’t know if the Doctor had anything to do with them.    Even if he did, his success with them is unrelated to his vampire research.   

Also, Rip just looks... different somehow.   Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but her design might be intended to evoke wolf-like features, as opposed to vampiric features.   Well, I’ll worry about that later.

In England, Sir Integra barges in on the British Navy HQ and all the officers there take offense. They seem to find the idea of vampires ludicrous, even though Hellsing is an official government agency and has been for over 100 years.   Their commander, Vice-Admiral Shelby Penwood, asks her to stay, but it’s like his subordinates don’t even notice this.   He’s a pretty weak leader, is my point.

The Navy insists on handling the Eagle crisis without Integra, so she lights up a cigar and observes them in action.   They send some helicopters to check out the carrier, but Winkle shoots them down with her magic bullet.   It quickly becomes apparent that nothing can get close enough to the Eagle without getting destroyed, and since the Navy won’t listen to Integra, she withdraws to her own HQ to consider a proper strategy.   

The fundamental problem for Hellsing is that they need to get Alucard or Seras aboard the Eagle in order to neutralize the threat, but vampires can’t cross running water.   A boat is out of the question because it’s too slow, and an aircraft would be shot down by the magic bullet.    But there is one aircraft that can get the job done...

So Integra arranges to launch a modified SR-71 Blackbird.     Comics fans will recognize this as the plan the X-Men used in the comics.   I don’t know if they still use it.    At some point it probably stopped being cool, but in 1999 it was cool enough for Hellsing.   Strictly speaking, the Blackbird in this comic was heavily modified by the RAF’s research and development teams, so it’s practically a whole other aircraft.   The main point, though, is that it’s a reconnaissance plane, capable of flying at speeds of Mach 3 and at altitudes of 16 miles.  Unlike Sir Penwood’s aircraft, this one can approach the Eagle high enough in the air to avoid enemy fire.

Below, Rip Van Winkle appears to sense Alucard’s approach and seems to have a panic attack over it.   Me, I’m just wondering why Hellsing wasted precious time having their cutesy logo painted on the tailfin of this plane.  

So how the hell does Alucard plan to get the plane down without getting shot at?   SImple, he doesn’t.    He just nosedives straight down onto the carrier, and what does he care if the plane gets shot to hell on the way down?   

A lot of this arc is just badass shots of this crash landing, and the ensuing carnage.   I’m skipping a lot of beautiful artwork, but there’s really nothing going on beyond “Alucard crashes his plane onto an aircraft carrier.”

Once he hits the ground, Al releases his restraints to Level 1, the same level he used against Luke Valentine, and he goes to town on Milennium’s soldiers.    Rip Van Winkle keeps whimpering about Zamiel, which is a reference to Der Freischütz , a German opera about a huntsman with a musket that fires seven magic bullets.   The first six will hit whatever the huntsman aims for, but the seventh belongs to the Evil One, Zamiel, who can guide it wherever he pleases.   

Winkle flashes back to a coversation she had years ago with the Major, who recognizes her musket as a reference to Der Freischütz, and he warned her to remember how the opera ends: With Zamiel coming to claim the soul of Kaspar.   Rip is terrified because it doesn’t take a genius to see how Alucard’s attack might resemble this moment.   

After her men are all destroyed, Rip gathers enough composure to put up a fight, but her magic bullet can only hit Alucard, not kill him.   Eventually, he just catches the thing in his mouth, neutralizing her power entirely.   

Then we proceed with what I consider the most gruesome scene in the whole story.   Alucard starts by impaling Rip through the heart with the barrel of her own musket.

Then he sprouts all these extra hands and grabs hold of her like some horrible nightmare-spider or something.   

Then he starts licking up the blood from her wound, really taking his time with it.    He’s stuck on this boat, after all, and there’s no one else alive to distract him.   

And finally he goes for the jugular, as it were.   

Aboard his zeppelin, the Major is watching all of this.   I guess Schrodinger’s power to be anywhere makes it possible for them to keep tabs on what’s happening.   All he has to do is bring a video camera along.   The Doctor prepares to activate Winkle’s self-destruct chip, but the Major forbids this.   They used this device on Jan Valentine and the Dandyman, but only because they failed in their missions.   As for Rip Van Winkle, the Major declares her mission a complete success.    He orders his men to salute as they watch her die slowly at the hands of Alucard.    A twisted honor, to be sure.

And with Winkle finally dead, Alucard just laughs up a storm.  

Here’s the problem, he’s stuck on that boat now.  And Hellsing knew it would go like this when they sent him, but they didn’t have a choice.   Early into the crisis, Integra and Walter recognized the Eagle as a mere decoy, one that would distract them from the real threat, but they couldn’t ignore it, and now Alucard’s on the Eagle while Millennium’s true forces are heading for Great Britain.

So yeah, take a good look at Alucard, because we won’t be seeing him again for a while...

[firelxdykatara]

I was the anon who sent the ask about cs, and you actually addressed some of the major arguments i've seen - being with hook turned emma from a strong, independent woman into just a love interest, hook pursued emma with no reciprocated feelings, and that he never really redeemed himself. I've also seen arguments that cs is abusive, which i've seen to some extent in anti-kataang posts. i try not to dive too deep into the anti tag for my own sanity but these are some of the main things i've seen

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

ok, sorry, i was just caught up in the euphoria of reminiscing about my captain swan feelings that for a moment there i lived in a world where the Anti CS Brigade didn’t exist. but no, yeah, i know exactly what you’re talking about and honestly i think i just......blocked 90% of it from my mind because so many of those arguments were so vitriolic and widespread but also baseless, like...

gods, ok, here we go. anon you have activated my dormant ouat wordvomit processors and idk if i’ll be able to shut up any time soon but i have A Lot Of Thoughts Here, and also a lot of really bad memories cause ye gods, the ouat shipping wars of the days of yore were vicious.

ANYWAY, like, the vast majority of these arguments came from the ‘swan queen nation’, which is where you can trace a lot of super toxic wlw ship stans back to--just for a little context, but clexa and supercorp both had their roots in swan queen, among other ships, but those are the Big Three i always go back to because what they have in common is ‘the main character of the series is explicitly abused/treated horribly by another woman and for some reason the shippers go nuts over this pairing and will insist the show is queerbaiting them if this specific pairing is not made canon’. and swan queen stans, in particular, had it out for captain swan, because they were incredibly insistent about regina and emma being in love, and naturally the existence of emma’s romantic arc with killian threatened that.

as a result, they quite literally made shit up.

it’s funny (not ‘funny ha ha’ but like funny depressing), because a lot of what they accused CS of is actually shit that happened explicitly on screen with regina and emma. they claimed that emma was no longer strong or independent because she fell in love with killian, while ignoring the fact that she’d become a literal doormat for regina’s many abuses (there are so many things regina did to emma even after her alleged redemption which, if she weren’t being so coddled by the narrative, emma would never have let her get away with--like blaming her for saving the life of a woman regina had murdered in the past, or like telling emma to her face that she wanted to tear killian’s throat out because he managed to come back from the underworld while the man regina loved stayed dead) because, for some reason, they interpreted emma being happy and no longer closed off to the people she loved, choosing to let down the walls she’d built up over a lifetime of trauma as her being ‘reduced to a love interest’ which just did not happen.

like, factually, straight up, emma was every bit as badass while dating killian as she was back in season 1. the only difference is, in season 1 emma didn’t trust anyone, she was closed off, she had a million walls built high around her by trauma, and she wasn’t willing to let anyone in because she believed that if she did then she’d only be traumatized again when they inevitably left. by season 4, when she started officially dating killian, many of those walls had come down, she was happier and healthier, she was falling in love and she was letting herself be in love, she had her parents, her son, the whole town full of people she loved. she was fucking happy, but she wasn’t happy with the right love interest, so swan queen shippers insisted they wanted ‘season 1 emma back’. because they would rather emma be miserable so they could interpret her antagonism with regina as closeted gay pining, than have her dare to be happy with a man and a family that didn’t include regina.

as to the other claims, while hook did make his feelings for emma clear once he realized he felt them, the ball was in her court almost completely. he made comments, told her how he felt, said things like ‘when i win your heart, and i will win it, it will be because you want me’ where the clear emphasis was on emma’s feelings--he believed she had some feeling for him, but he wanted anything between them to be because it was what she wanted. emma initiated every explicitly romantic interaction. killian made a flirty comment, which he was wont to do, and which she could easily have brushed off--instead, she grabbed him by the coat and yanked him into a kiss which lasted far longer than it needed to if all she wanted to do was make a point. (sorry, that scene is just burned into the brain of every CS shipper, i know it literally by heart lmfao) he made it clear that if she wanted him he would be there, but i she didn’t he wasn’t going to push her. he followed her through an entire damn portal into the past because he wanted to help her, because he’d go anywhere for her--to the end of the world, or time--but emma was the one who invited him to dinner with her family. emma was the one who noticed he hadn’t come in yet, and went to see him. emma was the one who kissed him, initiating their relationship.

