#i need people smarter than me to give me greater understanding

[faggling]

ive decided im singlehandedly going to bring mr robot back from the dead because if any show deserves to have a revival in popularity it does

like.

can you fucking imagine the discourse??? the possibilities are endless

[gailhai1storm]

may i have some peterachilles thoughts/headcanons/anything 🥺

The fact that I havent read all the books that have them as central characters makes. this a bit hard, like I have thoughts but its hard to speak on a lot of it.

So im going togive you my thoughts on both of them just in stream of consciousness cause that will probably work better.

Ok so Achilles is so fucking facinating to me, cause he is absolutely masterminding things and plotting but I get the distinct feeling that he actually does overestimate people

there is hubris there but he truly thinks people are also plotting against him and thinking the same way he is, while also understanding that he is better at it than them.

I find this fucking hillariouse to put againct Peter who first off knows that Achilles could fucking destroy him and probably is trying to and is smarter than him. But Peter also has this odd confidence in himself and what he is doing that I find so utterly fascinating. I actually know someone a lot like peter and just that deep knowledge that you are missing something pared with hubris is facinating.

Thats the main place (from what ive read) that I get the ship from. It makes the trust Peter has make more sense. He wants to give Achilles freedom, and shiney things, because he enjoys him. He trusts him, but at the same time he cant.

I always imagine both of them just so paranoid about the other, Achilles more than Peter, cause peter has confidence in a way Achilles doesn't. Achilles does not understand kindness, not really.

Its part of what makes there dinamic to intesting,

Achilles wouldnt understand the kindness a first, wouldn't understand that this is admeration not pitty or groveling

cause Peter does not view Achilles as greater than him, but his equal his match, they challenge each other.

I picture them in a spiral, thinking their thoughts, pulling and pushing but perpetually funneled together and into the same place around and around.

They are infatuated with each other, and it tastes like medium rare steak, their relationship, sweat, and full, but you can still just almost taste the blood.

They are vile and put each other through the ringer but at the end of the day they love the others mind, the others drive, and they end up needing each other.

because to loose your match is to loose yourself.

[lighthousekeepers-burner-blog]

the irony is before covid and the climate crisis kicked into full gear I was the neighborhood skeptic, my first incarnation of this blog (Clever Beast) was all that, a mania of skeptical pursuits but closely aligned with a healthy criticism of scientism. oh 2008. then the world went batshit, and for many people today anything scientific that doesn't perfectly align with taste got siloed out of existence. now you can mix and match realities to suit your lifestyle. it's enough to make a postmodern postdoc blush.

I still want science to be scrutinized, there's a whole lot wrong, particularly with the institutions funding it and where it doesn't go. As with anything, there are trailblazers that defy the groupthink and make revolutions, and also just solid day-to-day science being done by smart, professional, talented people. I didn't say that enough before, but jesus, in 2023, lets bang some pots and pans for these servants of stoicism.

since 2020 I have spent more and more time reading scientific papers, following scientists, absorbing minutiae of shit I didn't even know existed. I'm no scientist, and my reading is more as an information specialist, and having a lot of time to see how pieces of data interact with other pieces of data, how consensus shifts and evolves. I operate from the primary opinion that people smarter than me know what they are talking about and their consensus on issues pertaining to my health insofar as their opinions are not outright bought by corporations, have greater weight to me than say, Dr Mike's Youtube's channel. That science has a talent for weeding out the shit, although too rigorously it can lose some of the nuances, so it's sometimes necessary to integrate the scientific consensus within a larger framekwork of understanding that can take into consideration human faculties beyond reason to assess value.

The science says we're fucked. climate scientists are losing their shit, and being very unscientific with their hyperbole, and even the fucking Pope is out there dooming away, and the Pope is always twenty years behind the zeitgeist, so you got a good idea of where we are now. and Covid. We don't even know the 5 year prognosis of the disease, and people are pretending it is over. not epidemologists, immunologists, the ones that have been consistently right, over and over, as the minimizers have been trying to downplay the crisis these last three years. Their expert opinions are dire as well. It's affecting fertility, brain chemistry, diabetes, immune systems, we don't have individual all-star variants anymore, we have soups of variants, so that repeat infections are easier to get closer together. and repeat infections are increased chance of long covid, and while minimizers love pointing at deaths as some marker of progress (though awfully silent pre-vaccines) I would rather be dead then experience what some of the long haulers of covid go through, and I read about on a daily basis. At-risk. we are ALL AT-RISK. Co-morbidities... fucking professional athletes are dropping dead, and you want to fat shame us.

Everyone has a threshold for bad news. Seems like a lot of people it is magical thinking to erase it all from their minds, a pandemic ptsd, anxiety, just low tolerance for reality. Ok. Problem is we need to dig ourselves out of this, and the people that can see this clearly, are clamoring for your attention. Denial of reality will kill us all, will kill us faster. I don't know what the best approach is, I don't know how to turn this ship around, but we need to start acknowledging some basics of reality, and be civic-minded, and give a shit about each other. It was dumb but I liked the banging of pots and pans for nurses. it was the last time I felt like I was part of a society. I don't want to pretend anymore. it makes it all more depressing to me. Even a loud minority can make significant changes, it's a weird glitch in the democratic system. We just need to process reality more, being cognizant of facts, speak up when people lie, speak up when people tell the truth, disseminate information the way the media is supposed to do, vote, donate, give a shit. It's good to feel.

this is an unedited rant but you get the idea. wake up, please, wake up. we need you.

[angelsh0143]

Coriolanus Snow Brainrot pt.1

(because apparently, he is my new favourite character). So. Yesterday night I was scrolling through my Tik Tok fyp, peacefully enjoying TBOTSATS edits when I came across a video about how similar Gale and Coriolanus are and my brain just esploded like BOOM. I've spent basically all day thinking about this parallel when a thought hit me; what if Coriolanus Snow was from the 12th District. So here are some thoughts. First of all I have to say that when I thought about this I kinda put Coriolanus in Gale's place to try to understand if they really are that similar so think of it as if I grabbed coriolanus and dragged him in Gale's time leaving a hole in his timeline. This has to be said because obviously coriolanus is an active agent in the creator of the structure of thg's world. So let's try to understand what world this is. First of all, do the Hunger Games still exsist? My answer is no. As we see in TBOTSATS coriolanus had a great part in the making of the games as we know them and that before him they were rapidly losing their popularity. coriolanus' classmates didn't seem to have ideas on how to renew the games and I don't think someone could have seamlessly replaced him; coriolanus was arguably smarter than most of them, generally a much more horrible person and more motivated and; in his perspective the districts didn't simply brought war into his home but they took away his family and, most importantly, the power and wealth he was "owed".

Not mention that the public wasn't enthusiastic about them (at least til coriolanus decided to interview the tributes ); until that moment the hunger games had been boring, ugly to look at and not lucrative. There is no reason why The Capitol, that was still trying to rebuild itself, should have devolved precious resources to what they thought of as a waste. Yeah sure, Viola Davis wanted them to continue but I don't think it would have been enough since even the supposed creator of the games wanted to put a stop to them. So no hunger games; we'll go back to this later. Now, the lack of hunger games don't particularly influence the institutional structure of Panem dictatorship; districts are still divided and isolated, some more privileged that other and obviously 12th is still the worst district. (maybe, just maybe life is a little bit better than in the books because I do think that coriolanus worsened 12 living conditions after TBOTSATS events but it's really insignificant).

Now, how does coriolanus feel about 12th? For all his flaws and faults, Gale was a pillar in the Seam; he was protective of its people, provided for them and generally cared for them. coriolanus is definitely different. (no surprises here). My best guess is that he would think he is inherently superior to everyone around him and would profoundly hate the district; he'd feel like he doesn't belong to 12th, because he is destined for something greater and better. He also probably identifies with the Capitol citizens or the first two districts, seeing them as worthy of his respect. Now, coriolanus deepest desire and motivation is power and it doesn't stems from the shame of seeing his family glory's fall and his determination to restore it nor from the need to escape poverty and protect himself. Craving power is the core element of coriolanus personality whether he is in the Capitol or anywhere else. But the word power is not enough to describe what coriolanus wants; he needs absolute control. He wants lucy gray in cage, the mockingjays (a symbol of panem loss of control) gone. But there is no way to get that type of power in district twelve and coriolanus knows this. He would become a peacekeeper because it's the only way he has to escape the district and clibe the ranks. Not to mention that if coriolanus was born in district twelve he would enjoy immensely the new power that being a peacekeeper gives him over the people of the distrcit.

[tchaikovskym]

i want to be open to all people, but i cannot really become chill about religion, especially christianity. i know that maybe i don't have the capacity to fully understand it, but my personal experience with it has been bad.

first of all, the diminishing of evolution theory. still to this very day, i have seen people deny the evolution (because god created everything). that's just bonkers. it just goes against science as a whole concept. i once read that the "it's just theory" concept was actualized by christians for the exact purpose to deny evolution. even if i cannot give the source, i can for sure claim, that in general public the word "theory" has become synonymous with "hypothesis", "a guess" - something that has no evidence to back it up. however, in scientific practice, theory very much has evidence to back it up. why is evolutionary theory "just a theory" and why does theory of relativity is used in practice for GPS, and no one is questioning it? i just feel christianity is NOT helping the communication between scientists and general public, just creating a wider gap between the two sides.

moreover, i feel like it's kicking feminism back a hundred years. i do not want to go back to times when women's career was finding a husband. but it feels like that's what christianity is about! for girls not to pursue education in order to not be "smarter" or "greater" than their [potential] husbands; the fact that sex can only happen with the purpose of childbearing - which includes the huge problems of sexual education, anti-abortion movement. there were kids in my class who were excused by their parents from participating in sex-ed lessons (even if they were shit and didn't really teach anything). that's just messed up. while it is okay to do whatever one wants to do with their sex lives, remain celibate their whole life or fuck nasty 5 times a day - it doesn't matter really. what matters is that it's forced upon! how is it okay that you teach someone that they should not have sex until marriage and even after they should never use protection or else - you're a bad christian? i don't really know, i guess the whole thing lies within every individual's morals - and if they are molded for them already, then they don't really have the freedom of choice! and let's not even dive into lgbt+ community and it's relationship with the church. nope.

and while, of course, NOT every christian is like that, religion is about so much more than the bad examples. yeah, for sure! but nonetheless, i think the fact that its acting as a rulebook for morality is also wrong. it once again takes away the freedom to choose your own morals, to understand what's right and wrong on your own. if you have a scripture of something that tells you what is right and wrong - you have the ability to interpret it as you wish, using it to justify all your actions, even the most horrible crimes. it takes away accountability of an individual - once they have found their actions justifiable by their moral rulebook - everything is on the table.

furthermore - the judgment they have if you're not a christian. i have coworkers nudging me to become christian, to take some online courses maybe, to think about it. i have been told that i'm a sinner and therefore i'm having an unhappy life.

and even then, religion might be about community, about belonging to some place, about help in one's darkest times. it's okay, but i'm still not okay with it. when a person hits their lowest, they just need someone to say "you're going to be okay, you are loved, it's okay" - and they find it in the church. but that's a false reassurance. i feel like it makes people lose faith in themselves - that they can get through hardship by themselves. instead, they thank god for guidance - when there was none, actually.

of course, there are probably some good aspects to it. of course, everyone should have their right to be a part of any religion they wish. but, taking in account my personal experience, i don't think i could ever be close friends with a devoted christian.

[dinitaputri]

on people and competition

It was Ramadan last month, a time where people used to get together, a time for connecting, reconnecting, and celebration. And all of that involves people, lots of people.

I didn’t attend any of the Ramadan event this year, not even one. Last year I think I attended one or two. Aside from the conflicting schedule, i also didn’t make time for it, and perhaps I just don’t feel like it.

Since December 2022, I had two/three reunion invitations to which I didn’t attend as well. Same reason, conflicting schedule, but also because perhaps I just don’t try that hard to make the schedule work.

These past few months I’ve been spending a lot of time in my apartment. I don’t meet a lot of people, I don’t ask people to meet as much. I can even stay inside my apartment for four days straight - not even stepping out an inch from my apartment door.

Is it bad? I don’t know.

I feel like it’s the thing that I wanted to do now. Maybe I am in need of a downtime, or maybe I’m just lazy to making conversations. 

Am I depressed? I don’t know, and I am not finding it out. Cos I’m still OK. It’s not that I don’t want to meet people or talk to them. It’s just my energy is very limited right now and I need to be careful in emanating it and giving it away; so I’ve been very picky in meeting people.

There are people who needs my energy - whether I wanted to give it or not - like, you know, family. And family takes a lot of freakin’ energy. Mentally and physically. So I conserved myself for that rather than scrambling it away to random events and people.

Things at work have also been draining since early this year. There are changes in the people, and I need some time to navigate and immersed in the vibes and dynamic of the people. It wasn’t easy. There were times where I don’t feel like showing my face at all in calls, or when I have to force myself to smile in meetings - even one with the people that I’ve been calling work-family. It’s strange. But I’m trying to hold on. Keep my head down and just do the work.

The past week I was in a series of meetings with colleagues, wonderful colleagues and friends from work. It was nice, they are a super nice bunch, and I feel like I don’t have to pretend that I am someone else. They understand my jokes, my sarcasm, they’re smart, the conversation that I had with each and one of them are all interesting and fruitful. And I had tons of warm hugs too.

However, since I’ve been conserving myself for a while, giving a lot of my energy constantly in the past week have been exhausting. Mid-week, I was so tired physically that I found it so hard for me to eat (and fyi, the food that they served is really really good). I couldn’t even find the energy to chew, to enjoy the food. I ate just to survive. And that’s when I know that this is bad.. this is bad, man.

I think, part of it is because there was this mix of high adrenaline and joy - of meeting people, of connecting, which we don’t often get the chance to - but also it is hard to absorb and navigate the different energies around the room! Especially when you have those who takes up a lot of space. Do you know what I mean? Those who always wanted to be seen and take presence as a competition, and oftentimes not in a nice way. These are the ones that exhaust me. And as the days gone by, I can see the subtle competition, the competitive people trying to make the most of the time - by taking up spaces.

I also think that maybe it’s because I always have trouble with understanding competition. What is ‘winning’? What is ‘the best’? What is ‘better than other people’? To me, these words feel like a competition - and my life is so far away from it. I am not here to compete, I am here to survive. Like animals. 

People competes, every time. Who has the best hair? Who has the best grade? Who has the best title? Who is greater? What is better? Who is smarter?

That’s hard. Why would I want to do that?

The only person that I compete with is myself. And that is for me to feel content. If I feel good enough, I won’t chase for another thing, even if I could. I would just settle. It’s enough for me, why would I need more? I am so used to settle for what’s enough and sufficient, take the space that I need, and leave the rest for others. You know, like animals.

