#i think a lot of feels he wasn't able to process at 17 came out at 31 lmao

[mistercrowbar]

Aldiirn + haircuts

[everythingbap]

🎤 allkpop: [INTERVIEW] Former B.A.P members BANG&JUNG&YOO&MOON on reuniting after 7 years and growth: "The timing was right for us this time"

Nearly seven years after concluding their activities as one of the renowned groups that rocked their generation, B.A.P is back in the game, now as BANG&JUNG&YOO&MOON, hoping to put a "good closure" for the band's chapter.

Reuniting together several years after parting ways with each other is not an easy feat. Members BANG YONGGUK, JUNG DAE HYUN, YOO YOUNGJAE, and MOON JONG UP have gone their own ways, dropping solo activities here and there. Despite the members' busy schedules, they were able to get back together to work on their long-awaited group record, titled ‘CURTAIN CALL,’ released on August 8th.

This reunion came to fruition thanks to the boys' unwavering enthusiasm, they were able to create this one chance to get back again. During the interview with allkpop, YONGGUK acknowledged the difficulty faced by many idols who used to be in a group but now couldn’t do activities with their fellow members post-disbandment. He hopes that this BANG&JUNG&YOO&MOON return can serve as an inspiration and hope to those idols in a way, too.

Two months before the album's release, the former B.A.P members unveiled a teaser for their ‘Man on the moon’ documentary, igniting excitement among the fans and the general public alike. The five-episode (as of writing) documentary showed how YONGGUK, DAE HYUN, YOUNGJAE, and JONG UP were very much hands-on in crafting the album.

“Our last album [‘EGO’] was a bit fizzled out,” JONG UP expressed in the first episode. Now that they're back with ‘CURTAIN CALL,’ DAE HYUN wants to “share this last time with the fans in a really happy and beautiful way.” He said, “We don't know if there's another chance of us being together again, but we hope you will still support us.”

The mini-album boasts 5 tracks, “Love,” “Farewell,” “Gone,” “Stand it all,” and “Way Back,” all of which YONGGUK took part in crafting, from penning to producing them. YOUNGJAE also contributed lyrics to the concluding track, “Way Back.”

They are also set to hold the “last fan-con Asia tour,” which will commence with the two-day fan concert in Seoul on August 17 and 18, followed by their shows in Tokyo, Taipei, and Hong Kong.

To commemorate the group's highly-anticipated comeback, we sat down with BANG&JUNG&YOO&MOON to chat about ‘CURTAIN CALL’ and the process behind it, their growth, and more. Check out our exclusive interview with them below!

Shout-out to allkpop:

[Note: YOO YOUNGJAE wasn't able to participate in the interview due to his conflicting schedule. However, he sent a message for allkpop readers and the fans over email.]

You might want to check out our previous exclusive interviews with BANG YONGGUK (2023)(2024) and Moon Jong Up as well.

First of all, congratulations on your long-awaited comeback! What does it mean for you to finally reunite with your fellow B.A.P members? How did you come up and talk amongst yourselves coming back? Was there a little bit of awkwardness when you got to work together after 7 years or did it feel the same?

Jong Up: First of all, we made this comeback for the first time in seven years, so I think that’s why it’s heart fluttering and we’re so excited about it. During those seven years, we had actually been talking about getting together at any time. We asked questions like, “When will we do this again?” “When will we be having a reunion?” I think the timing was right for us this time and we thought that we were finally ready to do something we had been preparing for for a long time.

DAE HYUN: In the process of reuniting, of course, it would be nice to have a lot of laughs and smiles. As we shared our opinions, I think there were definitely some things that became sensitive. I think the reason why that happened is because we had a lot of personal growth as individuals. So, we needed a lot of time to bring those things back together. I think those were the moments that got us talking a lot.

What do you feel about closing this chapter? What have been your favorite moments from that journey? I feel like there’s a little bit of sadness because I know your group was once a big part of your idol life, but I also feel like you are rather happier because you get to be together again. It’s not that every group gets to be reunited after disbanding.

DAE HYUN: We mentioned that we have kind of ended our chapter as B.A.P, but we also want to tell you about another beginning. We’re going to go on our own journey are also looking forward to our future individual endeavors. We don’t know if there’s another chance of us being together again, but we hope that you will like our return with ‘CURTAIN CALL’ and that you will still support us. I want to share this last time with the fans in a really happy and beautiful way. We hope that this album is a good closure for this chapter.

Jong Up: Actually, when I think about the moments that have gone by since we started and now that we’re back together after seven years, I think I always remember a lot of things that I was disappointed with. I wonder if it would have been better if we had done something more like this. These regrettable moments were very memorable, but the reason why I think that we are so lucky to have the opportunity to get together again is that I don't know what to say about those regrettable moments. I feel like I'm actually getting a chance to challenge those things again, so I think I'm blessed to have those moments.

Tell us more about the album ‘CURTAIN CALL.’ What aspects of the album do you think “fill your fans with nostalgia”? In what ways do you think were you able to “showcase your chemistry”?

YONGGUK, you’ve been putting out solo releases and you have also been producing songs for other idols. How does it feel to be able to do that for your group after years?

YONGGUK: I feel like rather than making my own solo album or giving songs to other artist friends, it’s the most enjoyable for me to do work for my group. It’s because I’ve known the members for the longest time. It was easy to understand what each of us could do well. I think making music for our group is the easiest and happiest time to work.

Let’s talk about the songs. How did you find the album preparation, music video shooting, song recording, and all? Was there something that you found hard during the process?

DAE HYUN: First of all, I think it took us quite a long time to decide on the songs, including our title song. The company also edited a lot of songs, and YONGGUK continued to work on them. Ultimately, after a lot of time, the album was filled with such solid songs. I think there are people who probably struggled and went through a lot of hard work in that area. This was especially true for YONGGUK. The recording itself was organized a little quickly. YONGGUK was the one who directed us, he knew our points well, so the recording went very smoothly.

From each of you, I want to hear which track is your personal favorite and why?

DAE HYUN: I like the song called “Love” because it fits my sensibilities so well.

Jong Up: My favorite is the title track “Gone.” The reason is that I think it's the song that best represents us right now and I think it's worthy of the title. That's why I like it.

YONGGUK: For me, I like every single song. I kind of think of every song as a title track.

I watched your documentary on YouTube and you always said that the members hope that this album is something that you can be proud of. So I wanted to ask you that: Are you proud of how it came about? Are you satisfied with the outcome?

DAE HYUN: It’s an album that I’m very proud of, and that’s because it’s produced by YONGGUK. We also had a lot of input and participated with a lot of opinions from the members. And the company also put a lot of effort into making an album of better quality.

Jong Up: It’s an album that we’re proud of, not just because of the quality of the record itself, but also because we've had so many things going on and just the fact that it’s tuned out the way we know it’s going to turn out, I think that’s a testament to a lot of things, that itself proves a lot about ourselves. I think our fans are going to love it as well. I’m very proud of it and I can’t wait to show it to my parents. I feel like they’re going to be proud of it too.

(members laugh)

YONGGUK: You haven't got them to hear it?

Jong Up: Not yet. (laughs)

You said in our interview from 12 years ago that the reason why your fans are attracted to you is because you show a different image compared to other groups. Could you describe to us how unique and different this album and this new era are to you? What do you think still stands out within your group even today?

YONGGUK: I know that there are many idols like us who used to be active in their groups but are now unable to do group activities for some reason. I hope this album will be an album that has some meaning to them as well. And rather than showing or making a new trend, the album is a reflection of our past times. I hope people will listen to it a lot because I think it will be an album they can reminisce about.

Since it’s been over a decade since your debut, how would you describe your growth as an artist? If you have free time, do you look back on your old music, stage performances, videos, and photos, and think to yourself, “Oh, I’ve grown a lot. I’ve matured a lot”?

DAE HYUN: I think the concept of growing up has completely changed since I turned 30. I think in my 20s, I was making myself used to the songs. I was like, "Oh, I'm going to get that into my body and I'm going to get that into my ears. I'm going to grow that way.” But now that I'm in my 30s, I feel like I'm on a journey to find my true self. I think I've tried to create something of my own within myself.

Jong Up: In my case, in the past, I thought, researched, and worried a lot about how I wanted to show myself. But now, I think a little more about what is unique about me and want to show my true self, so that I can be seen better. I think there are things I try to do to show myself in a better light. So, in the past, I worked hard to show what I wanted to show, but now I just show what I can do, the next thing that I can do. I think I've matured a bit in that difference, in putting in effort to show that side of me well.

YONGGUK: I’ve matured a lot. Now, what I want and try to do is to do a lot of meaningful things in my life. I’m so happy that this album is exactly that.

In this album, you also talk about the challenges you faced in the past and express your hope for the future. What in that journey you remember in particular made you the artist and person you are today? What were your biggest takeaways and realizations from that journey?