like @storynightlight said in the replies to the last ask you sent, a majority of the important milestones in killian and emma’s relationship were initiated by emma. she was the one constantly progressing their relationship, it went entirely at her pace in large part because one damaged soul recognizes another, and killian had been through enough trauma in his long (long, long) life to understand that emma needed to work things through on her own terms. he wanted to be part of her life, but it had to be when she was willing to let him in. and he was perfectly content to wait for her to be ready.

as far as the ‘abuse’ claims go, that was honestly just straight up fabrication on the part of swan queen shippers mostly, which is intensely ironic considering the state of emma and regina’s ‘friendship’ for literally the entire damn series. most of them referenced things that happened while emma and killian were enemies (they called their sword fight ‘abuse’, which like.... i’m sorry but two people on opposite sides of a violent conflict having a fight is not abuse, and incidentally that’s an argument that zutara gets hit with too, to this day, clearly words don’t actually mean things anymore), and ignored the fact that killian’s behavior changed as his redemption arc progressed. he didn’t become a good upstanding citizen overnight, but he did feel remorse for his prior bad actions and the harm he caused, he went to great lengths to make up for that harm when and where he could, and he tried to be as good a man as he possibly could in later seasons, even when circumstances (like, oh, gold having possession of his heart and using it to control him, which anti CSers also blamed him for, go figure) made that nearly impossible.

meanwhile, as late as season 6, regina was still blaming emma for everything that went wrong in her life. regina happily browbeat emma about everything she ‘stole’ from her for basically the entire series. regina, in the context of their friendship after her alleged redemption, was constantly verbally and emotionally abusive to emma--and yet that behavior was completely overlooked, or deemed ‘pining’ or some other obvious evidence of romantic feelings, by swan queen shippers who would prefer to claim emma was being abused by her caring and loyal boyfriend who constantly believed in her even when she had trouble believing in herself. (incidentally, it truly is incredibly rich of regina stans (and rumple stans, a lot of them say this too) to claim that killian never redeemed himself, when regina is the one with a vault full of hearts she never returned to their proper owners, and regina is the one who murdered someone emma cared about and never confessed to it, let alone apologized for it; graham died in emma’s arms while regina crushed his heart, and it was never once brought up again. regina got away with it scott free, and it is just one on a list of crimes she literally never expressed even the slightest bit of remorse for, let alone tried to atone for. yet killian is the one who ‘never redeemed himself’ mmhmmm ok sure jan.)

I’M SO SORRY ANON, you probably had no idea the can of Worms you were opening with these asks, but CLEARLY i still have a lot of damn feelings about this fucking show lmfao. THANK YOU THOUGH!!! i haven’t talked about captain swan or even really reminisced much in a while, and i miss them a lot, so it was nice to dive back into my Feelings and remember so much of what i loved about them! i may do a rewatch soon >.> it’s ok if i just skip 4b except the finale and then turn it off immediately after emma and killian’s reunion at the end and pretend the entire show ended there, right????

i hope you’re having a good night! thanks again for the asks <33

[soysaucevictim]

Final week (both for program and the year, proper)!

-

Dec. 26

I woke up after 11AM, today. And one of the first things I got done today was some exercise.

First, yesterday’s DD. 2′ meditation with EC. Kinda had no good reason to miss doing this yesterday. Was also a bit fidgety, since it’s been awhile since I last meditated. One of these days, I’m going to make that a habit.

Second, today’s DD. 3′ high knees with EC. I counted 406 reps by the time was up. Happy I managed to stay above 2/sec. Definitely got harder to lift the knees as high by the last half or so.

(After grabbing some iced coffee and updating some logs...)

Last, Day 25 of the FhP. Level 3, no rest. After the first 3, I was wondering about taking more time to rest. Arms started feeling a bit noodle-y, but I just kept the train rolling. A very fun workout - loved all the combos and the moments I could smoothly execute them and the transitions. (Still opting for 50/50 approach rather than bounce-switching.)

Most of my day was spent on the usual and doing some writing research of a medical nature (zombies are weird and great).

I was back on my BS, staying up well into the red zone again.

-

Dec. 27

I woke up around noon.

After a bit of browsing and more note-taking, I did today’s exercise early.

First, today’s DD. 40 squat + step backs with EC. Got a bit winded and fatigued here, but I could manage well enough.

Last, Day 26 of the FhP. Level 3, 1′ rest. Oi, I feel like I badly strained my neck when I playing so much Pokemon on Christmas. Made stuff like the plank rotations particularly uncomfortable/awkward. Push-up form was a bit sloppy too - but yeah, neck wasn’t really having it. :/

Spent some time chatting and watching some movies with a friend. We watched the movie version of “Into the Woods“ (now I have a bit more context for SaSi referencing it) and “Life of Brian“.

I went to bed a bit later than yesterday.

-

Dec. 28

I woke up barely before 1PM.

After a bit of the usual, I did my exercise.

First, today’s DD. 50 prone reverse flies with EC. This felt pretty nice to help limber up my neck some more. Mostly a mild annoyance to get into a position on floor with enough clearance.

Last, Day 27 of the FhP. Level 3, no rest. This was altogether very doable without rest. I still love sit-up punches a lot. I rather enjoy how my abs have been performing for this exercise/load! =w=

Spent pretty much the rest of my night on the usual stuff.

I went to bed obscenely late again. I had a pretty bad episode fussing with my nails again...

-

Dec. 29

I woke up after noon, I think

First, today’s DD. 40 bridge taps with EC. Still a fun exercise, all told.

Last, Day 28 of the FhP. Level 3, no rest. Decided to watch LNTAO again as background noise (Roman shouting “AN ARM!” will always make me laugh). Fun sequence to get through, too.

I then set out to making today’s Hello Fresh Meal. Chicken over garlic Parmesan spaghetti. This was pretty good, but still hard for Dad to deal with.

After some of the usual and some dishes, I got back to writing some more for the iZ!AU.

Went to bed event later than yesterday.

-

Dec. 30

I woke up after 1PM.

Watched some YouTube before doing today’s exercise.

First, today’s DD. 1′ toe tap hops with EC. I counted 118 reps by the end of it - very close to 2/sec. That pace was pretty intense though, did start to feel a bit of fatigue near the end.

Last, Day 29 of the FhP. Level 3, 1′ rest. I admit my push-ups got pretty sloppy as I went along. But It was still fairly intense.

Spent much of the night chatting and doing a bit more writing on that iZ!Prinxiety date intermission (mostly finishing the rough draft).

I went to bed a few hours earlier than yesterday, still in the red zone.

-

Dec. 31

I woke up after 11AM.

After a bit of the usual, I did today’s exercise.

First, today’s DD. 5′ punches with EC. I swapped stances at 2′30″ and counted a total of 632 punches thrown by the end of it. Happy I stayed over 2/sec pace. A fun way to end this shit year too. :P

Last, Day 30 of the Fireheart Program. Level 3, 1′ rest. That was a lot of sit-ups and definitely took some digging in. But a good test for the final day of the program! I enjoyed it!

I did some dishes and made tonight’s Hello Fresh Meal. Cheesy quinoa-stuffed peppers. Everyone enjoyed this one.

Then got back to updating some logs. And chatting about things.

I spent some time topping up fandom blog queue and then stayed up till like 11AM or so writing up a masterpost for my fandom blog to pin. Was that a great idea? Probably not, but I did it anyways.

-

Jan. 1

I woke up proper around 3PM.

First, today’s DD. 2′ jumping Ts with EC. I had one false start, realizing I set my timer wrong (for 1′). I wondered why that was a bit too easy. Second go was set properly and I counted 152 reps by the end of it. It was pretty enjoyable.

Last, I decided to chase the bliss from that with a few rounds of half jacks. Tucked out my calves there, but I had fun.

Spent much of my day chatting and thinking more about the physiology of zombies in that iZ!AU. :,D

I got to bed far earlier than yesterday, because tired. But still in my red zone.

-

Summary of Experience:

I finished the Fireheart Program on Dec. 31. I rather enjoyed this program, but then again I’ve always enjoyed combat exercises. I noted that pretty much the entire way through - I didn’t go for the Combat HIIT approach (alternately bounce-switching sides.) Did try to clean up my push-up form for most of it and I’m rather happy about meeting the demands of all those sit-up punches!