I was a perfectionist myself, until l realised a few years ago that the search for perfection is actually the attempt to turn a blind eye to my vulnerabilities. So I changed myself. Cos if I want everything to be perfect all the time, and if I have to be perfect every single time, how tiring it would be? And I experienced it for many years, searching for perfection. It leads to nowhere but misery and anxiety.

I am still on the quest of embracing people. I appreciate that people are there to teach us a thing or two, to accompany us, to give us love and care, to connect. People are actually lovely. Well, some people..

But when they started to compete and take up spaces, I couldn’t understand it. I instantly recluse myself. I instinctively let them take up the space. I will just steer to the corner and, if I am lucky, build my own space. 

People even compete in making friends. How crazy the world is. I made friends for pure connection, I wouldn’t force anything that wouldn’t work and have differing vibes. I don’t make friends to compete?? And if making friends is a competition, I would definitely lose cos I don’t have much that is really close to my heart. But I treat them all with pure love and connections.

--

A few days ago, my friend was composing a speech and is given the previous speech as an example. People say the previous example speech was great, and my friend instantly said “pfft. I can also do great” or something like that. In that moment, I laughed, but it hits me how people are so competitive.

The norm that we have today is: if people are great, I also have to be great. 

No, I disagree. I don’t have to be great. I have to be content.

If I was asked to do something, and somebody says “the previous work on this is great” I will just nod and say “oh yeah? Awesome!” and I will do the work in my own way, using my own approach, and deliver it. That’s it. 

Am I not ambitious? Maybe. But what’s wrong with it? I don’t know where will my ambitions take me. And history taught us how dangerous ambition is if you can’t manage it properly.

I have been trying to take things lightly, glide myself through this life. Cos my goal is to survive. But with all the competitions, it forces me to always be on the get-go. Be better than A! Do more than B! Be happier than X! 

No. This isn’t the way for me. There’s no end to it. 

Who are these people competing with other than their ego? They climb and climb and climb, take spaces here and there, for what? Maybe they have the answer that I don’t know.. Maybe.

I was visiting the park yesterday and as I love animals so much, it really warms my heart. I don’t want to go home. I wanted to be with the animals. The pure souls that only take what they need and left the rest for others who need it more. Even lions would left the remaining of their food for hyenas and vultures cos if have enough for them.

How are we people so greedy and competitive? Can you let me know?

My mentor once said that if things doesn’t seem to make any more sense to you, maybe you should go back studying.

Maybe I’ll do that.

[jaimendonsa]

Cat Day - Part 1: “I loved dogs until I discovered cats.”

“Perhaps one reason we are fascinated by cats is because such a small animal can contain so much independence, dignity and freedom of spirit. Unlike the dog, the cat's personality is never bet on that of the human. He demands acceptance on his own terms.”

“In ancient times, cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten it.”

“I was told that the cat training procedure was difficult. Is not. Mine trained me in two days.”

“Cats are curious, but they hate to admit it.”

“As anyone who has been around a cat for some time knows well, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of humanity.”

“I studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.”

“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.”

“Dog owners must have noticed that if you give them food, water, shelter and affection, they will think you are God. While cat owners are compelled to realize that if you provide them with food, water, and affection, they conclude that they are Gods indeed.”

“A happy arrangement: many people prefer cats to other people, and many cats prefer people to other cats.”

"It's impossible for a cat lover to banish these alert, gentle, demanding friends who give us enough attention and indulgence to make us crave more."

“How we behave with cats down here determines our status in heaven.”

“Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.”

“Just watching my cats can make me happy.”

"You can't look at a sleeping cat and feel tense."

“The phrase 'house cat' is a paradox.”

“One cat only leads to another.”

“I love cats because I like my house; and little by little, they become your visible soul.”

“I love my cats more than I love most people. Probably more than is healthy.”

"All you need is love and a cat."

“What greater gift than the love of a cat?”

“No matter how much the cats fight, there always seems to be a lot of kittens.”

“Kittens are angels with whiskers.”

“Heaven will never be paradise unless my cats are there waiting for me.”

“Cats leave pawprints on your heart, forever and ever.”

“When the cat you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.”

“No one can truly understand the bond we form with the cats we love until they experience the loss of one.”

“The memories and footprint of a beloved cat remain in our hearts and souls forever.”

“Cats know how to get food without work, shelter without confinement and love without penalty.”

“Cats have it all – admiration, endless sleep, and company only when they want it.”

“Cats seem to follow the principle that it never hurts to ask for what you want.”

“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, can hide their feelings, but a cat cannot.”

“Time spent with cats is never wasted.”

“Cats rule the world.”

“Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.”

“Cats will always be smarter than dogs.”

“Cats choose us; we don't own them.”

[shinidamachu]

Do you have thoughts on the Aang/Ozai showdown at the end?

Zuko: please. The real hero is a random rock the Avatar.

The final battle was amazing, from an animation poin of view. The colors, the fighting sequence, the symbolism, Aang finally mastering all elements. Just very exciting and satisfying to watch, because it was something that the audience was hoping for since episode one. And they delivered it.

From a writing point of view, though? It was less of a showdown and more of a cop-out. See, I'm not saying, by any means, that Aang should have killed Ozai. Quite the opposite. Not only because it was a children's show. Not only because Aang was a traumatized, non violent, 12 years old. But also because it made sense for the character and for the core themes of the show.

Don't get me wrong, Ozai one hundred per cent deserved to die. Aang himself stated that the world would be a better place without Ozai in it. I just don't think he should be the one to do it. At the same time, is on his hands that Ozai's fate lays and no one else can make that decision for him.

So if killing Ozai off could turn him into a Fire Nation martyr anyway and Aang refuses to do so because of his pacifist principles, what's the other option to defeat the guy and end the war? The authors went with energy bending and, honestly, I thought it was brilliant for a series of reasons.

First, ending Ozai's life seems like the obvious choice, an easy way out. I love the concept of Aang refusing to do what's expected of him and choosing instead to finish the war on his own terms, without compromising who he is, because in theory, that would mean he would have to go out of his way to find a different solution, in a perfect shout out to Bumi's words in The King Of Omashu: "you must master the four elements and confront the Fire Lord. And when you do, I hope you will think like a mad genius."

Second, in a show where bending is intimately related to one's very being, the questions begs to be raised: how much taking someone's bending away is better, more ethical or less cruel than actively killing them? Because it's a fundamental part of who they are, of their soul. Ty Lee had the abiliity to block chis, temporarily making people unable to bend. And it was a terrifying thing for the people she used the technique on.

Lastly, it ends the "killing Ozai would turn him into a Fire Nation martyr" for good, because (ATLA COMICS SPOILER ALERT) Aang let him leave without his bending and a significant amount of people still worshipped the guy to the point of planning coups on the down low and sending Zuko death threats left and right, so we basically got the same result, but Ozai remained an ever present threat to the peace Aang fought to achieve.

The problem, as people smarter and more eloquent than I have pointed out countless times, wasn't the energy bending solution, it was the way it was introduced and then executed.

Aang: hey! Look at these weird Lion Turtle things.

Looking back now, this scene from The Library was obviously foreshadowing the finale, so the Lion Turtle reveal wasn't pulled out of thin air. It had a purpose. Considering that this episode, from Book Two, mentioned the Lion Turtle, who would later teach Aang how to energy bend and that The Guru, also from Book Two, introduced the arc of Aang having to let go of his attachment to Katara in order to master the Avatar State, I can only assume that the original intentions of the writers were very clear:

Aang doesn't want to kill Ozai but he also doesn't want to let go of Katara. That's the catch! To "energy bend" his way out of murder, he has to master the Avatar State. His conflict here, is much greater than before because now Katara is a factor in the equation as well. He either kills Ozai, keeps his attachment and gives up the Avatar State or he masters it, defeats Ozai by removing his bending but has to let go of Katara in the process. It's awesome because it's the hardest possible choice a character like Aang could be forced to make. And we knew he would ultimately do the right thing, but regardless of what he decides, he still loses something important to him, he still has to make a huge sacrifice.

Of course, none of that happens. This was the first and only time the Lion Turtle was brought up. The “letting Katara go” arc was unceremoniously killed alongside Aang the second Azula shot that lightning in Ba Sing Se, but differently from the Avatar, whom Katara ressurrected, it was never brought back. And it’s a shame. Because The Library was the perfect episode to expand on the Lion Turtle and energy bending mystery. 

And the finale? It was the perfect episode for Aang to do what he failed to do in Ba Sing Se: to let Katara go and achieve the Avatar State by his own merits, sacrificing something he wanted for the greater good. The way he hid into a cocoon of rocks? It would have been a great call out to the little crystal tent he made in his fight with Azula when he decided to give the Guru’s advices a try. And it would also symbolize rebirth in the same way Katara breaking him out of the iceberg did. Because now he had finally reached the other side of the river and he is no longer the same person he once was.

But the narrative decided, instead, to rob Aang from any growth, from any substancial change, from any interesting arc. They went with the “love is the most important thing” approach to justify him honlding on to Katara. And I could have bought it if they hadn’t been so dishonest about it.

First: if you love someone, you let them go. Attachment and love are two very different things. No one ever told Aang to stop loving Katara. He was told to let her go. And it makes sense because he was attached to her in a way that wasn’t healthy for either of them, and was keeping him from achieving his full spiritual potential, something he should care a little more about, given his upbring.

Second, in the person of Iroh, arguably the wisest character in the show, Aang is told that he is right for choosing love over power. But this is a false equivalence because it’s not what Aang is doing. The scene makes it look like he is seeking power for the sake of power. That’s not the case. The Avatar State is an inherent power, meaning Aang already has it. It’s part of who he is. He just needs to unblock it and learn how to control it. And he has to do that not for personal gain, but to put an end in the war.

A war that took almost everything from Katara, the person he loves. Aside from Aang himself, she is the person who would benefit the most from him learning to control the Avatar State, since she is the one who has to calm him down every time he accidentaly triggers it and winning the war is a very personal goal of her. Now, this is just conjecture but I firmly believe that even if Katara was secretly in love with Aang (which I don’t buy), she would be the first to tell his it’s okay to let her go. But alas, she wasn’t even aware of this conflict. A conflict she played a key part in.

That being said, I do think that the Ozai dillema was introduced too late. It should have been explored before the Day of Black Sun, giving Aang plenty of time to search for a different solution. It also never made sense to me why killing Ozai wasn’t a problem then. Apparently the explanation that I was supposed to stick with is that Aang was naive. He didn’t know people expected him to kill the Fire Lord until Zuko asked him what he would do when he faced Ozai, since violence wasn’t the answer. But I honestly struggle to accept this because, yes, Aang was naive. 

But not that naive. Not at that point. After episodes like The Siege of the North and The Avatar State, I just don’t buy he didn’t know what people wanted him to do. Plus, Aang has an evasive fighting style, based on always being one step ahead of his opponent. To do that, he has to plan beforehand. What was his plan to confront Ozai in the Day of Black Sun, after everything he went through? Talk to him? Arrest the guy? If that’s the case, shouldn’t it at least be discussed with the gang? It’s never addressed.

Then comes the finale. Aang’s moment of truth. The event we’ve all been hoping for. The one that will turn him into a legend. And Aang is losing. He can’t win without killing Ozai or controling the Avatar State to take his bending away. What will he sacrifice to become a hero? His morals or his attachment? Answer: neither! Because the writers decided he should have everything without give up nothing. So they miraculously make a convenently sharped rock hit the exact right spot in the perfect time unblock his chakra, allowing him to enter the Avatar State.

I’m not even gonna talk about how this is most definitely not how chakras work, because it’s not really my place. But I am gonna talk about the tragic (not to say hilarious) fact that, by trying to make Aang have his cake and eat it too, the writers ultimately made a fucking rock the responsible for Aang’s success. Not his cleverness, not his hard work, not his altruism: a rock. If that rock wasn’t there, in the right place, at the right time, then what? Would Aang finally have done what he had to do, or would he be killed, allowing the war to continue?

That’s my issue with it. That, and the fact that they had no trouble addressing delicate topics, but didn’t have enough courage to let the 12 years old protagonist end up alone. Because, of course, children can’t understand the hero not getting the girl. Right?

RIGHT?

Aang managed to defeat Ozai and get the girl even though there was a whole season dedicated to build up an arc in which he would have to let her go to succed. Even though their last one on one interaction before their last kiss was Aang screaming at her and storming off, while Katara reprimended him for walking away from the issue. Even if he had been acting more and more possessive and entitled when it came to her affection. Even if Katara had shown no real interest in him that way before she suddenly does. But what do I know? Maybe she was hit by a magic rock too.

Aang and Katara happened at the cost of Aang’s character development. Fandom might think the rival ship was harmed the most by it, but that’s not true. Aang was. And it’s really sad. He is an amazing character and he deserved to be the hero of his own story, to have his beliefs tested and to come out of his journey irrevocably changed, not locked inside a plot armor.

[snifflesthemouse]

I'm still rather new to Tumblr. While I've clearly displayed my ability to post my ramblings, I'm still figuring out the other various features of this platform. For the sake of reference, I have posted a screenshot below.

While I completely agree with @youhavebeenmarkled that it's grossly inappropriate to suggest Catherine, the future Queen Consort, is a drug addict... I want to add to the discussion and further develop why the concept of Catherine microdosing heroin is entirely ignorant.

@youhavebeenmarkled mentions several excellent points as to why the concept is ridiculous; from genetics to muscle tone and more. But there's deeper reasons why this idea of Catherine being on heroin is so far from the truth and reality, it's out of this world. Some could even argue it sounds like a page from a Hollywood script.

Before I get started, though, I want (and need) to stress a few things. I am in no way shaming anyone. As I've shared in the past, I am the last person in the universe qualified to pass judgement on anything or anyone. My posts are simply my perspectives, my opinions. I look at facts in the public domain, and with my own knowledge and life experience, I form my thoughts.

Please remember while you read this, I am not looking down on anyone. I am not bragging about knowing what drug addiction is or is not. I am only sharing some insights with you, the reader, on what real life heroin addiction is like. My only goal is giving insight.

I am not proud of my past, and I am not condoning it. Nor should you. Accountability is how I stay clean. Please do not feel like I am suggesting non-addicts are ignorant or "square". Not knowing or understanding heroin addiction is a blessing. It's a good thing to be in the dark about certain things because it means you're smarter than people like me.

Be proud of the fact you don't automatically see why these blind items are total nonsense from the start. And if you aren't proud of yourself, just know I am proud AF of you. For those of you like myself who have been through the hell of addiction, remember we do recover. With all that being said, let's get going.

You see, anyone with firsthand experience or knowledge of true heroin addiction would automatically know these rumors are absolutely ridiculous. Why? Because heroin addiction doesn't work that way.

Now don't get me wrong. The world is filled with functioning closet addicts. I myself was a functioning closet addict for years before the world was any the wiser. The key point, though, is the world did eventually get wiser.