DAE HYUN: I think I've been able to grow as an artist faster through my members because we're all really hard workers and we're still working hard until now. But I think I've always had a platform or a stepping stone to grow as a musical artist through the members closest to me. And now that I'm around a lot of people, I think I've learned a lot about trust, rhythm, friendship, love, and things like that because there are so many people around me.

YONGGUK: Same for me!

Jong Up: Same!

Following the album release, you’re going to hold two-day shows in Seoul. Congratulations on that! How are you preparing for this? What are you most excited about, and what should fans look forward to this special reunion?

DAE HYUN: It’s the live performance. I think our color as a group is really good, and that’s why many of our existing dans have trusted us and liked our group’s live performances. We will practice focusing on those points when performing live and also while hanging out with the fans at the concert. So, we are practicing as hard as we can every day.

Jong Up: There is a lot of cute and diverse merchandise, and this time, the t-shirts came out so pretty. The designs are really pretty and detailed. I think there will be a lot to enjoy in the concert itself. And the most important thing, as you said, is the performance we put together for the first time in seven years. I wonder if there will be more of our own mood, something a little different now. Actually, I'm looking forward to that too. I don't know how it will turn out... so, shall we have fun together?

We’re looking forward to those! What kind of comments or words would you like to see and hear from your fans after the album release?

YONGGUK: Music now gives us a certain amount of joy when we listen to it, and I hope that this album will be one of those albums that when people listen to it, they will be able to remember something from their childhood and be reminded of how we were when we were young and that they can look back through that.

DAE HYUN: Same!

Jong Up: I love you!

(members laugh)

Do you have anything else to say to allkpop readers and your fans who have long waited for your comeback?

DAE HYUN: First of all, thank you to allkpop who has interviewed us a lot since our debut era. We remember that we did a lot of interviews with allkpop as well before. I hope our fans support us and give us a lot of love especially thank you to all the B.A.B.Yz all over the world and I hope you guys enjoy the album

YOUNGJAE: To all the fans who have waited for a long time, I hope you enjoy what we’ve prepared for you and cherish this time spent together. Thank you and I love you.

[starry-blue-echoes]

Another AU to SO

I'm surprised that i didn't saw someone with this idea before (or maybe i'm just a idiot) but basically Weather wasn't stolen and grew up as Domenico together with his siblings and the whole thing with Perla didn't happen :D

How much change would this brought? I have no idea but it's going to be alot :D

Ooooooooo yessssssss. I've had passing thoughts about an AU like this, but never thought about it for too long so this could be fun

I do love the idea of these three being able to grow up together. Of them being allowed to become friends and love each other the siblings are supposed to and being able to have that bond without any outside intervention

Pucci would still meet Dio but everything after is going to be wildly different. For one, there wouldn't be any lynching, partially because the aforementioned thing with Perla wouldn't happen and Pucci wouldn't hire that guy, but also for another reason. After all, the whole reason they targeted Wes instead of Pucci was because he didn't have the money or status to protect himself, money and status which Domenico does have

However, I still think the twins would get Stands. After all, Domenico or no, the arrow is still going to be attracted to Pucci, and given how he seemed to regularly carry it around in his breast pocket it's only a matter of time until it does what it did in canon and stabs him.

But this time Pucci isn't going to be on the same metaphorical mental and emotional edge and make any rash decisions. And Domenicon isn’t going to go apeshit and kill everyone in town with death rainbows because he simply wouldn't posses the same rage, hell he would probably just be confused at where this strange Cloud Thing With Horns came from. 

But of course, I can’t resist, we gotta spice things up a bit with good old Gravity :) 

What if for a pinch of extra fun, Domenico wasn't..... completely ready for his Stand. What if he gets a tad bit of Stand Sickness because while he had the potential to be a Stand User he hadn’t quite reached the peak of it yet. It’s nowhere near as bad as when Holly or Josuke had it and he'll be fine after a few months of adjusting to the Stand, but it’s still enough to worry the hell out of his siblings and parents. Pucci especially is freaking out because he feels responsible for this, and as we saw in canon he is FIERCELY protective of his family and willing to go to great lengths to keep them safe

So he decides to track Dio down and get answers.

And he does! However, he's also high key internally freaking out the whole time because he's 99% sure Dio isn't human and also running some kind of cult. He goes along with it and does grow to be genuinely interested in some of the man's ideas, but the whole familicide and literal brainwashing via fleshbud really creeps him out. Plus, while he does blame himself for Domenico’s sickness, he also blames Dio quite a lot because he was the one who gave him the damn arrow in the first place

He does learn more about Whitesnake and gains several disks in the process, but he's still coming up empty in his search for a possible cure for his brother. The best idea he's got is removing Weather Report with Whitesnake, but he's not sure what possible affects that could have on Domenico and wants to leave that as a last resort

and what if because of said research, Pucci is able to convince Dio to let him go to the mansion and look through his books

what if Pucci happens to be in the mansion when the Crusaders attack

And just. The parallels between Jotaro and Pucci here. Two 17 year old boys throwing themselves right into the jaws of danger from which they might never return, risking life and limb, all to save a family member from a sickness that was forced upon them indirectly by Dio

Maybe Pucci befriends the Joestars. Maybe he helps them during the fight. Maybe he tells them about Domenico and with some strings pulled on the SWF's part they're able to help him

In one life Pucci and Jotaro were the worst of enemies

What if in this one they become the best of friends

[welldonebeca]

Miss, PhD (XI)

WC: 900+ words Warnings: Fluff. Steve being a dumbass. Slow burn. Mutual pining.

If you like my work, consider buying me a coffee or subscribing to my Patreon. It’s just $2 a month and helps a lot while I go through these hard times.

Masterlist

“Text her,” Bucky spoke by his side. “What are you waiting for?”

Steve pressed his lips in a thin line.

He was… waiting.

He didn’t know what for, obviously.

So, Steve had said he was going to text you, and you had both agreed you would be going out for a meal - or a coffee, or a snack - whenever you were free and not tangled in your research.

“She is probably busy,” he rolled his eyes.

You had a whole PhD to take care of. The last thing he wanted was to disrupt your process of studying.

“She hates her PhD subject, you said it yourself,” Nat stood by his side, crossing her arms. “And that’s what texts are for, Steve. You text someone, and they answer when they are able to.”

Bucky scoffed.

“He won’t say anything, he won’t text her,” he saw on one of the chairs in his classroom.

It was one of his office days, when he didn’t teach and students just came over to discuss school matters. No one had shown up today, except, of course, for Natasha and Bucky, who apparently had nothing else to do with their lives.

“He has a crush on her,” his childhood best friend stared at him. “And when Stevie has a crush, he gets paralysed, because he feels like that old skinny, bony, asthmatic boy who was too shy for his own good.”

He wasn't a child anymore, why was he even bringing that up?

"Give me that," Natasha snatched his phone out of his hands. "I always gotta do all the work with you, fucking hell."

As she walked away, he turned to look at Bucky.

"Don't call me that," he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Well, you are acting like that," he crossed his arms. "It's not like I'm wrong."

"This is different," he tried to argue.

You were just a friend of his. Sure, Steve thought you were beautiful and extremely clever-

"What is different?" Bucky insisted. "You are interested in a pretty girl and is afraid of talking to her, and you are putting all those barriers between you two."

"I'm not," he argued, already feeling his face flushing in embarrassment.

"You literally convinced yourself she was just 17, Steve," Natasha spoke in the other side of the room. "She clearly isn't. I've been around her a bunch of times, and she has grey hairs already, she looks like someone in her mid-twenties."

Alright, so maybe he had willed himself into thinking you were someone unavailable, but they couldn’t blame him. You were a prodigy, a genius since a young age, how would he know you weren’t young anymore?

His best friend turned to her, intrigued.

"Grey hairs, really?"

She was right. Your hair was peppered with a few grey hairs. There was nothing wrong with it, obviously, but they were there.

"She is under a lot of stress," she remarked. "I'm surprised she doesn't have forehead wrinkles like Steve over there, and you."

Steve shot her a confused look just as Natasha looked at his phone with curiosity.

"You are 32," he remarked. "Why don't you have wrinkles?"

"Cause I moisturise twice a day and get Botox injections twice a year, and I'm 33 and not 53," she rolled her eyes. "She's been typing and stopping for five minutes already."

He made note of the age correction, but jumped closer to her to see what the hell she was talking about. Had she said anything?

Were you trying to say anything?

"Did she say anything?"

No. The chat was completely empty.

"Text her," Bucky added quickly. "She is trying to gather courage to do it. Text her! Say hi!"

Natasha tapped a ‘hi’ quickly, and his heart quickened up in his chest as a little bubbly of text answered very fast with a little hey.

So maybe you were waiting for him to text you?

Did you think he was  taking too long? That he wasn’t interested?

“There you go,” she gave it over to him. “You have your conversation started.”

Steve scoffed, rolling your eyes, but was quick to move his attention away when his eyes fell on another text from you.

‘How are you?’

‘I’m okay,’ he answered back quickly. ‘Just finishing closing my classroom after my office hours.’