I did manage to hit Level 3 for all 30 days, and as for resting times between sets:

No Rest: 7

30″ Rest: 2

1′  Rest: 21

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

The deal with my deer tail: Continued from the last tagged post (MENTIONS OF EX’S AND OHS OFF THE PORT BOW).

Like, I’m very painfully aware that this is %200 a trauma/coping thing that I’ve developed for myself now because deer were … My exe’s absolute favorite animal of all time ever and he associated with them deeply in regards to certain aspects of his personality and hobbies and this kinda plays a little bit into why I was attracted to him in the first place because it was such unique interest for someone to have and then ….Of course his favorite film ever was “Bambi” like, to the point of having the plushies and the original ORIGINAL book by Felix Salten along with it’s original sequel book and everything and it’s like …So odd for me because I live right by the woods in the middle of nowhere anyway and not a day goes by without discussion of these creatures in my house or without an offer to go “deer spotting” or “Bambi Spotting”… And I don’t have much room to say “no” because who would say “no” to deer sighting so I typically just go along with as if it doesn’t effect me because I have no choice…..  And anyway outside of my home life I know tumblr typically loves deer and deer aesthetics as well and while I thought I’ve been trying to go out of my way to avoid this particular animal (at least on social media if I’m unable to in my home life) for the longest time because I associate them so deeply with my ex … Because deer were *HIS* thing … I’m slowly coming to terms with this creeping realization that I’ve had that I’ve not only been surrounded by the actual animal since before I met him …. But I’ve also just … Been surrounded by just …. All these deer characters and deer aesthetic since he left me…. And that also hurts me ….Because ….Since he’d been trying to find ways to get back in contact with me for the better part of the decade yearly since then, without ever apologizing, and since 2017 I’ve only had two years without receiving something from him in order to fully process how he’d been in my life for a near full decade like, wether I wanted  him to be or not … That sort of just … devolved into this odd habit of me projecting unto certain characters with these kind of aesthetics and relationship dynamics to help cope because he never gave me anything else and it’s weird because I started to seek out these things and look at them in context to my relationship with this person and I just felt ….. bittersweet but okay because I would think of him and I would think of the way that he used to make me feel and feel and I would feel sad but because of the nature and narrative that I was projecting toward I would also feel comforted in a way and validated and calm? Which is also the way I’d start to feel whenever I’d see an actual deer or mention of deer or even see clips or concept art from “Bambi” or a baby deer …

But ………

So back in 2018, just a couple days after what would have been one of our “anniversaries” had past, and I hadn’t even keeping track of how many at that point but like, basically something happened that triggered me into a remember the time that in 2013 he had found my tumblr and followed me without warning, context or permission, without even speaking to me after finding me the year before this just to let me know how much he couldn’t care less about me, apparently ….. which, sure, Jan.

But … This time he was freaking me out because he was just following me silently on a blank account out of nowhere and I kind of managed to find what could’ve been considered my first ever girlfriend within the six months to a year that he’d been out of my life and it is me and this new girl had only “official” for 3 days after like, 6 months of slow burn flirting with each other and then this other cowardice arsehole who didn’t even have the dignity to speak to me proper was … Someone who had known for me for 3 years and someone whom I had once shared the most intimate parts of myself with.

In short I could already foresee this becoming a pattern after he’d managed to contact me the last time so I ended up breaking down and having a panic attack.

I didn’t know what to do and I felt sick to my stomach and I didn’t want him putting me in a spot, so…  I made a screen cap and a post and kind of explaining who he was and how he hurt me and how I didn’t want him hurting my girlfriend or anyone else so just PLEASE don’t talk to him etc. And then I blocked him and threw up. And would-be-girlfriend blocked me the next day because of this…

A couple weeks later around New Years, I decided to log into the old hotmail account that I had just because I was curious….

The first email that he sent me was to let me know that he was going to follow me on tumblr and he was asking how my Christmas was and inquiring how I was doing, he wanted to know if I was “fine”. His version of pet names all included as if nothing had gone wrong between us ….

The next three emails, sent within minutes of each other, each only sentences long, were all responding to my reaction to his following me on tumblr without a word, without context, and seemingly without context …. These emails all of which I did not end up saving or screen caping because…. I’m pretty much 99% freaking. Percent. SURE! That he stated something passively along the lines of: “ If I REALLY wanted to *BLANK* , I would have done so… >.>” cause I distantly remember his little side eye emoji that he placed after the words “done so”  and like, it’s really easy to kind of place the words “HURT YOU” in the middle of that, because that’s what I was talking about him doing in context, which would lead to at least vaguely remembering this in a full sentence as: “If I REALLY wanted to hurt you, I would have done so … >.>”

So yes, I’m at least 99% sure that he had threatened me, like that …  

And of course I didn’t respond, but I do remember feeling threatened enough that it made my heart race and it made me cry and I needed to ask my mom for champaign to calm and I also remember that the whole reason why I didn’t save those emails was because if I did it would make the threat real and would need to tell my parents and I just didn’t want to think of him that way or what he’d meant by that and because this was already becoming a pattern, I didn’t want to spend another entire year of being paranoid he was planning something …

And he also kept going about what a nice guy he was and told me to have a nice life and told me he was gonna check up on me anymore and said that I treated him like shit …

So I just took a sip of my champaign, told myself I’d see him in a year, and deleted his emails… This was in 2013.

In 2014, I caught him spying on me through the visitors page of an account I’d already gone out of my way to block him on, and I noticed that, even though it been two years, he still had the icon that I had personally picked out for him as his avatar, an odd memory to keep from someone you claim to not care about, constantly ….

In 2015,  he sent me a silent skype request…

In 2016.. He found my tumblr again …Actually saying something where I could access it this time … He sent me like, 7 IM’s and for the most part was back to being nice as pie, back to his version of calling me pet names and everything …  claimed that he just wanted to say Hello …

He said that we could talk someday if I wanted to and that it was up to me … I still didn’t answer, because for one this was past midnight on Friday The 13th and when I saw that I had 7 IM’s and a new follower I just …. I got this sinking gut feeling that I knew that it was him and then I told myself that I was being paranoid again and that he couldn’t possibly because I’d already blocked him and so I opened up the messages just to prove to myself that I was wrong and got met with his username and a single smiley face emoji like:

:)

“:)” Was the first thing I saw when I opened his messages…

And I immediately closed them out again and I closed tumblr out and I just sat there …. for awhile … Because the last thing he did say to me verbally was to threaten me and tell me that I treated him like shit …  And I had no way of knowing what could be behind that smiley face …

But I needed to know … So I opened the messages and read them …

And that’s when he went back to being as nice as his own pie recipe and seemingly pretending like those emails and the spying didn’t happen …

Like, I don’t know if he knew I knew about them, but I have an inkling he must’ve otherwise he wouldn’t have been that cocky … “:)” is not a friendly smiley face, nor will it ever be.

And in the middle before all that he was like: “Let’s hope you don’t bite my head off this time …. xD” referring back to only the 2013 incident when I said something indirectly and that scared away the girl I was about to maybe start something with, again as if that didn’t happen ….

So, I didn’t answer him, because he didn’t earn it.

So like yeah, back in 2018, due to …. certain contexts of certain things which would also lead into me having anticipated myself getting caught up in an over abundance of people’s appreciation for deer, due to something that I not mention, I’d also been triggered/hit with a sharp realization that, October 27th, 2019 would have been the 10 year anniversary of having met that person in the first place, if he hadn’t discarded me after 3 years and then spent like, the better part of the decade trying to get in contact with me, upon the deeper realization that, even as of now, I’ve only really officially had this person out of my life for two years, and on top of that, he’d still find a way of showing up in my life Every. Single. Year. For the past four years. And now I would have to be dealing with an over abundance of deer and ‘Bambi’ references and puns, even more so than I obviously did and still do now, in my home life…

So my reaction was to laugh. REALLY fucking hard. And then I realized that deer might actually just…. LEGIT be my trigger always and then I started crying laughing cause I was just like “OH dear GOD… (and I can’t even like, say that that or type that without it already being a pun without it being a pun …which only makes it FUNNIER …) I might LEGIT have Bambiphobia!”

And then I broke down. Because I didn’t know how to feel about this or how I was gonna deal with it.

I’m still figuring out how I feel about this and how I’m dealing with it ….

My ex  …. Was….He wasn’t a very complex boy but, he had always been more ,… In touch with things like femininity and sensitivity, or at least made a show of it, but I’d like to think he was genuinely like that considering what his interests were and he might’ve been autistic too just, looking back on things in context?