Heroin addiction usually starts out in one of a few ways. Most Americans addicted to heroin became that way because of prescription painkillers. For example, I first got addicted to pain pills. When the pain pills became impossible to get, I took what I could get that was the closest equivalent. That was heroin.

But some people start using heroin because they did some at a party with friends. Or they have a loved one addicted and wanted to see what the fuss was all about. Some people are hooked on other drugs, like cocaine or ecstasy, and their usual dealer offers a free sample of the latest batch of heroin. There's a saying among addicts; "The first one's free."

Dealers know they can increase their profitability if they can get established clients addicted to other products they traffic. But these are just a few examples of how people get started using heroin. Very rarely does anyone start out on heroin simply because they want to stay thin. Contrary to the popular belief known to many as "heroin chic" that came from supermodels in the mid 80s and 90s.

Heroin is what addicts refer to as a euphoria narcotic. It has a euphoric effect, and it is sometimes called a "downer". Cocaine, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, or amphetamines are called "uppers" or "speeders" because they stimulate the brain and give energy. While heroin can have that affect on people, it is not the traditional go-to for illicit weight management.

In other words, if Catherine really did use microdosing (a concept I will debunk in a moment), her first, best choice would be a stimulant like cocaine because it's much more effective at appetite suppression and providing energy. Heroin wouldn't be the first, best choice for many reasons.

Because of its nature, heroin is highly addictive. Most users begin snorting the drug in powder form. Within seconds to a minute, the substance enters the bloodstream and hits the brain. The brain then releases endorphins that travel the rewards pathway in the brain. The first time one uses heroin is the highest they will ever feel from using. Every subsequent dose releases less and less endorphins in the brain. This is why recovering addicts talk about chasing their sobriety like they chased their first high. This is also why microdosing is an almost-impossible behavior.

Microdosing means taking tiny, small amounts over time. Meaning that you only use the minimum amount to achieve the effect you desire. But the problem is, your brain becomes physically dependent on the substance over time. Every time an addict uses, the brain gets more dependent on that substance to function. So, while a non-addict's brain has no issues with their brain producing endorphins, an addict's brain does. This is why heroin is so addictive.

Eventually, a heroin addict's brain will become so reliant on heroin to produce endorphins, the addict will become entirely dependent. This is also known as becoming hooked. When the addict doesn't have the minimum amount of heroin the body is accustomed to, or depending upon, the addict will start withdrawal. This is often called being "dope sick" or "detoxing".

Detoxing or being dope sick is the driving force behind addicts staying addicts. Being dope sick is the biggest fear of an addict. So much so, the fear of detoxing is enough to drive otherwise good, decent human beings to doing absolutely whatever it takes to avoid detoxing. Stealing from loved ones, manipulating innocent bystanders, lying, cheating, robbing, selling your body... are the half of it.

Being dope sick is like having the worst flu of your life times a million. You will vomit, have uncontrollable diarrhea, and your body will hurt worse than anything you could ever imagine. If you detox for more than a day, you will begin to feel like your insides are shaking, burning, and pulling apart inside. You can't sleep. You can't eat. You can't get out of bed. You miss work and lose your job (if you still have one at this point). You get desperate before this point, and you get carnal after this point.

Your brain and entire body becomes dependent on this substance to function subpar. Without this substance, everything begins to stop working properly. Depending on exactly how much you use normally, your withdrawal can become life threatening. You can have seizures, strokes, or even go into cardiac arrest. Hopefully you can see by now why I say the concept of microdosing is ridiculous.

To be able to micro dose would require the self control and willpower of a super human. This reminds me of an article I once read about a college professor who advocated for drug use. He claimed he wasn't addicted, had control of his drug use, and was a productive member of society. He said he'd use heroin like others drink after a long day of work. Yet, he's been using it for over a decade. Yet, he experienced detoxing. That professor is a prime example of an addict in denial. But I digress...

My points are this:

1. Heroin wouldn't be the first choice for weight control or appetite suppression; cocaine or stimulants like meth or ritalin would be.

2. Microdosing is an almost-impossible method of drug use because the body gets hooked quickly. Which means the dose will only increase in amount in order to have the same effects over time.

3. Heroin causes an addiction that results in serious, life threatening withdrawal that drives even the nicest person to doing the worst of the worst.

4. Heroin addiction, even in small amounts, takes no time to invade and overtake one's life. It literally only takes one time to get hooked. It literally takes no time to destroy everything.

Oh, and one more thing before I put a sock in it... at the height of my active addiction, I was using around 2 grams a day to feel normal. I spent at minimum $200 a day on heroin. Sometimes even more. When I started out, I was only using a tenth or less. It takes 10 of those to make a gram. So within two months of starting, I went from doing one tenth to needing 20 of those tenths just to feel normal and function. All the while, I never got smaller than 150 pounds.

I know it sounds terrible, but I would lament over how unfair it was. I was doing all this heroin, and I was still thick AF. I would literally joke to fellow addicts I would use with how it was total bullshit. How was it I was using 2 grams a day and still a size 12 or 14? That's how sick I was in my disease. Which is my final point.

Not everyone on heroin is "heroin chic" skinny. The effort, will power, and self control it would take to "microdose" would be far greater than what it would take to control one's diet and exercise. Plus it would be much cheaper to hire a trainer than employ a drug dealer.

I hope this very long, detailed, winded post gives better insight to the deeper reasons the blind item is so dumb. I also hope it gives insight to the real life of heroin addiction. My goal was, and is, to provide real examples to the blind item's absurdity. If I can help people better understand heroin addiction, potentially deterring someone from ever touching it or even a loved one learning something that could help someone they know struggling with addiction... well that would be a bonus.

P.S. If you or a loved one you know is struggling with addiction, there is help out there. If you have any questions or just need someone to listen, please feel free to message me. I will do my best to help. I've been there. They say the only way to keep your sobriety is by giving it away... I have plenty to give. Be forewarned, though, I am unapologetically blunt and honest to a fault. I mean no harm, but I will not sugar coat anything.

[default-cube]

So I've never actually seen /u/ryans01 excellent post re-posted here on tumblr, and I think it could help a lot of people, so I'll repost it below. Link to the original

Ouch. Sounds like you're having a tough time max. That sucks. I've been there, so I kinda know what you're talking about. I've been in the ever circling vortex of self doubt, frustration, and loathing. It's no bueno. I know. If you don't mind lemme tell you a couple things. You can read em if you want, read em again later if you feel like it. But honestly man, if I spend all this time typing this out to you and you don't let it be a little tinder for your fire, well, you're just letting us both down. And you don't HAVE to do that. You don't HAVE to do anything. But you get to choose.

(Who am I? My name’s Ryan and I live in Canada. Just moved to a new city for a dream job that I got because of the rules below. I owe a lot of my success to people much cooler, kinder, more loving and greater than me. When I get the chance to maybe let a little bit of help out, it’s a way of thanking them. )

Rule numero uno - There are no more zero days. What's a zero day? A zero day is when you don't do a single fucking thing towards whatever dream or goal or want or whatever that you got going on. No more zeros. I'm not saying you gotta bust an essay out everyday, that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that you have to make yourself, promise yourself, that the new SYSTEM you live in is a NON-ZERO system. Didnt' do anything all fucking day and it's 11:58 PM? Write one sentence. One pushup. Read one page of that chapter. One. Because one is non zero. You feel me? When you're in the super vortex of being bummed your pattern of behaviour is keeping the vortex goin, that's what you're used to. Turning into productivity ultimate master of the universe doesn't happen from the vortex. It happens from a massive string of CONSISTENT NON ZEROS. That's rule number one. Do not forget.

La deuxieme regle - yeah i learnt french. its a canadian thing. please excuse the lack of accent graves, but lemme get into rule number 2. BE GRATEFUL TO THE 3 YOU'S. Uh what? 3 me's? That sounds like mumbo jumbo bullshit. News flash, there are three you's homeslice. There's the past you, the present you, and the future you. If you wanna love someone and have someone love you back, you gotta learn to love yourself, and the 3 you's are the key. Be GRATEFUL to the past you for the positive things you've done. And do favours for the future you like you would for your best bro. Feeling like shit today? Stop a second, think of a good decision you made yesterday. Salad and tuna instead of Big Mac? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Was yesterday a nonzero day because you wrote 200 words (hey, that's all you could muster)? THANK YOU YOUNGER ME. Saved up some coin over time to buy that sweet thing you wanted? THANK YOU. Second part of the 3 me's is you gotta do your future self a favour, just like you would for your best fucking friend (no best friend? you do now. You got 2. It's future and past you). Tired as hell and can't get off reddit/videogames/interwebs? fuck you present self, this one's for future me, i'm gonna rock out p90x Ab Ripper X for 17 minutes. I'm doing this one for future me. Alarm clock goes off and bed is too comfy? fuck you present self, this one's for my best friend, the future me. I'm up and going for a 5 km run (or 25 meter run, it's gotta be non zero). MAKE SURE YOU THANK YOUR OLD SELF for rocking out at the end of every.single.thing. that makes your life better. The cycle of doing something for someone else (future you) and thanking someone for the good in your life (past you) is key to building gratitude and productivity. Do not doubt me. Over time you should spread the gratitude to others who help you on your path.

Rule number 3- don't worry i'm gonna too long didnt' read this bad boy at the bottom (get a pencil and piece of paper to write it down. seriously. you physically need to scratch marks on paper) FORGIVE YOURSELF. I mean it. Maybe you got all the know-how, money, ability, strength and talent to do whatever is you wanna do. But lets say you still didn't do it. Now you're giving yourself shit for not doing what you need to, to be who you want to. Heads up champion, being dissapointed in yourself causes you to be less productive. Tried your best to have a nonzero day yesterday and it failed? so what. I forgive you previous self. I forgive you. But today? Today is a nonzero masterpiece to the best of my ability for future self. This one's for you future homes. Forgiveness man, use it. I forgive you. Say it out loud.

Last rule. Rule number 4, is the easiest and its three words. exercise and books. that's it. Pretty standard advice but when you exercise daily you actually get smarter. when you exercise you get high from endorphins (thanks body). when you exercise you clear your mind. when you exercise you are doing your future self a huge favour. Exercise is a leg on a three legged stool. Feel me? As for books, almost every fucking thing we've all ever thought of, or felt, or gone through, or wanted, or wanted to know how to do, or whatever, has been figured out by someone else. Get some books max. Post to reddit about not caring about yourself? Good first step! (nonzero day, thanks younger me for typing it out) You know what else you could do? Read 7 habits of highly successful people. Read "emotional intelligence". Read "From good to great". Read “thinking fast and slow”. Read books that will help you understand. Read the bodyweight fitness reddit and incorporate it into your workouts. (how's them pullups coming?) Reading is the fucking warp whistle from Super Mario 3. It gets you to the next level that much faster.

That’s about it man. There’s so much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days, but that’s not your mission right now. Your mission is nonzero and forgiveness and favours. You got 36 essays due in 24 minutes and its impossible to pull off? Your past self let you down big time, but hey… I forgive you. Do as much as you can in those 24 minutes and then move on.

I hope I helped a little bit max. I could write about this forever, but I promised myself I would go do a 15 minute run while listening to A. Skillz Beats Working Vol. 3. Gotta jet. One last piece of advice though. Regardless of whether or not reading this for the first time helps make your day better, if you wake up tomorrow, and you can’t remember the 4 rules I just laid out, please, please. Read this again.

Have an awesome fucking day ☺

tldr; 1. Nonzero days as much as you can. 2. The three you’s, gratitude and favours. 3. Forgiveness 4. Exercise and books (which is a sneaky way of saying self improvement, both physical, emotional and mental)

Edit: Wow reddit gold? Thanks! No idea what to do with it or whats the deal but many thanks!

Edit2: Someone asked what I meant by "much more when it comes to how to turn nonzero days into hugely nonzero days". The long and short of it is a simple truth, but it's tough to TOTALLY UNDERSTAND AND PRACTICE. It's this: you become what you think. This doesnt mean if I think of a tree, I'll be oakin' it by august. It means that the WAY you think, the THINGS you think of, and the IDEAS YOU HOLD IN YOUR MIND defines the sum total that is you. You procrastinate all the time and got fear and worry goin on for something? You are becoming a procrastinator. You keep thinking about how much you want to run that 5 k race in the spring and finish a champion? Are ya keeping it in mind all the time? Is it something that is defining your ACTIONS and influencing you DECISIONS? If it is, then you're becoming the champion you're dreaming about. Dreaming about it makes it. Think and it shall be. But do not forget that action is thought's son. Thoughts without actions are nothing. Have faith in whatever it is you've steeled your mind to. Have faith and follow through with action.

Ok, Ryan that's a bunch of nice words n shit, but how does that help me turn slightly nonzero days into hugely nonzero days. Do you believe all these words you just read? Does it makes sense to you that you BECOME WHAT YOU THINK OF? Ask yourself: What do I think of? When you get home and walk in the door. (how quickly did you turn that laptop on? Did turning it on make you closer to your dreams? What would?) At the bus stop. Lunch break. What direction are you focusing your intentions on? If you're like I was a few years ago, the answer was either No direction, or whatever caught my eye at the moment. But no stress, forgive yourself. You know the truth now. And knowing the truth means you can watch your habits, read books on how you think and act, and finally start changing your behaviour. Heres an example: Feeling like bunk cause you had zero days or barely nonzero days? THINK ABOUT WHAT YOURE DOING. and change just a little bit more. in whatever positive direction you are choosing to go.

Edit3: WHOA! This blew up! Major appreciation to Modified_Duck for making this cool ass image: http://i.imgur.com/7xsp7hJ.png

Edit4: Another AMAZING DESKTOP BACKGROUND! http://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/1rowpb/i_made_a_wallpaper_from_uryans01s_amazing_quote/

[tokoyamisstuff]

Just My (Blood) Type - Hisoka x Ghoul! Reader⭐️—__—💧

A/N: I’ve started to rewatch HxH again, and you guys need to suffer for it. Sorry. That stupid Crossover-idea had been stuck in my mind for some time, and October a fitting time for a reveal, right?

Of all the f/o I ever had, that damn Clown is my guilty pleasure.

Summary: At first sharply cutting off Hisokas flirtatious advances, you soon realize that there’s more to him than just a repulsive murderer.

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of past abuse, Blood.

Noticeable: Gender Neutral! Reader (not 2 GIFs tho), POC suitable (no mentions of blushing, etc...), I used all the Hisoka GIFs I could find

Fandoms: HxH, Tokyo Ghoul (kinda)

Words: ~2400

“The second participant to arrive at the goal is No. 13, Y/N Y/L/N” a robotic voice announced via speakers. “It took 3 hours and 27 minutes.”

So this was the end of the Trick Tower already, huh?

Not really as great a challenge as you hoped for, but whatever. That fact really wasn’t a surprise, considering that you were a Nen-User.