Natasha and Bucky hovered over him, looking curious, and he rolled his eyes.

“Well?” he asked.

“Ask her out,” Natasha answer, simply. “What are you waiting for?”

A message popped out on his phone, and he moved his focus back to it.

‘I’m leaving the lab now. Do you want to maybe eat something?’

“Say yes,” Bucky said quickly. “You got nothing to do after that today.”

Steve typed down a 'yes' before he could think of anything else, eager to see you.

"See?" Natasha elbowed his side. "That wasn't so hard!"

He rolled his eyes, but looked back at his phone when a text popped up again.

'I'll see you in the main quad?'

Bucky pushed his shoulder, already carrying his backpack.

"Did you just shove everything inside?" he frowned.

"Nothing broke on the way," his friend rolled his eyes. "So don't worry."

Steve scoffed, but took it from his hand, throwing it over his shoulder.

"Don't leave her waiting," Natasha crossed her arms. "And take your head out of your ass, Stevie."

"Don't call me that," he rolled his eyes.

Bucky, however, just ignored it.

"Come on, Stevie. Let's lock this room up and get you to your date."

Yeah, he really wasn't ever going to drop that.

“Fine,” he rolled his eyes. “Come on, let’s go. You two, get out.”

. . .

"Miss, PhD" was posted on my Patreon back on January! To read the full story before anyone else and have early access to all of my works, subscribe to my page! It's just $2 a month!

. . .

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[survivor-trinidad-and-tobago]

Episode 17: "I wanna gag these mfs so hard and randomly win the final challenge so these hoes can scramble 🙄"—Jack

In this round: Jack gags these mfs so hard and randomly wins the final challenge so they all have to scramble; Michael, Kaleigh, and Alex take matters into their own hands and tie the vote on Alex and Kaleigh; Alex wins the fire-making challenge

Alex

This sucks. Good on Jack. He demolished that. This sucks. I don't want to vote for Kaleigh. Kaleigh was my number one this entire game. But I've gotta consider FTC arguments. This sucks.

Jack

OMFG BORING!!! Kayleigh is so lame for literally doing no moves. Out of the 3, Michael gets my vote if I’m on jury cause he at least has balls to make moves and own it. Kayleigh is fake af like bffr w me like??? Why lie??? I wanna gag these mfs so hard and randomly win the final challenge so these hoes can scramble 🙄

--

as of right now I’m excited to enter the final 3 🥰 I hope Kayleigh walks out the door but even if she doesn’t I’m still actually confident in my ability to sway the jury my way

Michael

So this may be my final confessional, who knows, but I'm really proud of the game Alex, Kaleigh, and I played. We were able to even have one last call together before the vote. The plan is to tie up and go to fire, let's hope it happens! I think it'll be a great display of how much we ran this game if at the end even Jack with the final immunity win in the came can't control the last vote

Alex

Even at Final Four I'm gonna go out on my terms if I go out. And if I go out I'm gonna boost Kaleigh up in the process. LOL at me saying I'd play a villain game back at the start. Anyways if this is my last confessional: this was a fun fucking time. It was great meeting new people and seeing how creative this community is when it comes to game creation. This was what I thought it would be and it wasn't at the same time and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it. Thank you for the invite, Trin. Thanks to all the players who helped make this the ride it was. At least if I go out tonight it'll be a few drinks deep at a concert for one of my favorite bands.

Kaleigh

WELL! THIS GAME IS REALLY ALMOST OVER! jack won that nonsense challenge so … alex and i are going to fire, i think. or, i guess, we are going to embarrassing towel game. jack told alex this morning that he wants to target me bc i’m such a baddie and everyone would vote for me - thx jack - I’M NOT BUYIN IT BUT OK I GUESS I AM VERY LOVABLE AND COOL AND PLAYED A KINDA SICK GAME BUT W/E!!!! INSANE TO GO FROM TARGETING MICHAEL OVER AND OVER TO ME SUDDENLY BEING THE BIG THREAT!!! alex suggested to me that we could have… michael and i vote for him, he votes michael, and jack votes me, to get alex out cuz he thinks i have a better chance with the jury than he does and wants to give our alliance the best chance at winning. but we are going to go to fire bc either way whichever of us wins gets that on their resume, and i think both of us are just… not that keen on pleading our cases to this jury LMAO i really don’t want to ;__; anyway. i loved this game i’m so happy and feel so lucky that i got to play such a long game with alex and michael, two angels from heaven, watched over by trinica, who i got to know a lot better and also love and cherish <3 i also truly loved steven he was gone way too soon <3 anyway i’m guessing this towel game is a guess who situation. and i told alex that bc i love him and want him to have as much of a chance as i do if i’m right. and i love michael he is a gem. can’t wait for game night :*

Alex

This is... bittersweet. But, hey, I said I wanted to play like Todd Herzog and now's my chance. Let's win it for Soca.

Tribal Council

Votes:

Kaleigh: Alex (ILY)

Alex: Kaleigh (❤️❤️❤️)

Michael: Alex (This is just how we planned it. I had a great time playing with you and getting to know you, and I hope we can continue to be friends post this game! Let's hangout!)

Jack: Kayleigh (ily girlie I would vote for a female over a male in every sense so u gotta go babes)

[dzpenumbra]

6/17/23

Good lord, I watched some clip on YouTube with Aubrey Plaza having an argument with another actress about like... a position she was applying for or something... and how this company was clearly exploiting the "internship" model as way of getting free fucking labor. Which... is bullshit, and always has been. Sorry. Work is work, I don't care if someone is a student or an elder... labor is labor. "Experience" or "exposure" or whatever, the world's biggest con and should be fucking illegal. Straight up. It's literally gatekeeping a career that wasn't gatekept to begin with, using the excuse of "it's a competitive market, this is a coveted position" to exploit free labor. And in this clip, Aubrey Plaza's character called it out. And was pushed back against. And god, I could fucking feel it. My heart clenched. It was visceral. Because I've been there. It made me really upset.

It's when people get into a position of power and control. And they forget where they came from. And they look down at younger generations who are in completely different circumstances with a smug sense of superiority. And then they exert that control over others, intentionally taking advantage of them, intentionally making life way more complicated, taxing and demanding than it even remotely requires. Just... because it's "what you do." Because it's trendy. I will do everything I can to stay as far away from both sides of that shit as I can get. Ugh. That really put a bad taste in my mouth, but thankfully I've been able to let go of that anxiety and "oh shit" pretty quickly lately.

I woke up last sleep cycle again, but I was able to get back to sleep pretty quickly. But this whole waking up mid-sleep thing is making me wake up later and later each time. This time, I didn't start drinking coffee until after 7 PM. That's no good.

I did my workout, which was actually pretty taxing today. In fact, I actually woke up sore for the first time this morning. It was my back, but not from the workout... from the yoga. Figure that one out! I did a bunch of back-focused yoga that was... I guess activating muscles I don't normally use, for extended durations of time... in order to help me sit up and support my spine and all that. And it was really tough, but that just means I need to do it more often. It will pay off. But man, that made me really sore. So yeah, yoga today was nice, and did some things I don't normally do. And my workout was a lot of upper body stuff, which wasn't too bad, just tiring. Just the right level though.

I ended up getting everything in my day situated and... streamed. I streamed 3.5 hours, from about 10pm until about 1:30ish. I listened to several albums all the way through: Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium, Polyphia - Remember That You Will Die, David Maxim Micic - Bilo IV, Periphery - Periphery V: Djent is Not a Genre. I got a lot done on my piece. I don't think I had many viewers, if any for most of it. I had one new person drop by and chat for a bit, it was nice to see a new face. They told me my music was leveled too high over my voice... which is always really fucking frustrating... since I literally can't soundcheck my own stream. It's actually impossible. It's a classic streamer problem and it's so infuriating when you don't have any friends at all to just... drop in for 5 minutes at the top of your stream to just help you get your levels right. Ugh. Towards the end of the stream, a kid from the old art days dropped in. He's from Chile. He was talking briefly about how he's abandoning drawing because he doesn't have time for it with school. Which is always really painful to see. You see someone who clearly has a passion for something difficult, so much that they will go out of their way to continuously fail at it for years with no reward in sight... just to get better at it, and just because the process itself is rewarding. And... to have them abandon this trade... rather than nurture it... because society demands you have the ability to recite some potpourri of mandatory required information in a variety of different fields.