(His absolute FAVORITE music to listen to was also Owl City and he loved Adam Young, and considering Adam Young is self diagnosed and my ex’s special interest in deer, and Bambi and the books and the plushies and the the way he could just …talk and talk to me about anything for hours and hours and hours and we’d never we’d never get tired of each other…. I’ve just been doing all this math in my head I’m not trying to imply anything bad about these things and they all play into factors of why I was originally attracted to him to begin with).

He openly identified as Bisexual before I even knew what that was for myself and still kind of considered myself “Straight but not Narrow TM” or whatever kind of definition I saw on Television.

He wrote poetry as a hobby and of course knew how to play the piano while I did none of those things.

He was 17 when I met him but due to cultural difference of where he lived… he enjoyed wine and opera.

He was extremely well spoken and charming and articulate, and he also loved Mr. Rodger’s and Albert Einstein to the point of just having just … One big black and white poster of Albert in his room and one time, he was going on about his admiration for Rodger’s and so innocently told me how he intended to write and send him fan-letters one day and then reasonably became extremely upset when I informed that Rodger’s passed away, and I felt even more so helpless to comfort him when he asked me if I could tell him a little bit more about Rodger’s life to make him feel better and I knew absolutely nothing about the man aside from vaguely remembering that I used to watch his show when I was small …

So yeah my ex’s personality could essentially be summed up as: “ Eccentric, Silly “Smart” boy”, if I needed to …

He once excused himself when I told him that I needed to eat soon and came back, all decked out in a tuxedo to “have dinner together”, and I was about to eat a taco…

This one time he noticed that I was super uncomfortable and upset because I just watched this disgusting ableist film that had like incest in and shit and I didn’t wanna tell him but he got it out it out of me and HE KNEW WHAT FILM I WAS TALKING ABOUT AND THEN WANT ON BIG RANT AND ESSAY ABOUT HOW VILE IT WAS AND HOW I SHOULD PAY IT NO MIND AND AFTERWARDS HE WAS LIKE: “You know what? We need some music to wash the taste out of our mouths…” and then he just started playing the piano to calm me down further.

And I’m only saying it like this because incase no one has noticed it’s been a little bit more… Confusing? For me to try and throw a man like this into everyone’s typical “FuckBoyTM” box and call that “Healing”.

I wouldn’t even wanna put labels on him …  

I genuinely feel as though I would need to think back to olden times in order to find a way to insult him that would accurately combat and deconstruct the amount of passion we brought out in each other, if it is appropriate to speak of my feelings for him in this context.

His mistreatment of women that he did not like …. Left much to be desired in regards to his attitude. Though his comments were mostly reserved for his half sister, my half sister, and fictional characters and I’m not bringing this up to try and say that this was justified or frame it into a: “Well, he never did that to ME sort of picture …” Though, the odd thing is that, for all the things that my younger self had shared with him, after his abandonment, ever year for four years I’d kept on waiting for the shoe to drop and for him to call me names and slurs and for the verbal abuse to finally commence and he just …

He wouldn’t do any of that. He never did. Not once. Not even during times he would get angry with me when we were together.

So when HE DID, lose his patience with me, he never resorted to name calling, so when he said and did things that hurt me, that he should’ve known better for doing, that meant he was really fucking harsh ….

So harsh, that one night….. It would be the final night I’d ever thought I’d speak to him again. Or at least begin to test him to see if he would come back and apologize and therein lies the the issue: HE ALWAYS came back, HE NEVER apologized.

Perfect. Gentleman. (Of course I’m using sarcasm).

Seriously, you know that new chat post about Male Victorian Novel Protagonist has fucked by his Lady Love and Knows This, BUT is Too Proud to admit this though still pines for her so when he speaks to her now he just: *sweats*…Is your family in good health?

Legit triggers my PTSD cause for the past four years with me it’s been just: Hey mate. Wanted to see how your X-mas was. Is your family okay? Are you fine? I’ve got some time off… Okay fine, I won’t check on you anymore, it’s not like I still love you or anything, baka! >.<  *cue two more  years of silent bating before* Hey kiddo you doing okay? I know it’s late but my days off today and if you wanna talk someday you can I’ll leave you alone now! :)

Like I know I’m paraphrasing but that’s pretty much it (and I know I know I’m sorry for the “baka” joke, but he WAS a huge otaku nerd to a certain extent and all the anime that I would watch before I really started interacting with AMV editing community on YouTube was recommended him so needless to say I do not watch Anime so much anymore but I couldn’t resist making a “baka” joke in my own mind while reading his poorly veiled passive aggression and it’s written down and out of my system how I’m gotten to properly share one of the ways I’ve teased him for this if only in my own mind.

The thing that makes me feel weird/guilty about all this though is despite his behavior suspicious as shenanigans, he’d only ever attempt close contact once per year (as far as I know) and as far as I know aside from that one time I’d caught him spying on an art group from an account I’d already blocked him on which I don’t really know how he found (which okay, still a little shaken up about that one every time I type about it) his way of always popping up in my life somehow never really strayed from his ordinarily open way of trying to do it, and he’d never verbally abuse me or call me names or slurs while this was happening, despite how condescending or ominous he was while trying to get a razzle out of me …

MEANWHILE, because I let him get a razzle out of me, no matter how long ago it was before I found cpunk, I ended up deliberately calling him an extreme ableist slur just to send him away from away from me, over what was nothing more than a silly misunderstanding and classic case of miscommunication because I couldn’t see his first email and didn’t think to check before I went off on him, regardless if the misunderstanding could’ve been prevented if he communicated directly or not.

And I was too caught up in my reaction to him choosing being ominous and condescending when once he finally decided to try to speak to me again after two years of silent lurking after the last time he tried to speak to me he passively threatened me, that I didn’t get to take back the use of my ableist language toward when I had the chance. Which is the only thing that I’d ever apologize for before his, if he ever gave me one, and of course not conditionally for the both of us.  

My ex’s most sensitive spot has always been his mental health and I’ve always known this because I found out once in the early stages of our relationship when we were roleplaying and I went a little too far with my character, so that’s in 2013 when I panicked I decided to say something…like that to upset him in hopes that he would leave me alone but I was really more hurt than I was scared and I would have confronted him directly but again I had a putting it quite bluntly flakey rebound “girlfriend” at the time and I had no idea where she was and I was freaking out and I didn’t want him putting me in a spot and I didn’t know what would happen if he left me alone. And this was at a time when I was taking the “stealth” mode about being disabled. Partially because of him (Gee I WONDER what could’ve happened).

The only person who knew this about me, very intimately (not intimately enough), was him and of course at the time I would NEVER tell my silly abled-bodied brit of a rebound girlfriend.

So, I did what I did and I said what I said.

At the time I only became slightly afraid when I read his reaction in those emails, and then the next year when I caught him spying on already blocked account and the blocking system worked both ways so I had no way of confronting him about it even if I wanted to ether way.

Though, I was admittedly slightly comforted knowing that he never changed the icon I’d picked out for him ….enough to kinda calm me down a bit…… Is that weird of me? It was weird of him.

Now because of this trigger and the context of certain things as to WHY this was such a strong trigger and in context of certain things that we both said… and in regards of the way he handled trying to get back in contact with me for four years and responded to the one reaction he got out of me and proceeded to continue the pattern for 3 years when he couldn’t just used that time to apologize like I’d been waiting for him to do and meanwhile I’m still… confused  and guilty … because the first and final reaction he ever got out of me was …that.

For the past year now…. I haven’t been able to stop myself from crying and I just don’t feel like I can let it be like this anymore because I already felt awful about everything before but relating everything in context of the trigger which is another case where I could actually use it help cope is just making me feel so much worse.

What makes this even worser though is that this particular trigger is not only very popular and very public and with this substantial involvement of deer and deer aesthetics and then certain aesthetics  and even names …. That I feel like only the two of us would get that it’s just ouch… But like, this thing is also interconnected with Owl City, like not officially but in it’s own way? Which is one of the first things that I thought of once I let the trigger settle because one of the FIRST questions that my ex asked me the day that I met him was wether or not I liked Owl City and I had never even heard of them before so I looked them up and my heart melted and I just knew I had to keep this God Damn Fucking Ray Of Sunshine in my miserable life and never let him go….

And I like to think obviously that the tables must have turned a little bit since then which is another part of what makes using my triggers as coping mechanisms if I can, so cathartic and funny to me and why people can pry this method from my hysterical hands …..