This whole exam up until now was a piece of cake more than anything else. Nothing exciting or challenging at all for a change.

You sighed loudly, your audible disappointment echoing through the great and almost empty hall. 

Only a dim light would brighten up the prison cell, and there didn’t really seem to be anything to kill time. So you sat down right where you stood, back leaning against the cold stone wall.

At first, you wouldn’t even bother asking yourself who had entered the goal first - until you heared an all too familiar voice.

“Congratulations. ★ I’ve expected nothing less of you.”

Goddamn it.

Before you could even find a sassy remark, the man itself already stood in front of you. Looking up, nothing less than a broad welcoming smile was playing on his lips.

“Mind if I take a seat?”

Your posture immediately stiffened as you pulled your knees tightly against your chest. 

“Yeah. And now get lost!” At least he didn’t underestemate you - otherwise it could mean your imminent death.

He wouldn’t even try to conceal his bloodlust, does he?

Ever since you first met, you gave it your best to not cross his way throughout the whole Hunter Exam - yet for some reason, he seemed to be enjoying your presence, almost as if searching for you.

“My, my...” Instead of keeping his distance, the man just sat down right next to you, making himself at home. “May I ask what I’ve done to deserve such hatred directed at me?”

Only now you realized that the Nen you emitted was an open book to your feelings.

Hopefully he didn’t notice that you were afraid of him...any hint of weakness, and you’d probably be done for.

Yet still: Hisokas voice had always been so tender and kind - a huge contrast to his true self, you thought.

That was not the only contradiction surrounding the mysterious magician. And you knew a things or two about that kind of behaviour yourself.

Only one thing was sure to you: That man was dangerous.

It was obvious what kind of monster was right next to you - his prey. How could this man stay so perfectly calm and contain himself, considering the fact that he radiated this huge amount of bloodlost?

This could only mean this was his natural state of being - and the fact alone made you shiver.

Not answering him, your eyes wandered everywhere but his direction. You remained silent as you scanned the room for any exits, but to no avail.

The two of you were all alone - for 68 hours at max.

Only god knows when the other participants will arrive and end your misery of that unsettling closeness.

“Rumor spreads that you’re planning to become a Head Hunter” the magician tried to engage in a smalltalk, putting his hand on his chin. “Why would that be?”

“Don’t play the fool, Hisoka.”

You were sure that he saw you using nen back in the Milsy Wetlands at least once, so it should be pretty obvious to him: There simply wasn’t any other choice for you to live without a guilty conscience.

“No, I honestly don’t understand” he chuckled, trying to get your attention. “Why someone so innocently looking would want such a profession, I mean.”

Gulping harshly, you now dared to meet his glare. “Look: Stop fucking with me. If you want to kill me, do it quick - but stop strolling for time, or whatever wicked game you’re playing right now.”

Of course you’d struggle, maybe even put up a fight - but in the end, Hisoka was so much more experienced than you.

And you knew damn well opposite to you, he was enjoying spilling the blood of innocents if it had to be.

For a brief second, all of his pretence dropped and he looked shocked, a little bit offended even.

“And why should I do that?”

“Drop the act” you retorted harshly, “It’s annoying. I know all stories about you, even saw you kill before my very eyes. You’re a murderer. I bet, for the likes of you, killing comes to you like breathing.”

“You’re one to talk” he answered, not sounding any less polite, “I could feel your bloodlust throughout the whole tower.”

Now your face dropped as well, and only now you felt how you were shaking - not out of fear, but anger.

“I took that as an invitation” the mage spoke playfully, letting his tongue run over his lips. “Your bloodlust lures me to you every time. We’re not that different, are we? I knew from the very first second.”

What a pain in the ass. And you were not talking about his demeanour. No.

You were simply disappointed in yourself.

For years and decades, you had principles goddamnit! Certainly you’ve never really been a saint, but...well, ever since you first found yourself lost in those golden eyes, you threw your moral compass overboard.

How could you dare to betray yourself like that and feel anything else than remorse for such a vile being?

Why the hell did you feel so damn attracted to someone you simultaneously wanted to either punch or run away from?!

“And what the hell do you want from me, then?! Why are you telling me all of this?”

“I’m just curious” he smiled, face leaning closer to yours.  “That’s all.”

You crossed your arms, now awkwardly relaxed yet still annoyed. Furrowing your brows, you just had realized that Hisoka actually managed to engage in a conversation with you.

“You first” you almost gnarled, staring him down expectantly.

“Why not?” he shrugged as he began shuffling his cards in the meantime. “There’s no greater reason behind my doing, my dear. It’s true: I enjoy killing. But I don’t do it all random. I have standarts too, you know? The people you saw me kill in here were an exception: They were way weaker, but they surrounded and attacked me first. Simple self-defense.”

Yeah. Of course.

It would’ve been way too easy for him to simply escape or at least make them unable to fight without decapitating them, but he chose otherwise.

Hisoka wrang out a twisted sound, almost like a cruel laugh as he awaited your reaction.

“Sounds like a cheap excuse. A murderer is still a murderer.”

“Tzch. What a shame.” Your words didn’t really touch him - not that you expected them to awake any kind of regret in him. “I thought you to be different than the others. Smarter.” 

You had to admit: Usually, Hisoka won’t lay a finger on innocent or weaker people. Most of the time - if he needed something from them, at least - he was very curteous, even. Or he’d simply act like they didn’t exist, sparing them from a cruel fate.

But that was part of his facade, too: A selfish man who could both be pleasure and doom, considering what would be to his favor.

“And what would that ‘standarts’ be?” You rose an eyebrow, still irritated that you kept conversating about such a useless topic.

“Good you ask” he pointed his index finger in the air, almost as if lecturing you. “I think most people are like me in a way, maybe just not so extreme. They desire to compete with powerful enemies.”

Yeah, that much is probably true - especially in the world of a Hunter.

For some people, there’s nothing better in this world than the adrenaline rush of a real fight. Especially when they need to get all out - mentally as well as physically - to survive.

You on the other hand wished you even had such a choice, and if you had, you’d obviously choose a peaceful life instead of that of a suicidal idiot.

But to each their own, right?

“Want to help me out?” He meant the card house he was building, handing you over some cards as he continued explaining. “I’d never simply kill a person that isn’t prepared or doesn’t accept a challenge. An opponent needs to give it their all - it has to be a battle between equals.”

A shaky moan escaped his throat, face tiwsting in excitement - almost seeming aroused - as he stated “My greatest pleasure comes when such people crumple to their knees and look down upon their disbelieving faces as their plans fail!”

“You really are creepy” was your plain answer, placing the last layer of the card house on top. “Do you know that?”

“Of course. I’m mad, not stupid.”

So this is what this is about.

“Now’s your turn, dollface.” The fact that he still maintained his usual, sly attitude, as well as the nicknames made you more flustered than you wanted to admit.

“I’m not human.” You revealed this fact as if it was nothing, throwing your hands into the air as if you had been catched. “At least not fully. Not anymore. It’s hard to explain, really.”

“I’m listening.”

That caught you off guard: You just dropped this huge bomb of a fact - and instead of being taken aback, he’s intrigued more than anything?!

Well - it’s Hisoka. Why are you even surprised?

It took you a while to collect all of your thoughts, since this was the first time you’d ever tell someone about your past. And gladly, Hisoka just sat there in silence, invested in his cards until you were ready.

“Long story short: I was a child slave. No need to spit out all the details, but you can imagine. Hard times, torture, abuse...I was on the brink of death when my Nen manifested as some kind of defense-mechanism.”

Now you felt like you were experiencing a headache. It was nothing new to you - this happened whenever you tried to surpress the flashbacks.

Burying your head into your hands, tears of regret filling the rim of your eyes, you forced yourself to continue.

“I knew nothing about Nen, yet as if naturally, I made a Restriction and Pledge on that day: The blood of the guilty must be shed. I’d do anything to get the power to achieve this. And whatever kind of higher might determinds the conditions, it took that sentence of mine very literal.”

“So you’re-”

“...a Ghoul, yes. My hatred was powerful enough to save my life, yet the price I had to pay for this power is something I can’t take to this day. So I’ll become a Head-Hunter and still my thirst for blood only on the bodies of criminals worthy of death.”

You’ve expected any kind of reaction: Disgust, scorn, scolding you for doing something so reckless - even attacking you right here.

However, the mage suddenly broke out in huge amusement, his muscular chest having as he laughed loudly and heartily. “You’re not very good of a story-teller.”

There was no time to react, your baffled self only able to look as Hisoka grabbed one of the cards out of a whim, infusing it with Nen.

But instead of attacking you, he cut his wrist without even twitching: Deeply enough to draw blood, yet not to leave a scar.

“Well, you must be hungry, right? Long day, many fights...”

You wanted to object, but instead of syllables your throat suddenly felt dry as if strangulated with barbwire: Seeing him licking his own blood from the card turned this invitation into sweet torture.

Usually it was no problem for you to hold back, even for weeks if it had to be - but for some reason, you desired his blood more than anyones ever before.

“No need to be shy” the man cooed, presenting his wrist to you. “When was the last time you ate?”

The blood was already dripping to the floor, making you desperate as you closely watched every drip. “W-Why are you doing this?”

“I want to see it, Y/N. Do both of us a favor, won’t you?”

There was no use in struggling against your instincts - and as soon as your tongue gently incorporated the red liquid, there was no going back.

Involuntarily, your fangs dug deep into his flesh, yet all that came out of Hisoka’s mouth were ecstatic groans - you weren’t quite sure if it was because of the pain or the strenght of your Nen.

How humiliating.

You despised that appearance of yours: Red irises, the rest of your eyes just a black pit. Together with those flame-like wings made from Nen, most people would say you came from hell itself.

But Hisoka wasn’t disgusted in the slightest - no, quite the opposite.

“Beautiful.💖”

You felt a pet on your head, long fingers digging into your hair as you finally let go off of his arm. “No, you can keep going until you’re satisfied. I heal quick, it’s no problem.”

He didn’t mean your appearance - to Hisoka, only power was attractive.

But still: Never before someone had seen you the way you were now and called you something else than a monster.

Licking your lips, you noticed that his blood tasted sweet: A lot like bubble gum. That was a surprise.

Pulling you over to his lap, Hisoka’s lips needily crashed over yours - and you didn’t reject, rather melting into his touch while he explored your mouth, tasting his own blood on your tongue.

His grip was tight and gentle at the same time, fingernails digging deep inside your flesh so he’d be able to control his murderous instincts.

He felt warm. And somewhat safe, even though that sounded ridiculous considering the situation.

After a while, your bodies would finally part again, leaving you both to gasp for fresh air. Your mind was still clouded by all those confusing emotions - yet Hisoka, pleased by the outcome, seemed to be very much petrified:

“This may be the beginning of a wonderful friendship.”

[ackermans-freedom-inc]

sup bitch. i fucking love you more than dick and aot. hugs and kisses mommy!! can we please pretend that he didn’t die and learned the truth with the rest?? that’d be hella. you can make this angsty, painful, regretful, LITERALLY ANY WAY IS OKAY. (fun fact- poh bunny is what my students call me lmao)

to er

dear

i’ll never stop loving

salutations my friend

dearest adoring darling

daddy big dick

sir.

i write this letter in the early hours of the morning. i’ve written this letter hundreds of times. and yet i’m terrified when you learn the truth. i can’t ever get myself to send them- really, i can’t, my kids don’t let me. i trust them, they are smarter than me sometimes.

i know i don’t deserve the kindness that could ever come from you.

you were are perfect. i was horrible. i lied. i lied all the fucking time. everything about me has been fake. but my feeling for you never were.

i loved your burned breads, i loved the muddy boot prints you’d track to my room, i loved doing paperwork with you, i loved making you tea and drinking the ‘mud water’ you’d make me in return. i never lied that my favorite flower was the sunflower because it reminded me of you; or my favorite tea was lemon and lavender but only because you made it; or that i never even danced before you asked me. i love you- i don’t think i’ll ever be able to stop.

when i was little, my parents told me i was born a sinner. the mixed blood child of a marlayan and an eldian. someone of power and their slave; of evil and good; if greater and lesser. we are eldians… the child of demons.

i was worse. i was born from a sinning mother by a ‘wondrous’ father, who gave me up for being born a Sin. i was a secret they hated. i’ve learned to live in silence and serve my nation. i learned that the only good thing i could do was die for my nation. die for the people who treated me less than a flea on a prized dog.

and then i came here- with nothing but my kids- other soldiers treated to die for nothing and everything. we had to learn how your nation worked, so we could live and carry out our plan. for our ‘better’ nation. we lived in fear of the ‘inner wall demons’. but coming here? i learned that we fear the same thing. death.

we are the same. and i was afraid of that for so long. we want to know the truth; the reasons why we are born into a world that hates us so. if you’d let me- i’ll tell you everything.

darling. i was afraid to admit i was wrong.

you are smart; by the time you read this letter, i’m sure you will have connected the dots. i’m from beyond outside the walls, and my children are as well. i hoped, just maybe, i could convince them to join me and turn my lives over to you. but they are smart. smarter than me. we run in fear. because we are titans- within us, we carry their blood.

if we meet again, i will only beg for your forgiveness. but i don’t i deserve it. the last thing i’d ask is if could please give eren my sorrows and regards. i would train him and his titan if i could ever. i did so with my kids, j would do so for him.

Erwin, i’m sorry.

i love you.

always.

faithful and sorrowful, but with all the love for my Commander and my Dearest.

- Captain Poh Bunny of Eldia. Warhammer Titan Warrior Poh Bunny of Marley. Your lover, if you’d let me still.

A/N: THE WAY I SCREAMED AT YOUR MESSAGE and at the mommy

I hope you enjoyyyy <3

Dear Poh,

It took me many tries to write you back. Indeed, the overflowing waste bin an indication of my inability to deny you, even as you confirmed my suspicions.

I find myself a very good judge of people, and character. While I never suspected anything you told me was a lie, it is a comfort to know that what I suspected you hid from me was what I thought it to be.

I can understand why you did it, love. I really do. It was not your fault what happened. The hands that dealt the cards are the ones who are at fault, and perhaps, in a way, we are all at fault for what is happening. Human greed, the need for control, and hatred are the enemy. Not you, not me, not the children.

Like the sunflower you so love, I was blinded by you. You were my sun, and I think I let myself look past by the truth I knew deep down.

I do now know where you are, and if my letter will reach you. But know that I have faith. In humanity. In your people and mine. When the time is right, when we can all look past the hurt, we can heal. Together.

Come back to me my love. I will protect you. All of you. As best I can, I promise.

Yours, always,

Erwin

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #248: “To Save the ETERNALS!”

October, 1984

Scarlet Witch: “It’s raining ETERNALS!”

Hallelujah?

This is a pretty striking cover. The white background is what sells it. Having an actual background would busify the cover too much.