Like... I get the idea of standardized education, don't get me wrong... But... doesn't the internet kinda change that shit a bit? For real? Like... most people I have met who are high school graduates don't actually know when, where or how to apply the quadratic formula... despite knowledge of it being a requirement for graduation. Or cellular reproduction, like I was rabbit-holing on last night... that's life-science shit, right? That's basic biology. I don't remember the last time I even met a person who didn't graduate high school, how many people out there that are not actual biologists do you think could... off the top of their heads... be able to tell me what a eukaryote is. Or tell me what the Golgi apparatus does. This system of cramming information into peoples' heads doesn't work. From what I have witnessed, most people fake absorbing this information in the short term, just enough to be able to pass a "test" on it. Or they just get really fucking good at cheating. I don't feel like this is good for a society. I feel like, especially in highschool and shit... when you start finding things you're passionate about and interested in... you should really be encouraged to go down that path, and people should be helping you develop the tools you need to get there. General education of course is important, to a degree... but I think we go a bit too over-the-top with it... and that increased demand ends up being too big of a bar... and then people don't even try to pass that bar... and the average come out of it with a lower education than if the bar was lower in the first place.

All this to say... I wish that kid didn't have so much peer pressure on him to do a whole bunch of other mandatory shit... if what he wants to do is draw. But... that's also making a lot of assumptions, and kinda projecting. So yeah, I held off on giving him this rant and kinda saved it for here. Instead, I encouraged him to find time anywhere he could to just do a little bit. Even 10-20 minutes of doodling is better than quitting art outright because you're too busy. Coming from experience.

So yeah, I got a ton of work done. Stream was slow but successful. I put a link in my discord group but didn't do that thing where it annoyingly pings everyone in the group... and only that one kid showed up. No one else. So... I'm guessing they need an intrusive announcement to know I'm going live. Which makes sense, if I have one or two viewers, I literally don't even show up on most peoples' following list. I'm too far down. That obscurity snowball effect.

So... to address this and some other stuff... I started getting my head into back-end mode. I set up a Ko-fi. And I'm getting geared up to set up a Tumblr. I have a good feeling about it. Here's the catch, and what I deeply struggle with. I struggle to just... keep Instagram updated. It's just not a habit for me. I know it sounds lame for people who are used to posting on social media every day... I barely even visit Instagram once every 2 weeks. I'm simply not on social media other than this. So... in my head... I have to deliberately go out of my way to do a little photoshoot of my new work... and past work. Then I need to write context for them. That needs to be separate so I can post the same thing multiple places. Then I need to set up the posts... on Instagram, on Ko-Fi, on Tumblr and on Patreon probably... Right? I'm horrible about keeping up to date with that kind of stuff. Then on all of those, I have to figure out the right hashtags, which is super stressful for me, if I'm being honest. I just... don't feel like I'm good at it or something. So... it just feels like it's a whole thing.

Figure that shit out. I get all stressed out and try to avoid posting finished pieces on social media... but I'll effortlessly write like 7 pages on here every single night. Maybe it's the whole... "what's the point, it's just going to get 10 views and 3 likes and not actually lead to anything." Like... here... I'm not doing this for exposure at all. My intention of this is literally just for it to exist and be publicly accessible. If people find it, cool. If not, whatever. It just... is. But when I go to put my art on display, just like streaming, my intention is the opposite, it is to be found. To be discovered. For someone to find it and engage with it and go "holy shit, this is cool" and want to see more. That's the fucking point. Here, that's not my intention. I think that's the big difference. So... I put so much more pressure on myself to make the presentation perfect. And make sure I have my ducks all in a row, and everything is proofread and punctuated, and the lighting is right and I release... and nothing happens. 3 people who treated me like human garbage for years and for some fucking reason still follow me on Instagram but don't even fucking speak to me... they like my post and that's it. So yeah... the idea of taking the big leap it takes to post on Instagram... and adding in the work of also posting on Tumblr, Ko-Fi and Patreon? I mean... I'm going to have to copy-paste... or else I'm gonna have to devote a day to it.

I dunno, I'm probably blowing all of this out of proportion. It'd probably be easier if people were excited to see what I devote my life to. Even more so if they were encouraging behind the scenes, too. But without that? God, it's like trying to build momentum in a vacuum or something. Any forward movement needs to be generated exclusively by me.

Geez, I'm a ray of fucking sunshine today, eh? XD

But yeah, it was raining all night and I streamed for 3.5 hours and drew the whole time and only took one break. And I kept my voice down. I'd like to be louder, I'd like to be able to stream until like 3 or 4. Or whenever I want. But I guess this is extra incentive to get an earlier start to the day. I'd like to start streams by like... 7 or 8. That gives me a solid 4-5 hours before I need to think about being super quiet. But yeah, stream went well, considering... and I'm planning on streaming again tomorrow.

And that was pretty much the whole day. So... I'm gonna do tarot now.

OH. I set up the Ko-Fi specifically so that people would have a place to donate for stream-related stuff... i.e. Tarot readings. So I need to price that soon. If anyone is still reading... I don't normally break the fourth wall but here I am... XD If you've been reading for a bit, you probably have a good idea of my tarot experience, since I've been doing it every night. I've been studying off-and-on for about 3 years now. I'd really appreciate your input on pricing ideas for like... per-card spreads. Like one-card, three card... and then I can figure out some weird elaborate ones for bigger spreads. Like... what you would expect for a price, keeping in consideration what people charge "IRL". I was thinking that subscribers could have one free one card reading per week? I feel like I'm kinda just giving them away if I do "you get a free reading every stream" for the... $2.50/month I get out of a sub. That's just depressing and I think I'm worth more than that. I don't even know where to start with pricing though. I have been leaning towards like... the $15-20 per 3-card reading range, but I'm worried I won't get enough interest. Because people are just used to bargain-basement prices. So... I could do like... Ko-Fi does "cups of coffee" as increments, and I could say... one cup of coffee = one card... I think that makes sense, and seems fair to me... though it is kinda on the cheap side, if I'm being honest... So, any thoughts on that I'd greatly appreciate, if you don't mind sharing your thoughts. Also, I'm going with Ko-Fi because I get a substantially better cut than Twitch Bits - and I mean substantially... - so I also need to check to make sure Twitch isn't gonna be a little shit and tell me I can't use it for donations.

Okay, tarot time for real.

Past - Ace of Cups (A new relationship and the accompanying surge of emotions.  Getting in touch with your feelings.  Matters of the heart.  A deepening bond.) Present - Ten of Wands, inverted (Burdens, heavy responsibilities. Taking on too much and overloading yourself.) Future - Queen of Pentacles (A person who is warm, welcoming, nurturing, down-to-earth.  She is resourceful, grounded, independent and confident.)

Alright, this one isn't too tough for me to connect the dots on.

This threads starts with Ace of Cups - the big emotional eruption that comes from new ventures. The first date feeling, the first day at a job, that kinda thing. A moment where you get a big rush of emotions and it's better to just... submit to them and experience them than to try to reason them. It can also signal a new relationship but, you know... I'm in isolation here so... I guess it makes it easier to rule that kinda stuff out... XD

This connects to inverted Ten of Wands. Ten of Wands is carrying the heavy burden. It's taking on too much and being overloaded. I don't think it's a signal of catastrophe, but more of a warning. And I feel like the inversion here is kinda emphasizing that this overload is not necessarily something I should be taking pride in... it's something that if not kept in check will take a physical toll on me.

This connects to Queen of Pentacles. She's a new one for me, so I'm still a bit unfamiliar. The card description had a nice background on the Pentacle - a coin with a pentagram, which represents the four elements and the point above which is the Spirit (reason). The pentacle is a symbol of Life, an idealized life, where all of the base elements and urges and impulses are kept under the watchful guidance of the Spirit. And the Queen is the one who unearths the embodiment of this symbol. The Heart of the Pentacles. When I read the description, I pictured The Oracle from The Matrix. Warm, welcoming, nurturing, grounded, confident, kind, maybe a little sassy. She has fresh baked cookies for you. :)

So... there's a few ways to read this. But basically... my excitement with new ventures and new relationships can lead to me getting too overburdened. And rather than my typical RPG inventory assessment and the cleaning that happens when I get Overburdened... where I filter by importance and drop the shit I need the least... when I'm getting into a new relationship/friendship or starting a new project... I tend to revolve around the newest, most emotionally engaging thing. So... like right now? If I were overburdened by adding in streaming on top of art and yoga and working out and housework... I would likely, by default, keep streaming and drop housework, then drop working out. Which isn't necessarily the smartest way to go about it. I also tend to push push push and don't really take enough time to just chill and have fun. So... keeping that balanced is important, and I think the inverted Ten of Wands is really signaling a heads up for that. The end result being... a nurturing, loving, kind, confident, grounded person... a well-balanced stable person, who seems really nice and fun to be around.

That's definitely insightful. Tarot utterly fascinates me, because... I really see it like an inkblot kinda thing, like a Rorschach test. And you take those symbols (in context of their own narratives) and put them in the context of your own life. So the way I just interpreted that? Those same exact cards, the same draw on a different day or (especially) with a different person, could mean something completely different. And people see this lack of being able to replicate results as... "scientific inaccuracy". And they use it as "evidence" to dismiss the value of tarot. Which is deeply upsetting, of course, but I'm not going to get into that. Beyond that, it just really detracts from the whole point. If I drew a card that had a picture of The Emperor from Star Wars... and showed that to you and went "does this remind you of anyone?" Or showed you a picture of Trinity kissing Neo as she unplugs him at the end of The Matrix and present that image as like... something to keep in mind, something to think about, reflect on and maybe keep an eye out for things that remind you of that today. A reminder of priorities in your life, or what you're working towards. I feel like it adds a layer of meaning to life, a... cinematic quality. It reminds me that life is a story, and I'm both the main character and the author. And I don't control everything... in fact, I don't really have a lot of control at all... but I do have choice and intention. And these images can be reminders of those choices, so we can be a bit more intentional and mindful with our choices.