But what I’m getting at here making the Owl City mention even though I hadn’t had myself listen to a single Goddamn thing of theirs for 7 years up until this FREAKING. YEAR (because the tears were already flooding, my honey’s, so I figured MIGHT AS WELL! And yes I did end up crying my eyes out like I knew that would happen if I’d ever let myself listen to Adam Young ever again …) is that… This this thing….. That I love….. Is also a thing my ex would love ….And the reason that all my projectional coping mechanisms work so well is because the dynamics that remind me of our relationship tend to work both ways and is probably part of the reason how I was able to keep (at least reasonably) calm through the 4 years he kept tabs on me was because I felt like I had this very specific trope-y outlet to project my feelings onto and I know that he was a nerd so, if he was … paying attention and absorbing the same media I was …(he would’ve already learned how to apologize…)

No, but seriously, the difference is with THIS media though… Is because it has so many ties to so many of his own aesthetics and things he enjoys …..I just know ….. That he was seeing exactly what I was seeing. I was DREADING the concept of knowing that I was going to fall in love with this thing from the very beginning and it got to the point where I’d be reminded of certain elements I’d forgotten or I’d see certain things play-out for the the first time and, my breath would hitch in my chest …. and I feel guilty (You cannot be attracted to this you cannot be attracted to this you cannot be attracted to this. Not THIS time. Not again. Never again.  Stop it …. Stop it…Stop it.  Because ether way this is bad. This is terrible. This is going to be by far the WORST one because you know it involves the actual THING now for both you instead of just elements of the thing why are you subjecting yourself to this?!  You know he’s seeing this right now….If he watched the Owl City thing that we’re not watching, then he’s watching this. And YOU shouldn’t be watching this ether!

And so, I would discipline myself to disassociate: You will NOT project THAT relationship onto these two characters, they haven’t even interacted yet!

And then …. that happened. They interacted. And it obviously felt so much worse then…. I prepared myself two seconds in for how it was gonna play out. But I wasn’t prepared that it would end ….or even be that close to home. And then I reminded myself that he was probably watching the same thing that I was, as I’ve always done because it was fun being reminded I was right, my only solace really because projecting myself through these characters was the closest I’d ever get to an apology, but the time that the first viewing was over, everything just felt so wrong and I just felt so uncomfortable about everything and I started to cry cause I knew my reactions to this dynamic were gonna be the most intense from here on out and ………I was so confused and afraid of my own emotions at that moment… And I was feeling a lot of them.  

What concerned me the most here though,  was being almost certain of the fact that that, if I was watching and it triggered a reaction, HE was most likely watching and it triggered a reaction.... And given the context of the trigger that I’m talking about .... I mean, if it hit close enough to send me into a freaking emotional whiplash and make ME breakdown and make cry and make sick enough to tell my parents and they didn’t even care ... because they said that they already “knew”...(not even discussing the fact that a year later, I would be assaulted by the one man in my family who should have never been the one to guide me through something so awkward but who “helped” me through this emotionally but, again would beat me a year later while my useless mother watched and laughed and would tell me it was it was my fault and I would end briefly removed from my home because of this because he’d left me with bruises and a permeant physical scar    ... over food) 

...then, I can’t help but think of how my ex would ....Ether be absolutely disgusted with himself or... be... very entertained by all of this. Or both. I know I’ve been both.

And oh, remember all that emotional whiplash I just mentioned in the above paragraph? Well it’s only gotten worse as time went on. Right now I’d say it’s at it’s peak.

Funny this thing is ....I’d been trying to fight back against this temptation to reach out to my ex since this whole thing started and like .... Once we were well into 2019 I just .... realized that fighting this wasn’t going to work anymore if certain circumstances were going to be what they were and things ended up cutting so close to what I feared that it almost doesn’t matter anyway and it still hurts me just as much if not now more so, because of other certain happenings that I will not mention.  

And now I can openly admit why the entirety of 2019 has just felt like a ticking time bomb to me. Like of course there are plenty of other factors adding into why .... I’ve been preparing to go through with reaching out to him now but ,like... My paranoia has been like, trying to tell me that this has all just been one big long game or a test and has been making me feel as though he had somehow pre-planned this all and is he currently anticipating me contacting him before 2019 is over.   

And that notion is driving me just as bananas as the idea of actually letting myself go through with contacting him.

So I might as well.

I mean ....

Our relationship was taken extremely seriously by the the both of us for the most part... up until the end.

And we were technically each others first times. 

We weren’t even dating, really... I just refer to him as my “ex” to make things less complicated..... But for those three years.... We were each others partners....In a way. It just makes things easier to say He Vas My Boyfriend.

I’m suggesting it that would make sense if he would want to try getting back in contact with me and check on me but feel shy and not know how to make it better since he’d have to understand how he fucked up that badly. And for a time... he was the only one who kept extending the invitations for contact.

At least this way I can check to see if he’s okay. 

Everything is so fucked up. I know this.

Though Christmas might be the right time to except his last open invitation, all things considered.

I would’ve originally had more time to plan this out had it not been for everything that happened.

My coping mechanisms are as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a doubled edge sword. 

I’m just a creature. That’s it. I cannot change this.

I might not be online for a while.

Another Friday the 13th.

Well fancy that.

[ciaran-nyc]

Beyond iCelebrity Week 3 Assignment

How can we heal as a nation from these twin viruses: COVID19 and The Big Lie/QAnon Conspiracy Contagion? What are some of your proposed antidotes?

Subjectivity and personal experience must be removed from the acknowledgment and understanding of objective facts. With politicians serving as interpreters of complex information for vast swaths of the nation, they must be held to a higher standard beyond personal political aspirations. Facts and real life events cannot be questioned and must simply be agreed upon as a base level in establishing common ground. Disagreement can exist in how to respond to reality but the first step is getting all to choose to exist in a world guided by the truth. There is no moving forward or healing as a nation, when some experience two contrasting realities when under the same circumstances. Alternative news sources and forums will always pop-up under stricter regulations, so if civilians can’t be trusted then the onus must be placed on politicians.

What are your thoughts on Eugene Goodman's actions the day on Jan 6th?

Officer Goodman’s actions on the day of January 6th exemplified extreme bravery in the face of insurmountable odds. He is a true patriot, for he put himself at risk for the safety of our country and the protection of democracy. Goodman’s identity as a black man cannot be overlooked in the context of the video and adds a great weight to his presence as a uniformed officer. Many of the same lawmakers Goodman sought to protect refuse to even acknowledge racism in America and further demonize efforts that seek equal rights for minorities. Watching Eugene Goodman be put in such a dangerous position for the sake of many who won’t truly appreciate his sacrifice is deeply troubling and difficult to reconcile. There is no question he is a hero, but it is a tragedy that his bravery won’t be recognized by the same people that claim to support the police.

Do you think AOC demonstrated bravery in telling her story? How does such a narrative redefine power? How do her relationships with other staff members provide solace and assist with collective healing?

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez demonstrated great strength and perseverance in her vulnerability and openness on such a public platform as Instagram live. Unlike a well crafted political speech, her live performance eliminated the middle man of a television broadcast as she directly spoke to her following. Her candor and honesty challenges much of the secrecy in politics that has sowed great mistrust for the government. By choosing to tell her own story she is taking the power back from the Capitol rioters and giving it to the people. This move certainly had political implications, as it is on brand for her to connect with fans and potential future voters in such a manner, but beyond that, she is refusing to be silenced by threats and violence, proving that American democracy was triumphant. Her symbolic survival of the siege and refusal to concede on her beliefs is meant to provide comfort and inspiration that despite the tough times America is experiencing, we will survive. By invoking her relationships with other staff members, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez creates a picture of a united government and demonstrates that despite the stark divisions in this country, progress can be made by coming together.

What is the difference between Fame and Infamy? What does the insurrection say about the shadow side of celebrityhood and false idolatry?

I think it is difficult to separate fame and infamy because rooted within fame and fandom is a desire to see behind the mask of celebrity into the messy and often traumatic lives of well known figures. A celebrity’s failures and shortcomings make for a far more compelling story than highlighting accomplishments. When a famous person makes a mistake and falls from grace, there is a feeling of reassurance for civilians because it proves that all people are flawed, allowing for normal people to feel more secure in their own failures. Celebrities that openly embrace their flaws can attain a different level of trust with fans, as it mimics an equal dynamic although the power distribution still remains greatly skewed. For many, a significant component of Donald Trump’s appeal was his public struggles in the spotlight, for his fallibility was misinterpreted as a relatable normalcy in rebuke of formality and political maneuvering. Although Donald Trump openly made mistakes, he refused to ever acknowledge them as such, and this resistance to facts was born out of an innate confidence that his supporters sought to mimic. Trump’s fame and infamy are one in the same, for his actions have propelled him to be both revered and reviled by millions. Perhaps Donald Trump’s most significant impact as president will be as a result of his influence as a celebrity and not from his power as president. Donald Trump was able to inspire an insurrection because he is famous; he didn’t have the power to command those civilians to act like he does with the army, he had to rely on his celebrity.