So last times on Avengers: Bored after giving the chairman role to Vision, Wasp takes Starfox’s invitation to crash a party hosted by Sersi, a truant Eternal. Some other Eternals come to fetch Sersi for a Big, Important Eternal Thing and Wasp and Starfox end up getting dragged along when they try to stop the kidnapping.

After Sersi and Ikaris recap the Eternals’ ENTIRE HISTORY, Starfox realizes hey he’s an Eternal too! So he gets invited to the big, important Eternal Thing. Which is turning into a giant flying brain. As ya do.

But jerk fiend and eventual Great Lakes Avengers punchline Maelstrom takes advantage of all the Eternals being a giant brain and attacks, knocking out spectating Avengers Wasp and Captain Monica Marvel.

So thats a lot.

Vision and Scarlet Witch arrive in Greece after seeing Maelstrom on the video phone.

While Vision flies off in a big hurry, Scarlet Witch goes back into the Quinjet for some good exposition.

She continues to be worried about how Vision has been acting lately. Because after seeing Maelstrom, Vision barely said a word during the flight to Greece and kept pushing the engines until Wanda was afraid they’d blow up. But since he just took off and she can’t fly, she calls up what files the Avengers have on Maelstrom.

Which is Benn Grimm, the Thing, reporting on Marvel Two-in-One #72, where he teamed up with Black Bolt to fight Maelstrom who claimed to be the son of a renegade Inhuman. In the end, the Thing tossed a tube of anti-terrigen gas in his face and then Maelstrom appeared to die in an underwater cave-in.

Vision returns from his reconnaissance and does Wanda a startle so she finally unloads on him for how he’s been acting.

Scarlet Witch: “You don’t seem to be thinking at all these days! We haven’t had a real conversation since you became Avengers chairman! Half of our trip to Washington was taken up by a private meeting you had with the president! Afterwards, you didn’t even have the decency to tell me what you talked about! I had to hear from a reported that you’d discussed making the Avengers chairmanship a cabinet level post! We used to be so open with one another! What is happening to us? What is the matter? Is it me?”

Vision says ‘its not you, its me’ although in the context of him being at fault and not breaking up with her.

But he promises to do better and that she’s important to him.

Which would be heart-warming and romantic if he wasn’t making this face over her shoulder.

Why.

Anyway, with uh whatever that is handled, Vision reports what he found on his scouting nyoom.

He found the Eternal city on the side of Mount Olympus because of course its there.

Although. Wait. Where do the Olympians live? Are they neighbors? Do the Olympians live in another dimension or something? I vaguely remember something like that.

And Vision found Maelstrom who’s wearing a silly techno-harness connected to a big machine and has Captain Marvel and Wasp chained up at his feet.

You have problems, Maelstrom.

Not least of which is that his big scheme is to absorb the giant brain to make himself more powerful.

He blabs his plan to the Wasp who woke up when she sensed the opportunity to sass.

Wasp: “You seem awfully sure of yourself, Maelstrom.”

Maelstrom: “Ah, the Wasp! Back among the conscious, I see! Yes, I am quite confident... Supremely confident, you might say.”

Wasp: “But not so confident that you felt you could keep us here untied!”

Maelstrom: “If you are trying to shame me, it will not work. I am quite without shame!”

Curses, he’s immune to petty ego games.

Wasp also assumes he’s an Eternal which he’s quick to correct. No, see, his mom was a Deviant. And I guess his dad was an Inhuman, based on the Thing’s report on him. But its not like he wants revenge for all the Deviants being compressed into a giant cube.

After all, the Deviants killed his mom and raised Maelstrom in their slave pits.

In fact, after Maelstrom absorbs the giant brain, his next plan is to release the Deviants from the giant Deviant cube one by one and then do harm to them.

But, yeah, no. He does look like an Eternal. Easy mistake to make. The Eternals have been making that mistake as Maelstrom has just been hanging around for days with all the Eternals assuming he’s just some Eternal.

He’s actually maybe a little bit regretful that he has to kill them all to absorb the giant brain since the Eternals have actually been nice to him?

Maelstrom: “But power belongs to those who are willing to seize it!”

Interesting guy, Maelstrom.

He starts absorbing the Uni-Mind and totally spaces out doing that. But unfortunately, Wasp is in no position to capitalize on it because he put some leech manacles on her which are preventing her from shrinking. And Captain Marvel is completely out cold.

But Vision sneaks up intangible through the ground as he do like to do and intangibles his fingers into Maelstrom’s harness, shorting it out.

The energy discharge knocks Vision on his ass unconscious but Maelstrom just has to take a knee.

He yells up at an ominous figure standing up on a tower for not telling him that Vision was sneakign up on him. Maelstrom obviously thinks that this Deathurge is his minion but Deathurge has differing opinions.

Deathurge: For so long have I been with Maelstrom, yet still he does not understand! Still he thinks of me as his lackey! When will he learn... it is a darker power I truly serve!

Kinda wonder why he’s here. He doesn’t seem to be helping Maelstrom’s great brain heist and mostly just seems to... stand on a tower and look ominous.

But while Maelstrom was distracted yelling at a guy, the Uni-Mind breaks free of Maelstrom’s siphon and then explodes into a bunch of Eternals again.

Because it would be very improbable if that happened.

Your plan scheme just got Wanda’d, Maelstrom.

Huh. When I saw the cover, I wouldn’t have guessed that Wanda is the reason why its raining Eternals, hallelujah.

Goes to shows.

But since it was very improbable indeed that the Uni-Mind would explode into peoples, Wanda is wiped out.

Captain Marvel starts waking up and Wasp orders her to bust the chains, don’t even think about just go go go.

And Monica Marvel CHOOOMs the leech manacles.

It’s probably a testament to her power that she can bust right through the power dampening handcuffs but Maelstrom immediately hits her with some pink with kirby krackle which apparently is an energy field for sapping strength and down goes Captain Marvel again.

>=|

Wasp dodges the pink energy and gets out of the way so Vision can shoot his forehead laser at Maelstrom.

I sometimes forget he has that thing.

Vision: “Yes, Maelstrom, I have found your weakness! you are vulnerable to energy that is not purely kinetic! That is why you required the power siphon to absorb the psionic energy of the Uni-Mind!”

Maelstrom insists that he’ll still kick Vision’s ass except we’ll never know if he was talking out his ass or not.

Starfox wakes up from being a giant brain and decides to go punch the bad guy.

Except except except.

Punches is kinetic energy. Fool that he is, Starfox just recharged Maelstrom.

Starfox: “I am Eros, called the Starfox... son of Mentor! The blood of the Eternals flows in my veins... and I am an Avenger! Thus I have the greatest stake in seeing you fall!”

Maelstrom: “No doubt! But you’ll not accomplish it this way!”

And then suddenly giant Maelstrom just picks up Starfox and hurls him at Vision who is forced to super-dense catch Starfox instead of intangible out of the way and let the idiot hit a wall head first.

Hm. Guy absorbs kinetic energy and gets beefier? So he’s like a less stylish Sebastian Shaw?

That’s not a flattering comparison for you, Maelstrom.

Makarri, Thena, and Ikaris of the Eternals wake up and also try to jump on and pummel Maelstrom.

... God, its like they weren’t even paying attention.

Good thing they’re immortal because they have no survival instinct among them.

Maelstrom throws them off and then whips out the pink bio-kinetic energy again, using it to crowd control the Eternals.

Then he announces that yeah, sure, the brain thing was foiled. But he absorbed enough information while he was draining the Uni-Mind that he has an even cooler plan for even greater power now.

So his new plan is to just leave. And go do something else.

‘Walk away with no further conflict you say? Nuts to that!’ - Scarlet Witch, presumably.

In fairness. This isn’t really a no harm, no foul situation.

I wouldn’t give Maelstrom over to the Eternals to add to the Deviant cube but he’s just going to do more asshole things if he walks away.

Starfox wants to go over and start punching Maelstrom again because. I DUNNO! The man is supposed to be smarter than this!

Vision stops him and tells him that instead he’ll need to use his pleasure power on Vision’s mark.

Starfox is startled that Vision knows about his secret weirdo power but this isn’t the time for a conversation.

Instead its time for microwaves.

Vision signals Captain Marvel to do her thing and she flies at Maelstrom, turning into infrared and microwave radiation, toasting Maelstrom up.

Then Wasp pew pews with her pew pew, while staying ten feet away so he can’t absorb any kinetic energy. That’s apparently why her stings sucked when she tried shooting him before. She got too close.

Well, her stings are bio-electrical so him absorbing her bio-kinetic energy would probably weaken them? Probably?

Maelstrom actually panics a little because the Avengers aren’t being dumb. They’re pelting him with energy attacks from a distance, wearing him down and not giving him a chance to build up his energy stores again.

I’m proud of you, guys. I knew you could fight smart if you put your minds to it.

Then with Maelstrom weakened, Starfox tries to use his PLEASURE BEAMS and tells him that actually we’re all friends here, won’t you be our friend?

Starfox: “The others will tell you I’m not one to hold a grudge! Besides, you really don’t want to hurt anyone! You’ll be much happier giving yourself up!”

Maelstrom: “Giving... up? Y-yes, that does sound nice. I... No!! What are you doing to me?!?”

So since Maelstrom succeeds his will save against the persuasion check, or something, Scarlet Witch just casts a spell of ‘on your knees, asshole’ and makes Maelstrom fall to his knees.

Realizing that he might actually be defeated, in the city of his mother’s enemies no less!, Maelstrom calls out for Deathurge to attend him.

Deathurge: “At last, the call I have longed for!”

Hmmmm. Maybe Maelstrom should have been more specific.

I admit that its very possible that this is exactly what Maelstrom wanted Deathurge hanging around for. But having a guy standing by to kill you so you don’t have to tally an L sure is an interesting way of going about things.

Also, the narration says spear but Deathurge’s weapon is clearly a very anime scythe. A dude in Bleach had two of this exact weapon.

Captain Marvel, as the nyoomiest of the Avengers, flies at Deathurge as the “spear” returns to his hand. He tries to hit her with the “spear” but it goes right through her and then she goes right through him when she tries to tackle him.

Since they can both be intangible, Deathurge declares this a stalemate and drops down into the ground. Captain Marvel tries to follow as x-rays but loses the ominous weirdo.

So that was a thing that happened.

Maelstrom sure folded like nothing once people who knew how his powers work actually started fighting back.

And I can’t even ding him for explaining his powers because he didn’t. Vision just did his research.

Anyway, even though the Uni-Mind ritual was interrupted, the Eternals still learned what they should be doing. Since the Eternals have grown stagnant on Earth, THEY’RE GOING TO SPAAAAACE!

Most of them anyway.

Ikaris, Sersi, Thena, Valkin... Lets just say the main Eternals are going to stay on Earth.

The Eternals chosen to go out into space form a Uni-Mind again, grabs the Deviant cube, hurls it out of the solar system, and then takes off into space.

“So does the Uni-Mind, in all its wisdom, protect its native world from the Deviant menace.”

Eeeesh.

I thought squeezing them all into a cube was bad enough, now you’re sending them into space forever? You couldn’t find a planet where they can’t hurt anyone and just dunk them there?

Back down on Earth, the Avengers and Eternals watch a giant brain fly into space.

Wasp: “To think, this all started with Starfox and me crashing Sersi’s party! I certainly never expected to be in Greece at day’s end, watching the Eternals leave Earth!”

Really makes you think. That its a good thing that most Avengers’ day job is being an Avenger.

Captain Marvel asks Starfox if he’s sorry that he didn’t go with the giant brain and he says participating in one Uni-Mind thing was an incredible experience that he wouldn’t have missed but he’s a free spirit and there’s a bunch of stuff he still wants to do on Earth.

Which Sersi certainly agrees with.

The Avengers offer her a lift back home and she has perhaps the greatest of attitudes about everything that went down.

Sersi: “I hope my friends in the city have kept the party going! If they haven’t... well, we’ll just have to start one of our own!”

That’s the spirit!

But meanwhile, halfway around the world in a secret underground lair, Deathurge pops out of the floor.

Villains are villainous and all but you can’t beat the class of “secret underground lair.” Step up, heroes.

Deathurge struts over to some tubes and goes Everything Has Transpired According to Plan.

Because inside one of the tubes (or maybe all of the tubes??) is a fresh new Maelstrom body!

Deathurge: If all goes as you have planned, you shall soon awaken within this newly prepared body, ready to live again. And, as ever, I will stand by... ready to attend... Until all your lives have been lived!

Well!

No wonder Maelstrom has a dude standing by to pop him. He’s got extra lives!

Anyway, that was the unexpected Eternals three-parter nobody called for. But Avengers is the place to go to tie up loose ends from other books and concepts.

Avengers’ll accommodate you, they have room in their hearts and publishing schedule.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because there’s more Maelstrom coming! Wait, is that anything people want? There’s also Hercules! I know people like Hercules! He gives the best hugs! Also like and reblog if you like to reblog.

[96thdayofrage]

Mrs. Douglas was the music teacher. Let me be clear: she was not a music teacher, she taught music at the three predominately Black elementary schools in my hometown. She taught at a different school every day and, if you lived in Hartsville, S.C. any time between 1968 and 2006, she was the music teacher. Mrs. Douglas is the reason everyone from my childhood knows the words to “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the Black national anthem.

Being home-schooled at a young age, my mother hadn’t shielded me from whiteness so much as she surrounded me with Blackness. But I longed to go to school. I wanted to play on a playground and carry books in a knapsack. Having to raise your hand to speak and eating square pizza seemed like so much fun, which is why I cherished Wednesdays with Mrs. Douglas. On Wednesday afternoons, Mrs. Douglas gave me private piano lessons in her home and I was her prized student. I was a child prodigy and–if I could just remember to lift my wrists and keep my posture straight–I was on the path to becoming the next Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles. I was always eager to play for Mrs. Douglas because she had one thing that inspired students to perform at the highest level:

Mrs. Douglas was beautiful.

Even as a ten-year-old, I could see it. Everyone could. Perhaps the best way to contextualize her beauty is to say she was a combination of Thelma and Willona from Good Times. She had a pre-Beyoncé level of fineness that made little boys swoon and little girls belt their hearts out in perfect tune. And, she began every gathering with the Black National Anthem–“Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

It really is a perfect song. God must have laid that on James Weldon Johnson’s heart because, in 169 words, he somehow captured the entirety of the Black experience. The lyrics are at once painful and triumphant without wallowing in our trauma. And when we hit that “Sing a song...” part, we really spill out all of our Blackness. In the annals of Black music, “sing a song” ranks right up there with Frankie Beverly’s “Before I let you goooooooo....” or Ricky Bell’s confession that “it’s driving me out of my mind.” If there’s anything Black America can do, we can sing a song.