The randomness is what filters out bias. I have never seen tarot as "predicting the future", I don't even really believe that the future has been written yet. At least... I don't think... and honestly... I'm okay not knowing... and I'm okay going along living that way. XD I believe that tarot presents you with images and symbols that you can choose to take into consideration as you move forward. And if you choose to engage, your consideration of those symbols literally changes the course of your life, of your own doing. It can assist us in considering events and symbols in life that we can all relate to, at some level, and mindfully choose whether we want to steer our lives in that direction. It allows us to be more deliberate and aware of certain aspects of our life, and be more active in how we manifest our own future. So, in a way... it shows a potential future. At least a potential course of events, or interconnected symbols. And you can do whatever you want with that. That's my take on it.

Alright, it's late. Gonna wrap it up.

One thing before I go, because I want to put this in writing so it concretizes in my brain. I had a really profound inspiration burst today. Seem to be getting a lot of those lately... :) I was doing the organic cellular membrane pattern and I was completely in autopilot mode, which is such a cool place to get to. And I started to picture the shapes I was drawing... as stones. As pebbles, as gravel. Like... a mosaic. Like a stone path. And I suddenly got really excited. These designs? I could do nature installations. And I could incorporate moss too, if I wanted. So I could do bubbles of moss, and stone "membranes" separating them. Or stone bubbles, and moss membranes between. I could do this really easily too. I would just need the space and materials. And I started brainstorming it on stream and was talking about how... miraculously, I had already learned the skills for how to sort stones by size. It's called "classifying", which I learned from rockhounding and gold panning. Where you get different filters (which are basically like... plastic or metal mesh) of different sizes. And you shake the gravel, and the small ones fall through and the big ones stay on top, and ta-da... you've classified your stones by that size. And I'm really inspired to do a piece like this... so... here's my thought right now. Either I find a space to do this, which I would need a property owner who is okay with it. I'm in a city now, I can't just do this in my landlord's yard anymore. OR... I could create some form of installation indoors... work on a micro-scale... meaning... stones 1" maximum in size... get a shit ton of gravel ordered from somewhere, maybe work with soil too, harvest natural moss? If I can just figure out... the structure, the housing. When I picture it, I'm picturing like... a super shallow wooden box, kinda; almost like a picture frame laying down, or a super shallow sandbox. Like... I look over at my windows and see a spot under my windowsill that would be perfect for a big one. And that bay is like... 7'x1'. So... I would need some kind of backing, like plywood or something... some kind of wood along the sides to keep everything in... maybe just normal 2x4s... and... that's it? Maybe handles so I can move it, but I can always add that shit later. I can start on a smaller scale too, then work my way up. I've kinda already started on this with the terracotta pot that I have, but... it's the depth of it that throws me off. If I had something shallow and broad, I could build a flat base to it and just work on it like it's a canvas. And, again... if I can waterproof this too... I can add in water features and pumps and shit down the line... Micro Zen Gardens. It's a cool idea. I've had this idea for a while now. I just... really wish I knew what materials to use for this and how to put that together. The rest would be a dream come true. Then, later... down the line... I'd love to do a full-scale installation with actual rocks instead of micro gravel. Like a full park or some shit. That would be absolutely insane.

Okay, just needed to get that out. Bedtime for real now.

[proud-mom85]

Moments from the Misha, Darius Zoom:

Darius: I WILL SAY THE FIRST THING ONE WANTS TO DO IN A ZOOM TO ESTABLISH DOMINANCE IS WHEN THE BACKGROUND CONTEST.

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MISHA: WE BOTH MOVED TO L.A. IN -- DARIUS: 99.

MISHA: DECEMBER OF 98, RIGHT BEFORE NEW YEAR'S. WE MOVED INTO THE SAME LITTLE, YOUR AUNT'S FRIEND'S HOUSE ON THE VENICE CANALS. YOUR WIFE WAS PREGNANT WITH YOUR FIRST CHILD AT THAT POINT AND MY WIFE AND I DID NOT KNOW IT AND WE WERE LIKE WHY ARE THEY SLEEPING ALL DAY, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM?

DARIUS: THERE WAS A GAS LEAK ALSO IN THE HOUSE. SO WE WERE ALL SLEEPING ALL DAY.

MISHA: THAT'S TRUE.

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MISHA: THERE WAS A TIME WHEN WE WERE YOUNGER WHEN I DON'T KNOW THAT I THERE WAS A TIME WHEN WE WERE YOUNGER WHEN I DON'T KNOW THAT I WOULD HAVE GENUINELY CELEBRATED YOUR SUCCESSES, BUT THERE WAS A TIME FOR YOU STARTED MAKING THE MOVIE "LOOT" THAT WAS YOUR FIRST BIG SUCCESSFUL PROJECT. I THINK IN THE PROCESS OF MAKING THAT I REMEMBER FEELING OVERWHELMED WITH SUPPORT AND JOY FOR YOU. I JUST WANTED YOU TO SEE THIS CREATIVE VISION THROUGH AND NOTHING WOULD HAVE MADE ME HAPPIER THAN IT TO BE SUCCESSFUL.

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DARIUS: I DON'T THINK I WOULD BE EVEN REMOTELY THE SAME PERSON HAD WE NOT BEEN FRIENDS...

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DARIUS: AND WE BOTH AUDITIONED FOR IT AND AS FATE WOULD HAVE IT, YOU ENDED UP IN THE LEAD ROLE OF THAT PLAY AND WITH ALL SINCERITY YOU DID AN INCREDIBLE JOB, LIKE IT WAS ONE OF THOSE MAGICAL, I THINK YOU WOULD AGREE, ONE OF THOSE MAGICAL SCHOOL PLAYS THAT JUST IS INCREDIBLY MEMORABLE. I STILL REMEMBER IT, JUST SITTING THERE AND ENJOYING IT AND WATCHING YOU KIND OF YOUR BEST. IN I REMEMBER THEN FEELING REALLY PROUD OF YOU. I REMEMBER SITTING AND WATCHING YOU ACT AND FEELING LIKE THIS IS WHAT THIS GUY IS HERE TO DO. BECAUSE YOU WERE ON STAGE AND IT WAS SO UNDENIABLE.

_____________

DARIUS: I FEEL LIKE WE HAVE HAD A PRETTY CLEAR CHANNEL OF SUPPORT FOR EACH OTHER ALL ALONG. AND I WILL SAY, HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR YOUR SUPPORT ALL THOSE YEARS MAKING SOUND OF METAL, I DON'T KNOW THAT I COULD'VE MADE IT. THAT'S HOW IMPORTANT IT WAS, THOSE WERE HARD YEARS COME ALONG, YOU KNOW, 10 YEARS OF FAITH IN A PROCESS THAT HAD NO PROOF OF CONCEPT. SO, YOU KNOW, I NEEDED THAT SUPPORT AND YOU WERE THERE MANY, MANY, MANY TIMES OVER. I REALLY HATE TO BE SINCERE WITH YOU, I FEEL LIKE IT FEELS WRONG BUT THAT IS THE TRUTH.

____________

DARIUS: ...BECAUSE HE AND I BOTH CAME FROM SO LITTLE. I DON'T THINK WE WERE THAT AFRAID TO HAVE LITTLE. I DON'T THINK WE WERE AFRAID TO SCRAPE THE BOTTOM AND KEEP SCRAPING THE BOTTOM AND SCRAPING THE BOTTOM A LITTLE MORE.

MISHA: I HAVE HAD AN INTERESTING RELATIONSHIP WITH THAT SCARCITY DYNAMIC BECAUSE ON THE ONE THING, WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS TRUE AND I ALWAYS IN MY HEART OF HEARTS KNOWN I WOULD BE OK WITH NOTHING, I WOULD BE OK LIVING IN A TENT IF I NEEDED TO. AND THAT KNOWLEDGE PROVIDES A PRETTY BIG SAFETY NET, BECAUSE YOU NEVER WALK AROUND FEELING LIKE I NEED THIS MONEY. I KNOW I'M GOING TO BE OK.