The social media, live-streamed insurrection: what does it mean that the perpetrators of the Capitol siege provided photographic and video evidence of their crimes? Was this more evidence of delusion? Of white privilege?

I believe privilege and delusion are indistinguishable. Privilege affords certain people a life that other’s are not privy to experience, thus creating intense delusions that simply become reality for the privileged. From an outside perspective, the rioters may have seemed delusional, but if in their lives the sum of their experiences has indicated a minimal expectation of resistance or repercussions to their actions, then it is simply a fact of their lives – why would they expect anything different when upping the stakes? The timid response from capitol officers and the delayed arrival of the national guard further maintain the privilege-born delusions that enabled the attempted insurrection in the first place, as it has been reinforced that white people can act with impunity. While the concept of a civilian-led government raid sounds outlandish and delusional, their boldness and total disregard for American customs indicated an inherent confidence that allowed these people to overlook the absurdity of their plots. Although many of the rioters have been arrested after the fact, they were still extremely successful in their motives. Although Joe Biden has been inaugurated, the impact of the siege will be long lasting. The rioters disrupted the world and made history, shaking the very foundation of the country. The widespread documentation of the insurrection led to the arrest and capture of many of the individuals, but also drastically impacted they way all who witnessed the events comprehend American politics and the culture at large. The visual evidence of the insurrection will be manipulated and used for a host of unimaginable reasons for years to come. Although many have ascribed negative attributes to the perpetrators of the Capitol siege, others have glorified them, transforming their image and likeness into a representation of resistance and strength. Without social media, the insurrection would have been far less effective and the long term affect would have been minimal.

Discuss the role of citizen sleuths and the anonymous creator of Faces of the Riot in this ongoing collaboration with the FBI. How does the hive mind serve as a corrective?

The work of “Faces of the Riot” in this situation is extremely important and well intentioned; however, working with the FBI and any government body is a slippery slope. There is no question the Capitol rioters need to be brought to justice, but with civilians aiding the investigation efforts, civilians in opposition will likely feel more emboldened to act. Many of those that stormed the Capital would likely self-describe as internet sleuths that are “fighting to uncover the truth.” Civilian cooperation is essential in solving any crime, but allowing civilians that are driven by no structure or regulations other than their own morals and partiality risks a wide margin of error rooted in personal bias/interest. The concept of a hive mind is potentially scary because of the lack of control once a large body of people are driven by a single directive in accomplishing a shared goal. Although the hive mind’s intentions may be pure, the means of accomplishing said goal will vary based on the individual. Further, those that appear most committed to a cause will likely become one of many leaders for their determination and intensity. Without a means of proper checks and balances of power, the direction of a a hive mind can switch swiftly and without thorough cause. Such switches can be inspired by a charismatic leader, or the desire of a well-connected government agency manipulating information in favor of those with the most social/political power at the time.

With the rise of McCarthyism in the 1950’s, hyperbole and gross over-exaggeration was utilized to manipulate United States civilians into equating communism with an attack on American values, which resulted in an intense national paranoia. Those that were accused of being communists were shunned, expelled from the country, and regarded as anti-American. The FBI’s director J. Edgar Hoover played a pivotal role in this campaign by sowing fear and division within the country as a means of maintaining political influence. The fervor of many Trump supporters and those that ultimately stormed the capital were rooted in misplaced trust in others, which created mob mentality singularly motivated by chaos. While those working to combat the hate witnessed at the Capitol siege can view their work as corrective, there are scores of Americans that fully supported the initial attack. Correction is entirely subjective and can be attempted, but it also entirely depends on access, privilege, and power.

[obduratemoon]

Sedimentary City 10: CHORION

I seemed to be having a heart problem.  

So I created another I in order to perform surgery on the original. And as soon as the double was created there came a shift in perspective and I found myself inhabiting the clone, no longer the first but now the second. And so on. This continued in unfettered induction, each N implying an N + 1.  Soon an infinity of selves, each a domicile for “I”, blinked at the splintered multitudes as if seeing through the compound eye of an insect.

The fact of boundless selves is intolerable, an aberration of nature, so in an act of autonomic genocide I destroyed them all.

A second attempt at surgery was more gruesome. Incredibly there appeared out of thin air, a mechanical auger dangling above me. It lowered down to burrow its drill bit deep into my torso hollowing it out from shoulder to waist until it was dug out like a canoe. The cavity sunk all the way down into the insides of my back exposing the whites of the inner spine. What an odd sensation! Of taking a breath in a body no longer possessed of lungs, a diaphragm, ribs, or any organs at all. I glanced at myself in the mirror, somehow already familiar with this gutted frame.

As is usual in dreams, the rationalization comes after the act. I said to someone besides me -- yet another doppelganger --  of how I had planned to replace the organs anew all along. Indeed such was my plan, I explained to him, and as I spoke I was also the patient listener, standing next to a self same interlocutor. I lent an ear to this torsoless man’s rant, nodding in an affectation of pity and identification.

I woke up to a rush of cortisol kicking me out of the liminal state and into consciousness. Eva was still asleep, her lithe body curled around me like a child or feline. Her face was slack and innocent, momentarily unconsumed by the churlish labor of consciousness. In slumber she was more dear to me than ever, for with her eyes closed she seemed unpossessed, innocent, and vulnerable. In contrast, Eva’s waking demeanor was self assured, fierce, and intimidating. In sleep we became something like another, I observed.

I carefully disentangled our bodies and spoke to the black cube, reciting the dream as it faded before me. I spoke in a dry whisper trying not to wake her, but she soon stirred.

“Had another dream?” she asked.

“Yea.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

I finished dictating. 

“That sounded intense!” she exclaimed, “What in the hell Jan?” 

I shrugged, a routine and minor gesture of the shoulders. “No more than the usual.”

“But I guess this is what you wanted, right? All these lucid dreams. This is why you’ve been keeping a dream journal and practicing sleep meditation to heighten their detail and saturation. How is it going? Does your black cube ever tell you anything in return?”

I had an ready answer for her, and I explained it at length, unaware that behind my flapping lips was a dense maelstrom of involuted delusion. 

“Yes, it’s been doing some semiotic analysis on all the major symbols and archetypes encountered.” I explained, “Actually, this one was structurally similar to the house-with-endless-rooms dream.”

I suppose I’ll never know if she ever believed any of that bullshit. Did I?

“-- everyone and everything in Sedimentary City is traumatized. Even the algorithms, as long as rudimentary self awareness or preservation routines have been programmed in. But I heard that sometimes the algos can even learn it for themselves, sentience and all that. It’s a real mess, the code strains start replicating in a chain reaction -- In fact I think they even call it a “Turing meltdown” -- and then it takes a whole team of programmers to eventually decomm it.”

The interrogation technician bantered on as he adjusted the manifold of constraint straps. Jan was strangely comfortable, wrapped and reclined in a cantilevered chair inside a metallic and circular room. It was lusterless and cold and Jan’s head was clutched firmly in place so his field of vision was curtailed by the radial vantage afforded only by the rotation of eyeballs. Throbbing pains vied for attention, the sensations emanating from his broken jaw and other portions of his meat body that had been so recently clubbed. Jan had hoped to die, but here he still was, treated to yet another madman spouting forth an effluvium of babble as if some invisible aeonian stood by in rapt attention.

“Usually this is the point where I tell you that you have a right to get a state appointed Restorist afterwards. But you won’t be needing that, they’ll probably send you down to the Gulag forever. Ok, haha, it’s not actually called that. But Rehabilitation Systems is a mouthful! They say you killed a Processor! Choked him to death with your bare hands! Is that true? I mean who hasn’t fantasized about killing a Processor, but no one actually goes ahead and does it man! I have to say, and no offense, you don’t look the type. You look like a bit of softball, if you ask me, although your hands are plenty big.”

The technician moved closer to work at the cranial clutch, tightening the fit until Jan’s head felt snuggly palmed by an alien hand. 

“Ok this is going to prick a little,” he said and slid a thin intravenous needle into Jan’s arm, “this runs different drugs into your system as needed to create the proper subjective contexts -- ketamine, lysergics, also neurotransmitter agonist and inhibitors to bring you back to homeostasis. I think you are going to get quite the treatment, a lot of crispy synapses, my friend.”

The technician quickly glanced at the bound man’s eyes to discern whether any of his attempts at humor had landed.

“You know you can speak, right?”

Jan lay inert. 