Mrs. Douglas did not teach me the Black National Anthem. I have never been in a setting where people actually learned the words or the melody. Everywhere I went, people just seemed to know it. Looking back, this was probably the work of Mrs. Douglas, but for the first ten years of my life, I assumed everyone was born knowing how to blink their eyes, do the Electric Slide, and sing “Lift Every Voice.”

One Wednesday, at the end of our hourlong lesson, Mrs. Douglas gave me a copy of the Maya Angelou bestseller along with the sheet music to “Lift Every Voice,” as if one were necessary to understand the other. She told me that she would be teaching me how to play the anthem for the next few weeks but we could only begin after I read the pages she had bookmarked. In the chapter, Angelou describes her elementary school class singing the Negro National Anthem. I’m sure my piano teacher was trying to stress the importance of the song to our history and culture but all I could remember is Maya Angelou describing her anger after a local school board official denigrated the entire Black race during her grammar school graduation ceremony:

We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous.

Then I wished that Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner had killed all whitefolks in their beds and that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and that Harriet Tubman had been killed by that blow on her head and Christopher Columbus had drowned in the Santa María. It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life.

It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us.

Jesus. Was I supposed to be reading this? Were white people this bad? Was the song this good? And how would this help me play the piano? It did not help my posture at all. I know this was probably Mrs. Douglas’s attempt to ensure that I would thank her in one of the Grammy speeches that I would surely give later in life but, Ma’am...

I. Was. Ten.

Still, enthralled by her beauty and a little disturbed by her reading assignment, I committed to playing the fuck out of that song. And, by “playing the fuck out of that song,” I basically hit the keys harder and with more emphasis (Did I mention I was ten years old?). It was obvious that Mrs. Douglas was pleased. For the next few years, I played “Lift Every Voice” at all the Black functions around town, including Pastors’ anniversaries, cotillions and every Black History Month program. I didn’t even need the sheet music. I didn’t know any other songs. To this day, my entire piano repertoire consists of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” It was the only song I could interpolate into other keys.

But my favorite time to play the anthem was when Mrs. Douglas’s Combined Glee Club performed. The Combined Glee Club was basically the best singers from the Black elementary schools combined into one choir. Led by Mrs. Douglas, the CGC was the number-one ranked glee club in all of the greater Hartsville area. Not just anyone could be in the Combined Glee Club; you had to be selected by Mrs. Douglas. It was the official verification that you had musical talent. I’m sure some people put it on their college application.

If there was something Black going on, they were invited and those motherfuckers could sing. All of my neighborhood friends were on the Combined Glee Club and my best friend played the drums for them. (Yes, they had a drummer!) The CGC usually performed the Donny Hathaway version of “I Believe in Music” (which, until a few years ago, I believed was a song Mrs. Douglas had penned herself). But their specialty was opening up with “Lift Every Voice.”

If I am being honest, I have to admit that I am a tiny bit afraid of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in the way that I am afraid of the Holy Ghost or making potato salad for a family dinner. I know how important it is to us, so I am afraid to mess it up. Even though I hadn’t been around white people, I somehow knew it was our song. I had never seen it on television or on the radio. It was like a secret handshake or a fried chicken recipe–It belonged exclusively to us. Plus, if I messed it up, Mrs. Douglas might not consider the marriage proposal I was planning in a few years. Every time I played “Lift Every Voice,” there was a lot riding on it.

When I finally started attending public schools, my mother enrolled me at a predominately white school where I was assigned to a homeroom where I was the only black kid in the class. I’d like to explain how the white kids made racist jokes at my expense but, if they did, I didn’t even notice it. In fact, spending time around white people for the first time at ten years old, I learned more about Black people than I learned about white people.

I had not assimilated the subconscious deference to whiteness that often accompanies being Black. I became acutely aware that white people are not smarter or even more educated than any of the kids in my neighborhood. They were perfectly mediocre. They didn’t know how to double-dutch and they didn’t even have a glee club. In music class, the teacher just passed out instruments and let the kids have jam sessions. How were they supposed to acquire their daily recommended dosage of glee? I was a little ashamed of going to school there, so I led all my friends to believe that I was still being homeschooled until they discovered the truth at the annual Holiday Music Showcase.

Every year, all of the schools would get together for a Christmas program to show off their best musicians and singers. The white schools would have violinists, saxophone players and ensembles playing classical music with terrible basslines. As for my predominately glee-less institution, we learned a special super-Caucasian rendition of “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.” I was just thankful that we didn’t have to follow the Negro Mass Choir. They were last on the program.

My white classmates were unmoved as each individual school performed and, with each successive song, I slunk lower in my seat. During Washington Street Elementary’s performance, as they lifted up His name with a perfect a cappella version of “Children Go Where I Send Thee,” a kid sitting behind me whispered:

“Look at all those lips!”

Everyone giggled. I did not.

Our performance was predictably lackluster (probably because I refused to sing). It sounded like an episode of Little House on the Prairie. It sounded like long division. Rudolph’s nose had never been so unremarkable. Had he heard those flat notes wafting through the Center Theater, I’m sure he would have been as ashamed as I was. We trudged back to our seats as the Baddest Glee Club in the Land took the stage for the last performance. Of course, they sang “I Believe in Music.” Accompanied by Mrs. Douglas on piano and my homeboy James on drums, they blew the doors off the place. Even my classmates were impressed because, when they hit one particular a cappella refrain that every Black choir does, my classmates were clapping along. They were off-beat, but they still clapped.

After a rousing round of applause, Mrs. Douglas announced the next song from her piano: “Lift Every Voice.” Of course, all of the Black people in the audience—even the children—stood up. None of the white kids even moved. I was the only person in my entire class who stood.

Mrs. Douglas didn’t play that shit.

She stood up from the piano and glared at the audience as if to say: “You motherfuckers better stand up and show some respect.” I had never seen Mrs. Douglas express anger. And she waited. And the choir waited. She looked. And the choir looked. As she scowled at the audience, Mrs. Douglas saw me standing and smiled. She waved me to the front of the auditorium and whispered in my ear: “You wanna play?”

By the time I sat at the piano and she ascended to the stage to direct the Combined Glee Club, everyone was standing. She looked at me with her usual glance and in one microsecond, my back straightened. My wrists were raised to the perfect 45 degree angle.

And just like that, I was Black.

For the first time since I had read Maya Angelou’s angry words, I was no longer afraid of the song. I don’t know if it was the repetition of playing so many times, or the hand of some unseen thing, but I was suddenly able to play and sing the song simultaneously. And goddamn, did that Combined Glee Club lift their voices. They sang that song.

Our song.

I called Mrs. Douglas today.

I had so many questions. I wanted to ask her why she dragged me around town when I don’t have a sliver of musical talent. I really wanted to know why she made me read that book. I figured she’d tell me something about building my character, giving me a reason to socialize with people my age or how music helps the brain mature. Or maybe she’d make some perfect metaphor about birds in cages.

She did not answer.

I still have a song, though.

We are the song.

[spkmth]

SOME BANAL KBNZ HEADCANONS.

HOW THEY MET, BECAME FRIENDS, AND FELL IN LOVE.

•   they met as children,  during a battle in the wild area ;   piers saved raihan from some camp interlopers one evening,  and raihan’s enthusiastic gratitude,  while grating,  meant that he immediately endeared himself to piers.     they never had the chance to become rivals,  as piers’ journey got cut short when he had to become marnie’s full-time caregiver ;   but he never fell out of touch with raihan,  and they texted one another at least once a week.     when raihan left for the isle of armor,  and then for university in kalos right after,  their messages passed less and less frequently ... and when raihan returned nearly a year later,  a fully-fledged dynamax master and certified dragonkeeper,  piers could scarcely recognize him.

•   the attraction was immediate,  but it took a long while for love to grow.     as a man both in the closet and in the spotlight,  raihan couldn’t deny his physical and mental attraction to piers,  but had to stuff his feelings to save face in front of his family and his adoring fans  ( and initially out of fear that piers wouldn’t feel the same ).     for his part,  piers made his intent apparent,  but not too apparent to jeopardize their long-time friendship ;   he’d had hundreds of one-night stands,  infamously never going back for encores,  but by the time he’d cajoled raihan into bed with him,  he realized that he was going to have to break his one-and-done rule.     they hooked up pretty regularly after that,  always in secret,  always in spikemuth for raihan’s peace of mind.

•   raihan admitted to having feelings first.     piers initially thought it was a joke or a slip of the tongue ;   he’d seen the way raihan looked at leon  ( spoiler: it was the same way he looked at raihan )  and figured that their hook-ups were just for fun.     but leon is untouchable,  and piers is warm and comforting and sweet beneath the tight leather and spikes and neon colors  ——  raihan reassures him that he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,  not for all the pokégram clout in the world,  and that’s when piers realizes that  holy shit this is real.

•   yes,  they are in love.     no,  it isn’t a ruse,  a front,  or some scheme to make leon jealous.     no,  they aren’t just fucking because they’re two hot guys and people on the internet like that.

RELATIONSHIP QUIRKS.

•   yes,  raihan gets on piers’ nerves sometimes,  with his constant selfies and his exuberant,  loud personality.     piers gets on raihan’s,  too ;   his non-stop partying and continuous self-deprecation get under raihan’s skin.     but they love each other anyway  ——  no love is perfect,  and they acknowledge that they aren’t perfect people,  and they don’t expect to break the mold in this regard.

•   yes,  raihan is attracted to leon.     piers is attracted to leon too.     they have a standing agreement that if it ever came up,  leon is the only person they are allowed to have a threesome with,  or sleep with one-on-one.     but raihan likes leon on a personal level,  too,  whereas piers only sees him as  happy-go-lucky champion time guy.     indeed,  piers resents leon to some degree,  due to raihan’s fixation on him ;   its fine if raihan wants his body,  but only piers gets raihan’s heart.     piers is also genuinely suspicious of leon :   the guy’s too happy ... what has rose done to him? ( i hate when people make them a happy ot3 when piers has never been in the same room as the guy. do i think they have potential? of course. the internet exists solely for things like that. but GIVE ME CONFLICT DAMN IT. )

•   they never lie to one another.     the foundation of their relationship is  honesty.     raihan is expected to hold himself to a certain set of standards in his city and around his family,  and even on his pokégram ;   the only time he can let loose and be wild is on the pitch ... and with piers.     and of course,  for piers,  punk is about shunning social norms and truly being oneself,  and piers is the dictionary definition of a punk.     he’s genuinely never lied to raihan,  not as a child and not as a grown ass man ;   in fact,  sometimes his bluntness gets him into more trouble than a lie would.     but as a couple,  their honesty has always saved them and kept them together.

•   raihan has yet to introduce piers to his parents,  even as a friend.     they’ve seen piers on tv and have made it clear that they dislike his lifestyle.     it’s a good thing they don’t use pokégram,  or else they’d see piers’ face plastered all over raihan’s feed.     none of this bothers piers :   he won’t be introducing raihan to his parents anytime soon,  either,  because wyndon prison has strict visitation rules and piers couldn’t care less.     in fact,  the only familial validation he needs is marnie’s,  and she’s given it in spades.     marnie adores raihan,  and couldn’t imagine a better partner for her dumpster fire of a brother.

•   piers loathes the idea of marriage.     its a societal construct used to declare that a relationship is Supreme and those people are off the table,  when basic human dignity and respect should be enough for that.     unfortunately for him,  raihan is a sucker for marriage,  and has his mind set on it.     someday,  raihan.

•   raihan doesn’t like piers’ drug use,  and does his best to curb it,  but won’t ask him to stop altogether.     piers is happy living a short and explosive life,  and raihan wouldn’t change that ;   he simply keeps an eye out for him and is constantly brushing up on his cpr skills,  just in case.

•   raihan is incredibly educated,  and some would argue that he is far smarter than piers ;   as a man with full tertiary education,  as well as a certification in the most dangerous pokémon type and mastery of the dynamax phenomenon,  he could talk circles around piers if he wanted to.     but raihan knows that having an education doesn’t make one  smart ;   piers is street savvy,  much more so than raihan could hope to be,  and he knows his way around a dollar better than any professor raihan ever learned from.     and marnie is a perfectly well-educated and wonderfully socialized young lady,  mostly due to her brother’s efforts ... so anyone who makes insinuations about piers’ intelligence around raihan will always end up with a fist in their face.     for his part,  though,  piers enjoys listening to raihan prattle on about the function of a dragon’s scales,  or something else he learned in school ;   its something he’d wished he’d been able to do,  something that he hopes he gets a shot at in his next life.

•   despite being a bleeding heart who loves to spout shakespeare,  raihan struggles with physical intimacy,  sexually or otherwise.     piers is a surprisingly discerning and compassionate lover,  able to tell what his partner wants at a glance,  and completely capable of fulfilling those needs without having to be asked ;   its something that raihan envies.     he’s great at displays of affection,  and boy howdy can he explain it with words,  but he doubts he’ll ever be as intuitively gifted as piers.

•   piers has never written a song about raihan.     when asked why,  he’ll say that he simply can’t put the depth and scope of his feelings into words.     he wants to,  but every time he puts the pen to paper,  it tries to spit everything out at once,  leaving incomprehensible scribbles behind.     he doesn’t have words for the ache in his chest,  the shaking of his fingers,  the simultaneous thrill and fear of being vulnerable with someone who truly cares about him ... so he writes songs about fucking the system instead.

WHO IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER AT...

•   CARING FOR THE OTHER.     they spend equal amounts of time caring for one another ;   they’re both natural caregivers who love tending to others.     raihan is much more ready to admit when he needs to be taken care of than piers is,  as piers is used to doing everything on his own and struggles to ask for help ;   but raihan is tuned into piers’ nonverbal cues well enough that he silently steps up right when piers silently gives in.     piers,  for his part,  is happy to surrender to raihan as well ;   raihan has proven time and time again that he would never intentionally hurt him ... at least,  not without a safe word. ( the concept that piers is a uwu uke who needs to be taken care of bothers me because of his apparent willingness to relinquish control, something that canon piers has some pretty clear issues with doing. he strikes me as a man who needs to be needed,  and who enjoys being a caretaker even if he’ll never admit it. the vulnerability of letting raihan take care of him, when piers has cared for others his whole life, is what attracts me to this pairing, not a hot goth boy getting railed in the ass. it isn’t that he NEEDS to be taken care of; its that he WANTS to be taken care of, by raihan. that’s good shit. and also piers isn’t a goth. )

•   COOKING.     raihan is the better cook,  but piers makes a better cup of tea.     raihan is the whip-shit at making curry ;   its probably the one thing he’s beaten leon at.     for his part,  piers’ cups of tea are as legendary as his singing,  and he has his friends’ and family’s preferences memorized.

•   SINGING / MUSIC.     piers,  purely for his understanding of musical constructs and ability to read music.   raihan can’t read music to save his soul,  but he is great at learning by ear,  and has a wonderful grasp of pitch and tone.     piers has a wider range,  but raihan has a purer voice ;   years of chainsmoking has added a distinctive rasp to piers’ voice,  but that’s one of the things that makes him famous.     the first time the public got any inkling of their closeness was a spontaneous duet at a karaoke bar  ( and surprisingly,  they were sober ).