AT THE SAME TIME, COMING FROM POVERTY, I THINK THE ALLURE OF MONEY HAS BEEN MAYBE MORE POWERFUL THAN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FOR ME OTHERWISE. IF I HAD ALWAYS HAD MONEY, I MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN SO DRAWN INTO MAKING MONEY WHEN THAT OPPORTUNITY FINALLY CAME IN MY LIFE. AND I MAY HAVE MADE CHOICES THAT DIDN'T THAT WEREN'T QUITE SO DRIVEN BY MAKING MONEY, IF THAT MAKES SENSE. AS I'M GETTING OLDER, I AM ABLE TO FORMULATE THESE THOUGHTS AND RECALIBRATE TO AN EXTENT. BUT THERE WAS A TIME WHEN I WAS MAKING MONEY JUST FOR THE SAKE OF MAKING MONEY WHEN IT WASN'T REALLY ABOUT ANYTHING CREATIVE OR BIGGER THAN THAT, AND I THINK THAT WAS A LITTLE BIT ALSO RELATED TO HAVING COME FROM POVERTY.

DARIUS: THAT IS INTERESTING, I DON'T THINK YOU'VE EVER REALLY VOICED THAT TO ME, THAT SCARCITY MODEL YOU HAD WORKING THAT WAY. THAT MAKES SENSE ACTUALLY, AND I THINK PEOPLE KNOW THIS ABOUT YOU, BUT IT WA SA LEVEL OF POVERTY THAT WAS THREATENING. IT WASN'T LIKE WE WERE KIND OF POOR OR YOU ARE SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE CLASS SPECTRUM, YOU WERE IN A SERIOUS, SERIOUS LANDSCAPE OF POVERTY.

_______________

MISHA: IT'S FUNNY, FROM THE VANTAGE POINT OF CHILDHOOD, YOU TO ME IT LOOKED JUST AWASH IN MONEY. YOUR FAMILY WAS FUCKING LOADED. AND I REMEMBER YOUR DAD, ONCE EVERY THREE MONTHS OR SO WE WOULD ALL GO OUT TO PANDA EAST, WHICH IS BASICALLY THE CHEAPEST CHINESE RESTAURANT IN TOWN COME UP BUT TO ME IT WAS LIKE CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT WE ARE JUST GOING OUT AND ORDERING WHATEVER WE WANT AT THIS RESTAURANT? IT SEEMED SO OPULENT TO ME. IT'S REALLY AMAZING.

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MISHA: I REMEMBER DRIVING UP TO PUTNEY RIGHT AFTER I GOT MY DRIVERS LICENSE, I WAS 16 AND A HALF OR 17 AND DRIVING UP ON A SCHOOL NIGHT AT 3:00 IN THE MORNING JUST TO CHECK ON YOU, BECAUSE I KNEW YOU WERE KIND OF ON THE EDGE AT THAT POINT. YOU COULD HAVE EASILY NOT SURVIVED HIGH SCHOOL AND A COUPLE OF YEARS AFTER THAT. YOU WERE REALLY ON THE EDGE.

DARIUS: IT'S TRUE.

MISHA: YOU WOULD GO FOR DAYS WITHOUT SLEEPING, YOU WERE A PSYCHOLOGICAL MESS AT THAT POINT AND I DO REMEMBER GOING UP THERE AND WORRYING ABOUT YOU AND CHECKING ON YOU.

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DARIUS: I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I HAVE FOUND THAT I HAVE NOT NEEDED YOU LESS AS I GOT OLDER.

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DARIUS: YEAH, SO, HERE IS THE THING ABOUT THE OSCARS. I HAVEN'T REALLY TALKED ABOUT THIS AT ALL. BUT THE OSCARS COINCIDED WITH - AS YOU KNOW, MISHA, COINCIDED WITH A REALLY CRAZY TIME FOR ME BECAUSE MY BEST HAVE A VERY SICK CHILD.

- BECAUSE I HAVE A VERY SICK CHILD. SO AROUND THE TIME OF THE TIME OF THE OSCARS, LEADING UP TO THE OSCARS IS MAYBE ONE OF THE DARKEST, MOST DIFFICULT TIMES OF MY LIFE DEFINITIVELY. AND YOU KNOW I HAVE HAD SOME DARK TIMES.

SO, SO OFTEN WE LOOK AT THESE THINGS AND IT LOOKS LIKE ONE THING. AND WE NEVER KNOW THE SUBPLOT THAT LIVES BEHIND IT, AND WE NEVER KNOW WHAT HAPPENS BEYOND THE IMAGE OF PERFECTNESS AND SUCCESS.

MISHA: I THINK THAT IS EXACERBATED IN THIS MOMENT IN OUR SOCIETY BECAUSE SOCIAL MEDIA, EVERYONE IS ALWAYS SHOWCASING THE MOST PERFECT VERSION OF THEIR WIVES AND FAMILIES.

AND OF COURSE, YOU WERE GOING THROUGH THE JUXTAPOSITION OF THAT PARTICULAR MOMENT IN YOUR LIFE, AND YOU ARE STILL GOING THROUGH THE HARD CHAPTER, APPARENT SUFFERING THROUGH A SICK CHILD AND WHAT YOUR CHILD IS GOING THROUGH IS JUST SO HARD AND SO HEARTBREAKING. AND TO HAVE THAT MOMENT THAT YOU HAVE BEEN WORKING TOWARD YOUR WHOLE LIFE, YOU JUST REACHED THE APEX OF YOUR CAREER, YOU MAY NEVER AGAIN BE AT THE OSCARS, AND ANYONE WHO EVER THINKS THEY ARE GOING TO WIND UP AT THE OSCARS IS DELUSIONAL, IT JUST DOESN'T WIND UP AT THE OSCARS IS DELUSIONAL, IT JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN. AND YET YOU HAVE FOUND YOURSELF THERE AT THIS INCREDIBLE TRIUMPHANT UNLIKELY MOMENT.

DARIUS: I DID ALWAYS KNOW I WOULD BE THERE BUT GO ON.

MISHA: AT THE SAME TIME YOU ARE SUFFERING THROUGH THE MOST EXHAUSTING AND MOST EMOTIONALLY DRAINING THING IMAGINABLE, AND IT WAS ALMOST LIKE A KIND OF CRUEL JOKE FROM THE UNIVERSE, IT SEEMED.

DARIUS: IT WAS THE CRUELEST DICHOTOMY. AND I THINK WHAT WAS IMPORTANT FOR ME AT THAT TIME IS I WAS NAVIGATING A LOT, PRESS, THE OSCARS, I WAS DIRECTING SOMETHING ELSE OF THE TIME, RUNNING BACK AND FORTH AT THE HOSPITAL, SLEEPING ON A HOSPITAL COT, DOING ALL THE STUFF, THAT I NEEDED SOMETHING NEAR ME THAT I UNDERSTOOD, YOU KNOW?

I NEEDED SOMEONE NEAR ME THAT I FELT GROUNDING RIGHT THEN. AND THAT WAS ACTUALLY THE TRUTH OF IT, IS LIKE, YOU ARE THE PERSON ON THE FACE OF THE -- FACE OF THE EARTH THAT I COULD CALL ON AT THAT MOMENT AND I NEEDED IT.

____________

These are some of the moments from the zoom. It was quite emotional as you can tell from the little bit of transcript I'm posting. You can tell how close these two are and how much they have been there for each other over the years, how well they know each other. They have one of those rare life long friendships.

I do wanna say this and I'm not saying it to be rude or anything but I remember there was a cameo that Misha did and he said he was helping a friend with a sick child and the person who bought the cameo got mad cuz their question wasn't answered and they said cruel things about Misha. Well, shame on you.

We may not have had this information at the time but you never assume when someone mentions a sick kid and don't mention how bad it is, it could be nothing or it could be something major like with Darius' kid. Misha could have not done the cameo at all but he did when he had his best friend and his best friends kid on his mind and was worried about. Shame on anyone who said mean things from that cameo. Misha always does the best he can for all of us.

Anyway, I hope we get to see more from these two in the future. They are both amazingly talented individuals.

[anarmorofwords]

Hi! You're probably not going to like this ask, but before getting into it I'd just like to say that this isn't meant as Kamala hate or anything, and I don't really want to offend.

Having said that, wouldn't it make sense that we get to see how Kamala treated Anna after she came out? It's in all likelihood one of the things that's weighing on Anna the most.

Obviously Kamala had her valid reasons: her parents aren't as liberal as the Lightwoods, she believes (knows?) their love is conditional as she's adopted, she's not white and not being heterosexual could further any treatment she's suffered from being different... Her reasons have already been listed multiple times by multiple people. Kamala has the right to stay in the closet and fear coming out. And while that shouldn't be villianised, we can't forget that closeted people can harm those around them.

If Kamala had kept treating Anna like a good friend, rumour would've sparked, and even if it was denied, she'd have been harmed by merely associating with Anna. Especially with the life Anna began leading; she could have been labelled as one of Anna's 'conquests' by the Clave. That, as we've established, is detrimental for her safety.

But at the same time, it would create a breach between Anna and Kamala. And Anna had the right to be hurt by it and weary of it when Kamala said she wanted a relationship.