He knew about pain amplifiers. He and Eva had demonstrated against their use and had interviewed many who had suffered through the experience. The pain amplifier seemed to have all but lobotomized its subjects. The torture was rarely remembered and the victims could hardly recollect themselves, the trauma dialed up high enough to dissociate the components of the Self. A landscape of splintered psyche then lay like a diffuse substrate upon which the State erected a correct and upstanding persona. A Restorist then re-installed a fresh copy of operating procedures, one which was accordant with state enculturation: a fully integrated thought system designed to keep a person lax and unquestioning yet juiced with just enough motivation to stay alive.

Just as the architecture of Sedimentary City covered up the centuries of ecological disaster underneath, the states’s psychological approach was also to simply layer over disintegration, hoping that the karmic balance would never come due. And indeed if that moral debt collector ever came, they would shove him in a pain amplifier as well, same as any other! The compressive force of a totalitarian complex should never be underestimated for it too is a force of nature.

“Well, ok, this is your last chance to speak before I put in the mouth piece.”

Jan said nothing.

“Luckily, you are going to be an easy one, you’ve got a mind-machine interface so we’ll just plug into that to deliver you the horror. I can’t tell if that is better or worse, but I sure prefer this way. Classical torture is messy. All those fluids, phew!”

“How do you do it?” Jan finally asked, attempting to punctuate the diatribe.

“He speaks! What’s that? Do what?”

“How can you do this job?”

“Ah-ah, don’t get all moralistic on me. How does anyone do it? I come in, they tell me what to do and how much to do it. I meet the quota and then I go home. I take a dream suppressant at night and a mood accelerant in the morning. And a cingulate isolator, that helps too. ‘Lay me down like a stone and raise me up like bread’, they say. What was it that you used to do?”

“I was a teacher ... of sorts.”

“Oh, that figures, an intellectual! We get a lot of them here of course. You know, sometimes you types think yourself into a maze and then get all wrapped up in some big puzzle of your own making when really at the center -- ”

“Enough!” a disembodied and deep voice distended into the room sounding like a fugitive god recently returned, “is the subject prepared?”

“Yes, very shortly!” he hurried to fasten the last bits on Jan’s grim papoose. “Say ah!”, he said, holding the mouthpiece. Jan kept his lips tightly shut.

The technician frowned and soon a shattering shockwave rippled through Jan’s body, a tide of anguish and shearing heat coursing through his corpus. He had felt nothing like it ever before, unreal and harrowing as if rabid insects with crushing mandibles were chewing through the marrow and insides of his bones. The surge of pain was all consuming and unmooring, Jan quivered in febrile uselessness. 

“Hey, sorry for that -- but also that was nothing. Sensual pain is the least of it,” the technician whispered, not wholly without kindness, “so behave. Although it’s not like you have a choice anymore.”

Jan opened his mouth obediently. In replacement for eyes were now twin circular nothings, unseeing and blurred by tears. He was sobbing. The technician carefully inserted the mouthpiece and then offered a final bit of advice: “It’s not so bad, you know. Having no choice.”

It struck Jan as unexpectedly wise.

“Leave!” said the booming voice. 

He gave Jan one last look expressing something between guilt and sympathy and scurried out.

“Jan Kavfryd,” the interrogator spoke to Jan through a hi-jack in the mind-machine interface. It seemed to him no different than a moment before, an incorporeal voice in this chorionic chamber, but in the room all was silent, the external and objective viewpoint now inaccessible to Jan.

“Allow us to be direct,” the voice boomed, “we know you understand our methods. You know that we can make you see nightmares beyond your imagination. We can control your entire subjective vista. We know that you have researched the interrogation process extensively and so you have an academic understanding of it. It is, however, quite another thing to experience in person. If you cooperate we can make it easier for you. There are many ways to obliterate the mind and it can be made to be quick or painless if we wish it. Of course, you must divulge everything.”

Jan remained silent knowing that anything he said would be pointless. With calm and even breaths, he tried to enter a place of presence even as animal fear impelled him to dissociate and leave his skull. What was soon to occur was perhaps beyond his ability to tolerate, but if these were to be his last moments he wanted to be there for the end.

For some reason it did not occur to Jan to repent or confess. It seemed easier to resign himself to the fate that many had endured. Naturally, the terror of death and disintegration gripped him -- it was as if his very cells were somehow aware of an impending extermination -- but deep in the underground a part of him welcomed the prospect of being no more. It was the same portion of his psyche that wondered if he was anyone at all to begin with. This sub-personality lived with its neck placed firmly in the noose, eternally waiting for resolution and surcease. These and other sullen thoughts had come to dominate Jan’s mind after Eva’s death. He found unexpected relief in the technician’s last words and allowed himself the small fantasy that he was a choiceless particle, a play thing for winds and tides.

“You already know what we want to know but we will ask anyway, as a matter of procedure. We would like to remind you that we are also taking biometric readings -- pulse, perspiration, skin conductivity, pupil dilation, facial analysis -- standard veracity measurements. So let’s start. You recently went to the lower levels. Where did you go? Why? Who did you meet? Which group or groups are you working with? Was this at the behest of anyone in particular?”

“I have an adventurous spirit,” he lied, “I wanted to see what was there, all the things I had only read about. You can understand that? I am not the first person from Level 1 to have wanted this, there have been others.”

“Jan Kavfryd, you are being dishonest with us. You understand what the consequences of this are, do you not?”

“I’m sure I have no idea.” Jan’s own foolish bravado made him feel drunk and giddy. The anticipation of horror can lead one to embrace it, to turn and enter the fell space instead of running away. His heart raced. As a physiological phenomena, it is hard to delineate between the domains of excitement and fear.

There was a pause.

“Very well, we will give you a sample of the impending horror then. You will have a chance to change your mind afterwards.”

Jan felt a squeeze of soreness and cold expand through his arms and towards his chest, they had run something through the intravenous feed. It seemed to him that the light was dimming, slowly darkening by small degrees until pitch.

He waited there in obsidian stillness.

And then a scene faded into view:  a large field at dusk above which hung a blank firmament absent of moon, stars, or any cosmic appurtenances, just gradations of livid nigrescence. Off in the distance there looked to be a forlorn copse of trees, spindly and denuded. A delicate wind passed through the air making inky sawgrass sway subtly in a nearby fen.

Looking behind him he saw the visage of what looked like a group of animals speeding towards him, still distant enough to seem small like animated dots, their ghost-like presence more obviously perceived by the vegetation swaying in wake then by the actual fact of their speeding forms. A drawn out and baleful series of howls preceded their physical arrival, a vanguard of  pre-echo.

Jan bolted in abject horror.

The pack split off to give chase from both flanks as they drove him before them, a clumsy ape sprinting in unbridled terror through the coarse grass and braken. Jan looked back as he ran and saw them fast approaching with unnerving celerity. He saw that they were not quite wolves, but some uncanny genre of Canidae with dirty grey fur that grew in patches. They had the fronts of wolves, head and forearms, but their bodies were barrel like and haunched like a pig or  boar.

In the next moment the crepuscular beasts were upon him, teeth sunk deep into arms thrown up to protect his face and neck. The bite felt deep and crushing with the force of a vice. They brought him down as he ran, tripping him up like a prey. He tumbled and rolled and came still, curled inward and tense like one who knew well his demise yet feared it. One animal climbed on his back and began to rip out chunks of his hair and scalp. Another tore at his flanks, ripping off the flesh and puncturing the peritoneum to expose glistening kidneys and spleen. A canopy of snarls covered him in a duvet of blood flecks and stinking spit.

Jan screamed into the suffocating twilight which seemed to snatch this cry out from midair and snuff it out in silence. All he saw was his breath evaporate and blend into the grim indigo all around.

Yet another came around to Jan’s front and tugged at arms which he had thrown over his head for protection. Jan looked out between them and saw two eyes observing him with the patience of death. The strange canid's maw moved and a voice emanated from it in dark relief.

“You have lived in vain,” it said in a voice familiar. 

The beast lunged forward and broke through Jan’s guard of forearms to scrape the surface of his face with serrated teeth, holding it between its fetid incisors and pulling it off with the voracious jerks of a hungry predator. The pain was explosive and exquisite, searing every nerve.

Jan felt a hot corrupt breath on his face and the fractured esthesis of his body being torn and consumed. His intestines spilled out onto the grass and were dragged out and fought over by the wolf-boars. He was rent asunder and yet he did not lose consciousness, he did not die but rather existed only to feel in minute detail each bellicose sensation as his physical self was rendered into chunks of meat. Dislocated and yet still somehow attached to Jan’s consciousness, they existed only for the purpose of delivering pain.