•   FUCKING.     piers,  no contest.     he’s talented and infamous for his exploits,  and if he hasn’t tried it,  he wants to.     raihan certainly isn’t wet behind the ears,  but sex isn’t his priority ;   he likes connecting with people on an individual level,  and then a physical level if they’re compatible.     piers has the higher libido of the two,  and this sometimes bothers raihan,  partly because he wishes he had a greater sex drive and partly because he wishes piers would stop and smell the roselia with him instead of constantly trying to get him out of his clothes.

WHO DOES WHAT MORE?

•   SMOKING / DRINKING.     piers smokes way more than raihan,  and raihan prefers hookah to cigarettes.     they’re both drinkers,  but skinny little piers can drink the dragon under the table.     however,  raihan is aces at concealing his level of drunkenness until he’s beyond the point of no return ;   piers is shit at hiding it.     drunk piers is baseline horny,  sometimes happy,  sometimes angry ;   raihan is the happy / sleepy kind of drunk.     raihan is picky and prefers mixed drinks,  and piers will drink anything that isn’t cheap beer.     raihan greatly prefers drinking at home,  as he’d seen piers get roofied at a pub once and it traumatized him.

•   STAYING UP LATE.     piers is the king of the night-noctowls.     raihan is lucky to make it to midnight.

•   CHECKING THEIR PHONE.     raihan.     always raihan.     piers’ poor rotom-phone has abandonment issues from how little it’s used.

•   TOPPING / BOTTOMING.     piers is 90% power bottom and 10% service top.     he loves getting fucked and telling his lover how he wants it,  but he’s also great at pleasing his partner no matter what they want from him,  and loves taking care of his partner and making them scream.     raihan is 70% service top, 15% power top,  and 15% genuine sub.     as nice as it is to flex his muscles and use his ungodly height to his advantage,  sometimes its nice to just be taken care of.     fortunately for raihan,  piers is great at understanding nonverbal cues,  and can easily tell what mindset raihan is in without having to ask.

[todragonsart]

The taste of wine - Chapter 1 - Siege-O-Ween Oct 29th

Prompt:  “I suppose, my secret’s out”

I welcome everybody back! It’s been such a long-long-long time, since I actually enjoyed writing something. I mean, times like that happen to any kind of writer or artist, and I’m just so happy to be out of it. This was so much fun, and why would we stop at just 6000 words? Come on!

Okay, honestly, I wanted to stop. I wanted to write a shorter one, but it kept going and going and going and now I’m planning like... 4 more chapters and a prologue :’) DoN’t HuRt Me PlEaSe <3 

As always, I can’t thank @r6shippingdelivery​ and @freedert95​ enough for helping me with the beta-reading. You two are absolutely life-and-sanity-saving and I love you both very much.

Oh and also, this is for @dualrainbow​‘s Halloween event, so thank you guys too, for resurrecting me from the dead! 

I hope you enjoy!!

“I want you to help me die.”

Mike turned towards the man standing on his right, eyes wide with shock. He let his gaze wander, just for a second, on the other. His tall, proud posture, his handsome face, basking in the dim candle light, his gentle, green eyes now looking at him full with hope, expecting help. How could a so-called monster look this innocent, the soldier couldn’t fathom. Why would he want to die? And more importantly, why would he want to be killed by somebody like Mike?

In his wondering, he almost missed the way the other’s lips pulled into a small smile. “You won’t help me, will you?”

Lifting his chin a bit, Mike looked the other in the eyes and he couldn’t help, but think ‘what a waste’, but shook his head anyway. “I will.”

The man seemed caught off guard- almost surprised for a second, but his smile widened as hope filled him even more.

Mike shook his head, looking away. What a waste.

But how did he get into this situation in the first place?

The Boogie-man. Zombies. Ghosts. Mummies. Werewolves. Monsters . Mike Baker had never really understood them. He understood the concept, and the literature, but he didn’t understand the need. It was just the need to be scared. Or even more, the need to force the fear of darkness into the shape of something understandable. Because that is what all these so-called supernatural monsters were, weren’t they? Just images made by scared children on a moonless night. A howl? A wolf! A growl? A zombie! A mug falling down? Definitely the leftovers of a dead person. Not the wind. Obviously not the wind.

Mike never said that he didn’t believe that something was hiding in the dark, far from it - being a soldier, facing new threats every other day made him learn that in fact there was always something around the corner, ready to attack. But nonetheless, he was sceptical of the supernatural.

Living in this world for 54 years he never met any kind of supernatural monster that could have been killed with only silver, salt or fire. In fact the only monsters he met were people. People acted way worse then any animal or entity ever could, hurting others and themselves, acting selfish and rude, being agressive and stupid. Obviously not every person, but he was facing terrorists, he believed he had seen the worst of worsts. He had seen men murdering innocent people, he had seen organizations turn children into mindless soldiers and he had seen mothers killing their loved ones and then themselves for the ‘greater good’. He had seen a lot. Like a lot . But he had never met any kind of supernatural monster, so yeah.

He had every right to be sceptical, and ironical, because he did not understand the fear of the unknown and darkness like a normal person did. Howls? There was no werewolf able to sound as a friend dying from an open wound. A growl? The unhappy sound of a terrorist being cuffed. A mug falling down? The reaction to a newly found biochemical weapon. No monsters, just people. Bad-people.

He started to feel bad for the monsters in books, tv shows and poems at one point. All that screaming, shouting and wanting to capture or kill them… Why were they the ones being chased? That was the other question. Why were the monsters always bad? Why would a werewolf or zombie or mummy or anything attack the human beings, like they did in the stories? To hunt them, taste their blood and eat them and their brains? Oh come on.

The fact that sharks don’t even like the taste of human meat must mean something!

But it could be the blood... All animals had blood, why would a vampire attack that one human being, when they could hunt a calm cow, or something. Much less screaming, much less effort, much easier target.

And don’t even start with the brain bullshit. Why would anything try to eat the brain?! The people mindlessly attacking others for being a little bit different than they are were empty anyway!

And also, why would a demon or spirit or whatever the fuck attack humans after their life? What if they are stuck and just need help? What if they just want to be friends?!

He believed in ghosts, tho, he did. But not the… ‘the white sheet with two holes for the eyes on it’ kind, obviously. He believed the ghosts of the past. The screaming in his nightmares about the wars, the eyeless people standing behind him in the mirror, the feeling of his mother’s gentle hand on his shoulder.

Ghosts.

But not the hollywood ghosts scaring innocent people. His own ghosts. Some of them were bad, some of them were good, even soothing. Mementos of his childhood, his first love, his daughter. Good ghosts, who never wanted to hurt him, in fact most of the time, they helped him in their own way.

And after all… everything started with a ghost.

The ghost of his father.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

When he first noticed the familiar figure, he was in the middle of buying baked beans in the supermarket. He was all alone, thinking about calling Penelope after dinner, to ask where would his grandson want to go this year for a little Trick-or-treating during Halloween, minding his own business with the cans, when he noticed a tall, dark figure just outside the shop’s front window.

He didn’t even notice it first, but when he felt the unmistakable feeling of being watched, he looked up, right at the dark figure. The long coat, the old hat, the wide shoulders; he caught himself thinking, Dad…? But his father died at least thirty years ago, so yeah. It was kinda suspicious.

He looked around, trying to find out if anybody could see the figure, and as he looked back, the window was empty.

Strange.

But the ghost of his father had never been a bad omen. Maybe he should visit his grave. Or perhaps it was a reminder that he forgot to put on his watch this morning, the one that once belonged to his father.

Shrugging, he went back to pick the beans and that was it.

Or so he thought.

Because, not long after this, he noticed the figure again. He was just arriving to his boat after a disgustingly long day of work, ready to open a beer and crash on his couch, when he saw the familiar silhouette from his peripheral vision. He turned his head, but as the last time, the figure was gone.

Mike lifted an eyebrow. It was his father’s birthday coming up soon. Heh. Motherfucker never missed a chance to make people wish him happy birthday after all.

Shrugging it off again, he entered the boat, and did as he planned with his beer and couch.

But obviously, it happened again. The tall figure standing patiently, just looking at him from afar when he arrived home, bought his supplies, walked down the streets. The well known shadow never moving, never looking like it was alive, never changing.

He once even noticed the figure standing at the docks, as if waiting for him to get home. It was strange and the feeling of being watched never seemed to disappear.

The last straw was when he noticed the shadow during the night he was with his daughter and grandson, Trick or treating, having fun. He almost missed it again, the silhouette standing in a dark alleyway just the other side of the road. As he saw the shadow there, Mike got furious all of a sudden. Hanging around, waiting for him was one thing, but bugging him during family times? A real jerk move.

As he noticed, he immediately stopped in his track and turned towards the figure, stepping down the pathway. His gaze was fixed on the figure that looked like its usual, frozen self, but as it noticed his attempt of getting closer, it did the strangest thing: it moved.

It wasn’t a scared wince or anything a normal human would do when they were discovered doing something bad, it was just a surprised lift of shoulders and a slight tilt of hat, but it was something . And as Mike took one more step forward, the figure did the same thing backward. And that was when the good omen of his father turned into a human monster, because who else would follow him around every night just standing still and watching. He had a stalker. One of the most disgusting kind of monsters.

His instincts kicking in, he reached for his gun, but the second he touched it an ear-rippingly loud car honk pushed him out of his state of mind. He was standing in the middle of the road and a very angry driver just honked at him again.

Looking at the man behind the wheel, Mike sniffed and let his gun slip back into its holster. He glanced back at the figure, but that motherfucker was gone. Of fucking course.

Great.

Not caring for the loud honking at all, he turned back and stepped on the pathway again.

A stalker.

Glancing back at the other side of the road, he lifted his chin, looking around.

A ghost? A stalker? A monster, maybe. A human one, who was apparently afraid of him.

It didn’t matter. It was time to end their relationship.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Except the figure disappeared.

Not in the term a ghost would, because Mike still felt like he was being watched, but he didn’t see the silhouette again. It pissed him off, but he was smarter than giving up. Instead, he turned to his team.

He asked Marius - one of the best tinkerers the world has ever seen in his opinion - to install a few cameras around his boat, so that he can monitor every movement from within his home, and Marius - although a little bit weirded out - delivered. Mike was satisfied, he finally got a chance to get ahead of the mysterious staker, now all he needed to was to be patient and he never had a problem with that.

He waited for three weeks without seeing the shadow again, but on the fourth Friday, he finally caught it on record. Since the cameras were recording live, and he spent his nights sitting in front of them, he just caught a glimpse of the figure’s coat. It was fucking four in the morning, and he was doozing off before, but the second he saw the movement, he got on his feet and reaching for his gun, he rushed to the exit of his boat, all tiredness forgotten.

The adrenaline was rushing in his ears as he burst out of the door, gun in hand. It took him just half a second to find the figure in the darkness, then he was already charging towards it, running like he never ran before.

“Stop right there!” he shouted and again, he caught the figure off guard; it winced from the sudden sound in the otherwise peaceful night. It looked around, trying to find a place to hide, clearly trying to escape, but the old soldier was fast. The moment the figure turned away in an attempt to run, it made a mistake and Mike caught it’s arm in his iron grip. The force of him tugging at the figure efficiently knocked it’s hat off just to reveal a patch of sweaty, ginger hair. He lifted an eyebrow, tugging at the arm again, trying to get a better look, but the figure just seemed to have more than enough of this abuse.

Knowing all too well that trying to slip from Mike’s grip was a useless motion, it instead planted its feet and turning on its heels it kicked the soldier on his side, efficiently knocking the air out of his lungs. Wheezing, Mike immediately let go of the arm, gasping for air. Growling swears he looked at the figure, but it was on the run already, making distance between the two of them.

Spitting, Mike got himself together, and rushed after the figure. He had been waiting for this fight since Halloween and he wasn’t going to let that motherfucker run away once more. The figure was fast, but Mike was angry, and it made him more dangerous and reckless. He had no problem keeping up with the pace, in fact, he was catching up to the shadow step by step. He was ready to finish this.

In their chase, Mike kind of forgot to look where he was going, but it didn’t really matter. The only thing in front of his eyes was the prize of finally catching this motherfucking stalker, the changing of landscape around them didn’t matter at all-

Until it did.

Mike had no idea how, but they ended up in the more abandoned corner of Hereford. There were mostly suburban areas or empty factories on this side of the town. How did they even get here!? He looked around in concern, taking deep breaths. He had no idea, he only started to notice everything around him just now.

He still had the figure right in front of him, but their distance started to grow as his legs got tired of the running. The adrenaline in his blood slowly faded away, and with that, his energy did too.

He soon noticed himself gasping for air, his sight getting a bit blurry, slowing down, which was- not a problem namely because the figure was heading towards the last building in the line, which turned out to be a… a church? Really? A church.

Before he could ridicule the shadow in his head, he saw it run straight up the front stairs of the building, and the next thing reaching his mind was the loud band of the door being shut.

Taking big gulps of air, Mike let himself collapse on the ground, eyes fixed on the building. This might have been the strangest night of his entire life, and it was far from over. Giving himself a few minutes, he just sat there, watching the building, kind of waiting for the figure to escape again, but there was no movement around the church. Odd.

He wiped the sweat off of his forehead and stretched as he stood up. Twisting, he popped his spine and with a low groan he approached the church. He couldn’t see any movement around the door, but as he stepped on the first stair, he noticed how a light had been lit in the window of the church tower. So, there was somebody home.

He pulled his gun out - just in case - and stepped to the door, slowly pushing it in; it wasn’t even properly closed. Holding his weapon as steady as possible, Mike stepped in. It was pitch black. Grimacing, he fished his small flashlight out of his pocket, turning it on. The narthex was empty, only a few old benches left, waiting since god-knows how long, for people who never came.

Mike looked around and noticed a smaller entrance door. Stepping there, he glanced inside the nave and seeing no movement, he entered. Looking around, he lowered his gun a little. Rows of benches, hand-made pillars, a few old, wooden sculptures of Saints here and there, with their additional little plaques of info. Mike hummed, directing his flashlight at each of them. There was nothing unusual, really just a worn down little church. He didn’t even know that there was a church in this part of the town and he has been living here for a good 10 years now.

Getting deeper into the building, he started to measure the space in his head, trying to find the stairs into the attic. It was a small church so it was not many places where they could hide the way up. His hard guess was behind the main altar, so he made his way there, making sure he was as silent as possible.

As he arrived into the crossing, he stopped to take a quick look into both of the transept sides, that was when he noticed it. It wasn’t a big thing to notice, but it was strange on its own. On one side he saw an old Virgin Mary, the other held an equally old St. Joseph. Squinting, he glanced back at the other sculptures in the nave. All of them were old, but otherwise clean. The benches were left to rot, but every statue was in the best shape, not a single part missing or paint being spotty.