If we look at it from that perspective, Anna's actions (though inexcusable in how they treated Kamala --who was also at fault for not accepting a negative for four months) make sense. Kamala wasn't only a fling of a week*, but also the girl she lost her virginity with, who asked her to be her secret (until she married Charles, after which Anna's affections would be discarded), who hid her sexuality for two years and sat back while Anna suffered from homophobic commentary, and who now wants a relationship hidden from most of the people that know her.

Kamala shouldn't be forced to come out; but the harm that can do to the women she may engage with is reflective of what happens nowadays. I can mostly think of examples with gay men, so my apologies in advance. But how many women have seen their marriages ruined by their husband having affairs with men?

Creating characters that reflect a toxic part of the 'hidden' LGBT community shouldn't be seen as hating or villinifying. Thomas isn't out and he isn't labelled a villain by the narrative --because his actions don't harm anyone. The hate Alastair gets in-universe is because of his past as a bully, not because he's gay. Matthew's not fully out and he isn't villianised --like Thomas, because the decisions he makes to keep his sexuality hidden don't impact anyone negatively.

I'll even go as far as saying that not even the narrative villianises characters like Kamala and Charles. If it were, they'd be seen more like Grace in Chain of Gold. We'd see how Kamala's actions are affecting Anna's in more ways than anger (that in itself put the fandom against Anna), and the characters would note so. We wouldn't see scenes were Cordelia empathised with Charles, nor Matthew said he loved him.

Be it as it may, Kamala and Charles represent ugly parts of being closeted that can naturally occur when someone is in their position. LGBT people are human. Humans, when put into very difficult situations (and Charles risks his career; Kamala her safety), can make decisions that harm those around them. Consequently, the people they're harming have a right to feel, well, harmed in whatever range of ways --this goes mostly for Alastair, and very partly for Anna, whose treatment of Kamala was horrible.

Readers need to understand what is pushing these 'villianised' characters to harm (again, mostly for Alastair) the more prominent characters and go beyond how they are instantly depicted. Because these are complex characters based on complex real people influenced by very ugly realities we will move on from someday, but sadly not yet.

By the way, Charles and Kamala's situations aren't that similar beyond the closeted thing, but I crammed them together because of a post I saw you reblog.

Please understand I'm not justifying Charles's actions; that I understand the pain he's put Alastair through, and know that he shouldn't ever be near Alastair. Nor am I trying to justify Anna's actions nor hate on Kamala.

I'll just finish my pointless rant by adding that I do think cc has sensitivity readers. I think she asked a gay man to go through tec (I don't know if he still revised her other books, though), and know she asked POC's input when writing someone for their culture. I don't know much beyond that, but I doubt who revises her stuff is up to her. Wouldn't that be something the publisher is responsible for (honest question)?

*I've also noticed people using the argument that they didn't know each other long enough for Anna to harbour such ugly emotions towards Kamala, but Kamala also remembered Anna pretty deeply and is 'in love' with her. I just wanted to say that considering cc writes (fantastical) romance where someone can ask a woman they met two months ago marriage, stressing over time spaces doesn't make much sense. Just my take.

hi!!

alright, where do I start? probably would be best with stating that while I can analyse Kamala's situation with what I know/see/read about racism and discrimination and reasonably apply things I've read/heard from PoC to the discussion, as well as try to be as sensitive about it as possible, I'm still a white woman, so not a person that's best qualified to talk about this.

that being said - if someone wants to add something to this conversation, you're obviously more than welcome to, and if there's something in my answer that you don't agree with or find in some way insensitive or offensive - please don't hesitate to call me out on that.

back to your points though: (this turned into a whole ass essay, so under the cut)

I don't think Anna shouldn't be able to reminiscent on Kamala's behaviour/reaction to her coming out, or be hurt by it. what bothers me is the way CC talks about it - I can't remember the exact phrasing, but the post where she mentioned this suggested something along the lines of "you'll see how Kamala sided with the Clave and didn't defend Anna after her coming out", therefore putting the blame on Kamala and completely disregarding the fact that Kamala wasn't in position to do much at all. It suggest that their situation was "poor Anna being mistreated by Kamala". therefore I'm afraid Kamanna's main problem/conflict will remain to be portrayed as "Anna having to allow themselves to love again and forgive Kamala", while Anna's shortcomings - and Kamala's vulnerable position - are never discussed. I think it would be possible to acknowledge both Kamala's difficult situation and the possible hurt her behaviour caused Anna without being insensitive towards Kamala's character, but it would take a really skilled - and caring - author to do both of the perspectives justice. CC would have to find a balance between being aware of the racism/prejudice Kamala faced/ writing her with lots of awareness and empathy, and still allowing her to make mistakes and acknowledging them. As it is however, I'm under impression that she's just treating it as a plot device, a relationship drama.

I'd say no one expects characters of color to be written as flawless or never making mistakes, it's mostly the way these mistakes are written and what things these characters are judged/shamed/

And that's - at least in my understanding and opinion - where the problem is. it's that the narrative never even addresses Anna's faults, and portrays Kamala as the one that caused all - or most of - the pain, without ever even acknowledging her problems and background.

White characters in TLH make mistakes and fuck up - because they're human and they're absolutely allowed to - but the thing is, non-white characters aren't afforded that privilege. Anna's behaviour is never questioned - none of it, shaming Kamala for not being able to come out, dismissing her desire to be a mother, or any of the questionable things she did in ChoI. Same with Matthew, James, Thomas. Alastair and Kamala however? they're constantly viewed through their past mistakes, and forced to apologize for them over and over, forced to almost beg for forgiveness. Moreover, those past mistakes are used as a justification of all and any shitty behaviour the other characters exhibit towards them now, which is simply unfair and cruel. They're held to a much higher standard.

So I'd like to say that yes, Kamala was in the wrong to keep nagging Anna after numerous rejections, and she was in the wrong to not inform Anna about Charles prior to them having sex - but that doesn't give Anna a free pass to constantly mistreat Kamala. And let's be real, Anna isn't stupid - while at 17 she could be naive and uninformed, I can't imagine how after years of hanging out with the Downworlders and numerous affairs and being out and judged by the Clave she's still so ignorant about Kamala's situation. I definitely think she's allowed to be hurt, but to still not understand why Kamala did what she did? Anna isn't blaming her for not telling her about Charles earlier - which would be fair - but instead for refusing to engage in an outright romance with her. She's being ignorant - and consciously so, I think.

Overall, I think you're definitely right about how coming out - or staying closeted - can be messy and hurt people in the process, especially in unaccepting environments/time periods, and I've seen enough discourse online to know there will never be a verdict/stance on this that will satisfy everyone. I, for one, would really like to refrain from putting all the blame on a single person - but, at least the way I see it, CC is pointing fingers. maybe not directly, but she is. Kamala, Alastair and Charles have no friends or support systems, and the only people in the narrative that defend them are themselves (ok, Cordelia does defend Alastair from Charles, but not from shitty takes about him and his "sins"). Also, sorry, but I don't like how you say "hid her sexuality for two years and sat back while Anna experienced homophobic comments" - it sounds very much judgemental. Kamala had every right to do that? The fact that she slept with Anna doesn't means she owed her something, and certainly not coming out and most probably destroying her life, or even defending her at the - again - expense of her own reputation, or more possibly safety.

As for Charles - it's a different issue here, at least imo - I fear that it'll be implied that his refusing to come out will is his main "sin", and therefore not something he can be judged for, which ironically, will be villainizing, but mostly will mean his actual sins are dismissed. This is where the scene with Cordelia feeling a pang of sympathy for him comes into play, and it worries me. I've never hated Charles for not wanting to come out, but rather for, let's see - grooming Alastair, disregarding Alastair's needs and feelings, disrespecting his mother, being a sexist prick, being low-key far-right coded "make Shadowhunters great again" etc.

As for sensitivity readers - I'm no expert, so I don't think my input is worth much. From what I've gathered from multiple threads/discussions on twitter, tho it is probably consulted/approved by the publisher, many authors push for that - and authors less famous and "powerful" than her. I'm not a hater, but seeing fandoms' opinions on much of her rep, I think she could do better. Because if she does have sensitivity readers, then they don't seem to be doing a great job - maybe they're friends who don't wanna hurt her feelings? Or maybe she thinks a gay guy's feedback will be enough for any queer content - which, judging by the opinions I've seen from the fans, doesn't seem to be true.

Again, these are mostly my thoughts and I'm more than open to reading other opinions, because *sigh* I really don't know how to handle this.

Bottom line - I really really don't want to be hating on the characters in general, playing God in regards to judging the struggles of minorities, or even criticising the characters too harshly for being human, flawed etc. What my main issue is is how CC handles those complex and heavy topics.

I hope I make sense and this answer satisfies you somehow - I also hope someone better equipped to answer might wanna join this conversation.

* I desperately need a reread of TLH before I engage in any more conversations like this, but I didn't wanna leave you hanging. So yeah, I might be remembering things wrong. Again, let me know, I'm very much open to being corrected as well as to further discussion.