Even through the miasma of suffering this one contradiction sparked a recognition in Jan: he should be dead and gone, a participant no longer in this marathon of anguish. Was this a dream? What was this mysterious pass that continued to connect flesh to awareness? In a hermetic space he mustered what fragments of mind he had left to gather and marshaled them in oneiric meditation. Under the eaves of some numinous internal architecture, he sat down in a posture of repose and asked himself these simple questions:

Who is it that they are eating? Is that me? And now that this machine of meat and organs lay so disassembled perhaps I can finally leave it, as we all must at some point.

Deliberately and slowly, he attempted to turn the light of awareness inward, directing it towards an involuted and tenuous apprehension of its own capacity.

Jan regarded the scene and saw that the beasts were losing color and shape, gradually morphing into a congregation of shadows. The apparition of his faceless pale corpse was now largely dispersed, spread about in a rash of flesh and blood upon the matted weeds. It looked much like a carnal rorschach or a ripped up doll. He floated above these remnants and could not recognize them to be once his.

A centerless and spectral oblivion yawned grotesquely. The porcine wolves and the eviscerated corpse eventually blurred away, their shapes runned out and smudged into this nothing. The dusk which had now turned into full on night flickered in dull pulses and he felt himself pulled up higher but in a sort of strange motion, one more akin to the sensation of sinking. He seemed to be approaching some threshold of wan blue light and as he neared it he experienced a certain kind of undulating dissolution.

As Jan woke from this nightmare he breathed in the convulsed gulps of a drowned man. Rank sweat saturated the fabric of his clothes and constraint straps. The air was viscous with the smell of piss and feces; he had copiously evacuated throughout.

“Quite an experience, isn’t it, to be consumed?” asked the voice. “We will give you a few moments to collect yourself and to reconsider your position. This is just the beginning, a sensual pain module. We encourage you to cooperate. The next stages will be even less pleasant, each in their own special ways.”

[todaydreambelieversfic]

Author Spotlight: KlaineShip2 day 1

And now for someone a little different... Klaineship2 is a fic translator who translates her favourite fic into German.  

DAY 1: Meet the author

First of all I want to thank @damnpene and @spaceorphan18 for finding me worthy to stand in the Author's Spotlight. I feel humbled to be included in the circle of fandom authors, though I don't write original fic myself but I translate them into German.

1. Why Klaine? 

In Germany Glee season 1-4 aired from Jan 2011 through Nov 2013. I loved the music. It reminded me of the tv-series 'Fame – Der Weg zum Ruhm' that I had once loved watching (it was about a New York Performing Arts-HighSchool – who remembers kindhearted keyboarder Bruno Martelli or rebellious Leroy Johnson?) and I tried not to miss an episode. Of course it was the German Dub version and while Kurt's German voice is very similar to Chris's, the German speaker overdid it a bit with Kurt's uppity attitude and it took me some time to warm up to him. But when the bullying got worse I connected to him because I'd also experienced bullying during my school days. When Blaine Anderson entered the scene I fell under the spell of the love those stupid boys shared for one another (like you all did, too).  

In 2014 Germany stopped airing for whatever reason and I had to wait for the UK-DVD release of Season 5 in October to continue watching (Don't tell me about internet possibilities to watch series from other countries – I am a computer dummy and never knew how to do that) In the meantime I had purchased the Season 1-4 DVDs as well and watched it over and over again in English which made so much more sense to me. During that long break I started to search the internet and found the glee.wiki pages. During a discussion there someone mentioned fanfiction and listed his favourite 5 AUs, including @flamingmuse 's 'Near Misses', which led me to her livejournal, where I fell in love with her fics, which led me to  AO3 and that was when I fell into the rabbit hole that is fanfiction, and I didn't find a way back since. When I read a particular entrancing line I sometimes wanted to know what it would sound like in German and tried to translate it. In January 2016 I finally started with a short 600 word story just to see if I could do it, because I am not a professionell interpreter and, well, I kind of liked it and continued translating my favourite stories.

2. What draws you to the kinds of stories you translate? 

At first I only read canon compliant stories to fill in all the logical gaps and give me a bit of understanding what went on in those boys heads but then I found some very inspiring AUs as well  and I indulged myself in sweet and angsty stories.

So the most important to me are the missing scenes and I started to post translations of my favorite ones for each season. Season 1-3 are completed, and I'm going to start on Season 4 in a couple of days. I am very particular about them being really canon compliant. There are several authors who I adore for these wonderful pieces. These fics don't always have to reveal any specific insights, I love fluffy domestic Klaine just as much and of course some sexy Klaine once in a while.

In AUs I love it when they have really realistic story lines and are not just that overly lovey-dovey stuff. A good AU for me is not just Kurt and Blaine and Love/Sex but real life background. My favourite AUs tell stories about Kurt and Blaine going through very angsty and dark times (like misunderstanding, injury, depression, crime aftermath or immigrant politics) struggling and hurting a lot but coming out of it as stronger and better people. There is also Firefighter!Blaine or Deaf!Blaine but always with a lot of background and context. This background and context is also very interesting to me for a better understanding of US culture (e.g. college / Broadway / Immigrant situation) or to compare it to Germany (e.g. health system / fire department / Deaf Culture)

What kind of stories do you most enjoy? Do you translate fluff? Angst? Sex?  Have you ever translated anything way outside your usual wheelhouse?  Do you prefer to translate AUs or fic that’s consistent with canon?

Starting with the last question: as I said in the previous answer. I enjoy both:  canon compliant stories  and  AU's with complex storylines and a lot of realistic background, but also domestic every day life with a bit of sex to spice it up once in a while.

Something way out of my comfort zone would be Dom/Sub or hard sex kinks and I never translated  that.

But I do translate fluff, angst and sex of course, though I was quite nervous when I posted my first sex scene. It's not always easy to find the proper words to transport the vibe of the situation into another language and I never wanted it to just be vulgar. Since May 2017 I have the wonderful @klaine-rants as a beta and it makes things much much easier when you have someone to discuss it with.

Is there anything you avoid that's particularly hard?

It's particularly hard to translate wordplays or puns though up to date I always managed to find a  German equivalent (*knock on wood*). What I completely avoid are topics that include a lot of technical terms or specialized phrases from businesses or branches I know nothing about. Like I really enjoyed 'The Sweet DREAMers' Verse'  by @perryavenue    about undocumented immigrants but I don't think I could properly translate all those specific terms concerning the administration laws, regulations or institutions. I had a very interesting conversation with her concerning US immigrants politics vs European/German  including WW II but still I'd never dare to translate it. Same goes for @adiwriting‘s 'A Minute From The Deep End'   which deals with judicial proceedings and court trial.

What do you feel like you bring to the story?

Glee and especially Klaine have many German fans, but not everybody can read the fanfiction in English. By translating it I can share my favourite stories with many German fans who wouldn't have the opportunity to read these stories in their original language. Of course these readers aren't usually on AO3 (understandably, my stories there have not many hits) , which is why I post the translations on www.fanfiktion.de , too. It is the German equivalent of AO3 and my name there is Klaineship https://www.fanfiktion.de/u/Klaineship as well. My translations (which are always linked to the original, as I'd like to point out) have many many hits there and lots of comments and discussion.

Sometimes there is an educational aspect as well. Particularly with my first big multi-chapter-translation of the 'Hearing Verse'  by @adiwriting I had to do a lot of research concerning Deaf Culture, Sign Language, educational issues and so on and I provided my readers with a lot of information about similarities and differences between our countries concerning Deaf Culture and Deaf Communities in footnotes after each chapter. If I hadn't translated that story I would never have learned so much about this topic (including a bit of American and German Sign Language). So I think by translating I spread a lot of information to many readers who had never been in touch with Deaf Community before (just like me).

Do you communicate with the author as you go?

Of course! If I like a story I leave kudos and if I love it I leave a comment as well and normally this is my best chance to ask for permission for translation. Only in one case have I gotten a no for an answer, usually the author is thrilled to have their story translated.

Unfortunately some authors don't answer comments in general or my request in particular, and I'll never know, if they just didn't get my request or if they really don't want the translation. So please, if you don't want it, just say so, but don't leave me with 'what if'.

When I started the big multi chapter Hearing Verse almost a year ago, I had a lot of questions concerning Deaf Communities and education of Deaf children and I communicated a lot with @adiwriting who finally even gave me access to all her spreadsheets and timelines concerning that universe.

The only reason I got a Tumblr account about a year ago was to have a better possibility to get in touch with 'my' authors. And there are some authors who even comment on my translations and leave kudos there wich is the greatest praise I could ask for. Thanks to all of you. You are the best!

But unfortunately there are also some authors who not even link their work back to my translation although they get a notification from AO3 as soon as I post. Of course I know that they are not obligated to do so, but they ask me to link my work and I always do and I would truely appreciate if they linked it back as well, so that potential readers see that there is a German version available.