“What the fuck?” Mike heard himself whisper, but glanced in the direction of the main altar. The Jesus there was in the best shape possible. Mike shook his head, and stepped up to the main altar. He glanced at the sculpture, tilting his head a little. “Listen, if he is just a strange fan of mine I won’t hurt him, but otherwise… I can’t promise you anything. Don’t come after me later, okay?” with a smirk, he shook his head. Always an atheist.

Behind the altar, he noticed a small door, hidden from even the front rows. Getting more and more relaxed in this very strange situation, he lowered his gun completely as he entered the small door and there he found it. The stairs to the attic! According to the soft lights at the top of the stairs, he found what he was looking for.

He switched off his flashlight and started to climb still as silent as possible. He was about… 99,9% sure the stalker knew about him, but still. This time, he wanted to be the one hiding in the dark.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

He was around half of the stair when he heard some kind of a rustling under his boots. He froze in the middle of his movement - not wanting to be heard -, and looked down in a slight panic. Squinting, he leant down; a plastic bag? Okay, what now?!

He gently stepped off the bag and lifted it up in the weak light of the staircase. Mike’s eyes rounded as he recognized the object in his hand. It was a very strong bag with rows and rows of writing printed on it, informing the handler about the date, the place and the type of blood. 0-. Mike closed his eyes and opened them again, hoping that the plastic bag would… maybe miraculously turn into fairy dust and butterflies, but the plastic bag remained. Normally he was okay to see this bag, it was a useful little object, you know, saving lives here and there, but- this one was empty. Why the fuck was it emtpy, it was clearly used before. He glanced up at the top of the stairs. Okay what the fuck.

Taking a gulp of air, he stuffed the bag in his pocket and continued his way up. As he got to the last few steps, he first noticed a door on top of the stairs, and it being slightly open, he heard a soft sound. Stopping yet again, he tried to concentrate, and soon could make out the sound of fabric rustling and gentle tones of a piano.

Getting more and more confused, he finished his journey up, lifted his gun in front of himself, and without knocking or giving any warning, he burst into the attic, just to be greeted by a pair of green eyes fixed on him. He lifted his eyebrows. He has seen this look somewhere, but he couldn’t, for the love of god, tell where.

The eyes belonged to a - very - handsome face of a young man. He had elegant and sharp features, with a bit of arrogance hidden in his posture. He was without a doubt attractive, but Mike couldn’t care, because the young man had locks of ginger hair on his head, and who had that as well? His dear stalker. So he pointed the gun at the other, who was annoyingly calm.

“It took you long enough to get up the stairs. Might be the age,” said the stranger, with an amused little smirk. He looked away, down to the table and reaching out he poked on the phone laying on the surface. The soft piano stopped. “I started to get worried.”

Anger building in him, Mike gritted his teeth. “Who are you? Why are you following me? What do you want? What the fuck is this?!”

The stranger smiled at that, looking back at him, never noticing the gun. “My name is Olivier Flament. I have been following you, because I need to ask you a favour. I would like to ask for your help in an important matter. As for what… I believe this is my home.”

Struck by the strange honesty of the other Mike blinked a few, lowering his gun just a tiny bit. “What matter? Why were you following me?”

“I told you, I need your hel-”

Mike cut in. “Why were you following me everywhere for almost three months?”

The man fell silent, he glanced at the table. He almost seemed… shy?

“Spit it out!” Mike grumbled, making the other look up. His posture might have been calm, but his eyes were like the sea before the storm.

“I didn’t know how to approach you, see my lifesty-”

“So you decided to follow me, even with my family and when I try to catch you, you run? Almost not suspicious.”

Olivier looked at him for a few long seconds, trying to figure him out. It has been harder than he planned so far, and if he didn’t play it cool, he would get into a deep problem. “Look, I didn’t mean to scare you, but-”

“Oh you didn’t scare me.” Mike lifted his gun, pointing straight to the other’s head. “You made me angry. ”

The young man turned his head down, now looking guilty. “I didn’t mean to. I would never hurt you or your family, I swear to God. I need your help. Please, just listen-!”

Mike watched him, standing there, one hand on the table, leaning there a bit, trying to move away from him. He noticed something… inhuman in this man, something otherworldly. The posture, the face, the eyes… It was so strange. Not unpleasant, far from it, just odd.

The soldier lowered his gun a little, and took the plastic bag out of his pocket, throwing it in front of the other. “What is this crap?”

Looking down, Olivier hummed. “That’s my favourite. I probably had the same type back in the Dark Ages, and now I find it delicious.”

Mike’s grip on the gun tightened. “Quit the jokes, mate!”

The young man didn’t answer, he just glanced to the left. Following his eyes, Mike looked away, just to see a little fridge. It had an open cooler bag in front of it, what had about 10-15 similar blood packs in it. He looked at the man again, grimacing in disgust. “You are sick.”

The other shook his head. “I am really not. Don’t think that I enjoy drinking human blood in particular. It is not a very exciting diet after 800 years, but it does what it needs to, and still better than starving, or hunting and hurting the innocent.”

Mike glanced at the bags again, and then back at the man standing in front of him. “If you tell me, you are a fucking vampire, I will vomit.”

The sides of Olivier’s mouth pulled up into a gentle smile, and crossing his arms in front of him, he nodded. “I suppose… my secret’s out.”

“You are joking!” Mike blinked.

Olivier shook his head with that amused little smile. “No. And you didn’t vomit. Surprising.”

The soldier shook his head. “You are crazy!”

“Says the man who chased another through a town, gun held high, ready to murder.”

With an unamused grimace Mike rolled his eyes. “You should be happy that I’m just holding my gun and not using it.”

“Not to sound too smart, but that wouldn’t do too much harm on my body. See, this is the problem. As far as I know, I’m pretty undestroyable.”

Mike lifted an eyebrow. “Huh?”

Olivier nodded. “If you would like, I can show you,” before finishing, he already reached for a letter opener on his table. It looked sharp, and he held it out for Mike to see, then without a heartbeat, he pressed the edge into his own palm.

For reasons unknown, Mike immediately reached out, to catch his hands before he could hurt himself, but confusion hit him even more, when there was not a single drop of blood coming out of the wound. In fact, the raw flesh - or at least what was supposed to be the raw flesh - did not look the way it was supposed to look like. It was not red and healthy, but grey and… there wasn’t any blood. Not a single drop.

Mike slapped his palm across his mouth, and shutting his eyes, he took two steps back, turning his face away. There was no blood, there was no smell, there was nothing . Nothing human. What the fuck. Now he felt like vomiting. He looked up at Olivier. “What the fuck is… What!?”

The man looked at him and humming, he put down the letter opener. He picked up a piece of fabric, wrapped it around his hand. It didn’t really serve any purpose other than hiding the disturbing wound from Mike out of pure sympathy. It wasn’t an easy thing to see. “You seemed very confident in yourself just a second ago.”

“Fuck.” With a huge sigh, Mike held back his dinner, and taking a deep breath he adjusted his posture. “Okay. Okay. Let’s pretend, for a second, that I believe you. What do you really want? What kind of help do you need from me ? Do you want to eat me, or something? That is why am I here?”

Hearing this, Olivier suddenly seemed annoyed. “If you would just calm down a little, I would tell you everything!”

“Get on with it!” Mike shouted suddenly, with his gun held up again.

The man- or vampire- or what the fuck stood there, mouth slightly open, eyes helpless. He bit his bottom lip and turned his head down again, lifting both his hands in a soothing motion. “Please... “ he glanced up at him again, almost scared. “I know exactly how this sounds, alright? But I… I don’t want to cause harm to you, I swear. I wanted to introduce myself to you, but I have spent the last… forty-something years of my life being in- being alone, and I had no idea how to approach you! This is the truth, I don’t- I don’t want to hurt you, you are not my type! I do not even enjoy hunting humans, all that screaming and blood and waste…” Olivier shook his head slowly, looking Mike in the eyes. “I swear. I don’t want to eat you, I don’t want to harm you, I’m more than happy with those bags. I genuinely need your help!”

With jaws clenched, Mike watched his every move, considering his options. He slowly lowered his gun, and side-eyeing the vampire, he turned around to observe the surroundings. It was a way of getting used to the situation, and also it was a test of the other. He wanted to see how Olivier reacts to him in his own home, if it could even be called that. With a frown, he looked around.

The attic was spacious, with a few smaller windows built into the roof. It was divided into two, a smaller room, which reminded him of an office, that was where they were standing. It had a heavy, old table - Olivier waiting patiently beside that - pushed under a window, close to the wall, an equally old leather chair, a few cabinets with papers, candles, smaller and bigger containers, a small, locked chest, and other unusual stuff piled on them and the fridge with the fantastic blood bags in it.

The other half of the attic was just behind Olivier. Not knowing what to expect, Mike looked around. He didn’t see a bed or a coffin or anything where somebody would be able to rest comfortably, but he had a hard guess that Oliver - if he was truly what he said to be - didn’t really need sleep. However he saw an old couch and two nice armchairs in front of a- a- a bookshelf. Well. A bookshelf was a very, very weak expression. It wasn’t just one bookshelf, he saw at least three or four of them, and each one was stacked with books. And not just the shelves, no, there were books everywhere. Everywhere. It looked like a motherfucking library over there. Piles of books behind the couch, around the armchairs, stuffed into the window slots, put on the beams and around the columns. It was so messy, yet amazing, Mike couldn’t help but let an amused little snort out.

He looked back at Olivier, who was still standing next to the table, waiting for him, without a single movement. He didn’t take a breath, he didn’t blink. Sniffing, Mike lowered his gun completely. “A vampire?”

Olivier nodded.

“How old are you?”

“As far as I remember, I have been turned-” he hummed. “ around AD 750-850.”

Mike lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean ‘around’?”

Olivier cleared his throat, looked away as if he was embarrassed. “We didn’t really have birth certificates back then and my memory is kind of blurry from a 1200 years of perspective, don’t judge me.”

Mike hummed. “Is this your real name?”

“I have been called many names over the years, I don’t know if you have noticed, but it’s sort of suspicious if somebody uses a name for 1200 years, but don’t worry. For those who I wish to get close to myself I am Olivier Flament, yes.”

“Why are you talking like this…? I’m a simple man.”

“Then you might know that old habits die hard.”

Not being able to hold back, Mike smirked at that. “Touché.”

Olivier nodded gently. “Would you like to ask anything else?”

“Who turned you? Are there more of you?”

Looking away, Olivier started to fidget with the phone - actually an iPhone - on his table. “I don’t really know who turned me and I don’t know about the others. To be honest, I don’t wish to have any connection with them anymore. I have had enough, especially since the so-called “Dracula” figure ruined our reputation in popular culture.”

Lifting his eyebrows, Mike almost burst out laughing. “You are- you are hurt by the movies?”

“Since they tell false facts, obviously yes.”

“Why don’t you correct them, then?”

Now it was Olivier’s turn to lift his eyebrow. “And how do you expect me to do that? March over, knock on the silver gates of Hollywood and say ‘Excuse me, we do not actually sparkle under the sunlight, says me, an actual vampire!’ or what? I’m not a fool. As soon as I tell the humans what I am, there would be one of these two options: one, they would want me to turn them into vampires as well, for the fun of living forever, or the second, they would panic as the herd of animals they are and chase me until they either catch or kill me. Not like they would succeed in any of these options, but it’s easier for me to just lay back in silence and busy myself with the old knowledge of the early ages.”

Mike, taken aback, just shut up for a few seconds, lifting his palms in a protective gesture, but it was for the looks only. He somehow did not feel the need to protect himself anymore, in fact, Oivier reacting so seriously to a simple joke put him at ease. He liked it here, and he found himself being interested in the other. It was still a far-fetched idea, and he was still 60% sure that he will wake up on the ground in his boat, with a few empty bottles of whiskey around him, but this wasn’t so bad after all. The vampire seemed almost nice, and he was never really down to judge at the first glance, so why not wait and hear him out?

Noticing his own rambling, Olivier fake-cleared his throat again and turned down his head. “I’m sorry.”

“I assume you have been saving this up since a very long time.”

“Indeed.”

With a small, amused smile Mike shrugged. “It’s okay. But if you don’t want to tell people what you are, why tell me?”

“I have heard about you before, and I trust that you won’t tell my secret to anybody. I believe you could help me with my problem. I know it is very hard for you to understand my reasons and drive, but I put my trust into you.”

Mike narrowed his eyes. “What do you need my help for?”

“I want you to help me die.”

Mike turned towards the man standing on his right, eyes wide with shock. He let his gaze wander, just for a second, on the other. His tall, proud posture, his handsome face, basking in the dim candle light, his gentle, green eyes now looking at him full with hope, expecting help. How could a so-called monster look this innocent, the soldier couldn’t fathom. Why would he want to die? And more importantly, why would he want to be killed by somebody like Mike?

In his wandering, he almost missed the way the other’s lips pulled into a small smile. “You won’t help me, will you?”

Lifting his chin a bit, Mike looked the other in the eyes and he couldn’t help, but think ‘what a waste’, but shook his head anyway. “I don’t enjoy murdering people, but if you have a good enough reason I will. But you have lots and lots of explaining to do before we get to it.”

The man seemed caught off guard- almost surprised for a second, but his smile widened as hope filled him even more.

Mike shook his head, looking away. What a waste. He didn’t like the idea of killing the other. He kind of started to like him in a very twisted way, but he understood why somebody would want to die after 1200 years of living in the dark.

Olivier stepped closer to him, offering his hand gently, a smile as bright as the sun.

Mike glanced away with a low sigh. “What have I gotten myself into? Mike Baker, by the way.”

“I know!” with a soft laugh, the vampire shook his hand. “I told you, I have heard about you. And as for what… Let’s just sit down, and let me tell you my story first, okay?”

Stepping back a little, Mike looked him in the eyes. After a long pause, he nodded. “Okay. You can start with how you know me.”

Olivier nodded, and stepped into the other part of the attic, gesturing towards one of the armchairs. “Have a seat.”

Mike put his gun on the big table and followed Olivier into the ‘living-room’. He looked around a bit, observing the piles of books here and there and with an amused smirk, he sat down. The armchair creaked under his weight and he frowned. “How long since you invited anybody here?”

Olivier looked at him, sitting down on the couch. “This is a fairly new place for me, truth to be told, I have only lived here for about ten years. But in the term of having interaction with humans and other vampires… It’s been just about thirty years or so. I prefer being alone.”

Nodding, Mike kicked off his shoes and put his legs on top of a strong pile of books. Olivier rolled his eyes with a smile, but he didn’t say anything. “So,” Mike began. “Why me?”

Fidgeting with his fingers, the vampire looked away, and then back at Mike. “I knew your grandfather, and also your dad.”

Let me know what you think!! <3