* I use she/her pronouns for Anna because that's what she uses in canon

[lanshappycorner]

Deuce Spade facts and fun facts🥳🥳

This is a list of facts and fun facts about Deuce! This list is based on true facts only and any observations I've made, however observations can be subjective, so those will be labeled properly! Let's start off with some facts already in the wiki :)

First Yr, class 1-A, student no.24

Birthday: June 3

Age: at the beginning of the game, Deuce is 16, but currently, he is 17 [his profile in game has not been updated, but as time is proven to flow in game, it is unclear but can be interpreted that the characters do canonly age]

Gemini

173 cm / 5'8" ft

Homeland: Rose kingdom

Family: Mother, Grandmother, it is implied that his father is out of the picture as Deuce states that he is the only man in the family so his father has either left or is dead

Club: Track and Field [alongside Jack]

Best subject: PE

Dominant hand: Right

Fav food: Egg dishes / omurice

Least fav food: Bell peppers

Dislikes: Limited time sales

Hobby: Magical wheel (twst motorcycle I guess but it looks kinda funky)

Talents: Machinery Maintainance [good with fixing gadgets and etc]

Used to be a delinquent before he heard his mother crying on the phone to his grandmother about his behavior. Afterwards he decided to change

Owns a pink leopard printed suit

Cannot do middle school math, he will take a lot of time to solve simple Algebra problems

Gets nervous and stops functioning entirely when talking to women

Onto some fun facts outside of the wiki! These facts have been gathered from various sources (ppl who can read japanese, ppl who have told me abt info in the twst guidebook, twitter, and ofc the main translated story), but I cannot prove 100% authenticity of this, so take it with a gain of salt

Canonly a pretty boy. Deuce is described as the "cool pretty type" in the twst guidebook

Smells like flowers [applies to all students from Rose kingdom]

A romantic, he admired the king and queen of heart's relationship and trey teased him about it

Thought that baby chicks hatch from store bought eggs until the MC and Grim told him the truth

Can cook eggs (he likes them over easy)

Wanted to make a magical wheel club but was rejected so he joined track and field

Bought magical wheel magazines when he was younger and studied it

Wanted to ride his magical wheel in the heartslabyul maze (mentioned he forgets bad things when he rides it so like...it makes him feel better)

Hates limited times sales/shopping but is extremely good at it. He can remember the price of an item, when exactly it sells out, the percentage/probability of when it can sell out, discount prices and pretty much any math that has to do with it [he's extremely good at shopping because his mother brought him out a lot with her to limited time sales]

In addition to the point above, it is implied he can memorize and calculate that for pretty much every item he intends on buying (everything I listed above is in relation to the time he bought 20 limited time puddings which greatly impressed Sebek who wasn't able to grab even 1, but it was later revealed that he also bought 8 bag full of items requested by Trey for baking, as well as the others probably from heartslabyul) so basically Deuce big brain and very good memorization abilities

Hilariously in the instance above, Sebek, who is like...a real fae, has said that what Deuce did was not something a human can do

Flirted with a plant because vil was fucking around with him and told him to

Was ready to fist fight Riddle

Was about to go find Leona to beat him up but Vil was like do u have no fear and Deuce pretty much said that he can get thru to Leona with his muscles

Was about to fight Malleus (jesus christ) but ended up fixing his tamagotchi and came out completely loaded and rich (good for deuce, get that cha ching babey)

Won a Track and Field competition (noted to be rare for a first year)

He is literally a pretty boy, it's been pointed out that he looks good in the ceremonial clothes (but we already know that)

Admires Riddle and sees him as a role model, has called him boss (like...yakuza boss terminology) once

[Observation] Has a pretty good relationship with Jamil as he has asked Jamil to help him practice his Stargazer dance, and mentioned him once again when talking about how Jamil fixed his hat and said that he was a reliable upperclassman

Has said fuck and would not hesitate to say it again 🥺

Has been called honest and cute, was fawned over by kalim and trey. Kalim said Deuce was similar to his younger brothers

During his delinquent phase, he was blamed for many things he didn't do as well, Deuce said that he realized no one believed in him despite what he says, but because a policeman stood up for him, he wanted to become a cop when he grew up

Used intimidation tactics [the equivalent of "u wanna fucking go let's go I'll beat ur ass" to scare off ppl and silver was like hm I will have to try that sometime, to which deuce was pretty much like ahahah no dont

Deuce refers to Yuu as his "mabu", basically calling Yuu his best friend

He can change a lightbulb, and he talks abt hand washing materials and just domestic house stuff in general as if it's common knowledge. In other words it's implied Deuce is really good at housework due to doing a lot for his mother

When he was a kid, he used to cry because he thought there were monsters outside, but it was just hanging laundry

Is more scared of Riddle than ghosts

It's implied that one time (or several times...) he stayed after school with Crewel, and the poor guy had to attempt to explain the same concept over and over again to Deuce for hours until he understood

Ace always cheats in card games with Deuce, so Deuce claims that it's not very fun playing with him

Bad at astrology bc apparently all stars look the same to him

Likes cafe latte

Does tease ppl, he once messed with Yuu and in the process called Ace "Ace-kun" (Ace called him "Deuce-kun" as well). There has been an instance where he's teased Jack about his Niceness TM

Used to have over 30 gang members following him at age 14-15. (You'd think that him being so young would make him like a lackey but no he was the boss)

Has a thing for summoning cauldrons since he was young, but apparently you need to have a large amount of magic capabilities to summon objects, so [observation] deuce may actually be extremely powerful bc he was able to summon things at a young age, but he hasn't refined his powers yet so he still seems weak compared to a lot of the cast

During his delinquent phase, apparently he had a really wild hairstyle and he used his magic on people weaker than him

[Observation] Deuce is actually pretty good at lying. In his Halloween card he was able to put up a good act and deceive some of his ex gang members into following him into the forest before mildly roughing them up (keep in mind that he has not had contact with these ppl for at least a year, yet somehow he was able to assert enough authority to tell them to follow him. Also, he thought of this plan on the spot, and acted malicious enough so that the gang members would believe in him—which proves that he's not only quick witted but a convincing actor, as Jamil actually believed his act for a while)

It's implied that he and Ace are often in leadership positions, as they helped to lead heartslabyul in designing their Halloween booth, but they also mentioned that it was much easier compared to organizing unbirthday parties

[Observation] despite wanting to be an honor student, Deuce is still able to take unjustly means to achieve his goals (EX. Making a deal with Azul to pass his test), in general, deuce doesn't care too much about the method, be it through cheating or violence to get to his goal, but he does value a fair battle

[Observation] a lot of Deuce's strengths are subtle as we are frequently told abt how much of a bad student he is, but if u rly think abt it, deuce is put in leadership positions a lot, he's good a memorization and small technical details, he can be at times quick witted and deceiving, and he has the potential to be extremely powerful in magic. In conclusion Deuce is a menace and once we find out what his unique magic is I'm 100.01% sure he will become a greater menace and I think he should fight a lot of people and win

That will be all for this post! There may be more fun facts/observations that I may have missed, but feel free to add on to this! Anyways thank u for reading and please stan Deuce Spade♠️💙

[old-hyper-super-clover]

Squeeze that bunny tail!

Part 5 (final part)

Description: The RAD student council as well as the exchange students help out at a bar where, oops, the staff´s dress codes are those sweet bunny outfits that we all know and thirst for. The MCs, Violet and Clover, play a game of who can touch the most bunny tails over the evening without getting caught. Prepare for fluff, funny innuendos as well as my thirst over hot boys in bunny outfits.

This is the finale of this way too long "one shot". Find the prior parts here!

Story continues under the cut. You´re almost finished!!

Continuing to work at the bar for a while, Violet found a surprising guest on the other side of the counter.

“Clover! What are you doing here?"

Clover sank down on one of the chairs.

"A double shot, please" Clover joked, but probably wouldn't say no to a little refresher either.

"Tired?" Violet laughed, handing her a glass of water instead.

"Mhm..." Clover rubbed her face. "I´m slowly running out of energy... Well, how are your squeeze-points doing?"

They exchanged their data. While Violet was doing pretty well with a total of 17 points, Clover had (still) only gathered five points so far.

"Meh... I knew I'd loose" Clover mumbled.

"It's still not too late" Violet tried cheering her up. There's still plenty of time to touch Solom-"

"DONT." Clover shot her giggling friend a glare. "Look, it's not even anything personal, I just... Feel very weird inside when I imagine me walking up to Solomon like this."

Violet's smirk widened.

"You mean like... The fluttery feeling of butterflies in your stomach? Clover, could it be...?! That you lov-"

"I will eliminate you if you end this sentence."

She couldn't hide a smile at the joke, but soon Clover had to realise that her persistence to not squeeze Solomon's tail would have drastic consequences.

"You know...” Violet thought out loud at some point. "We never thought of a price for the winner of our challenge, did we?"

"... Nope."

The ideas kept processing in Violet's head. Then it hit her.

"Or maybe... Rather than thinking of a price, let's do a penalty for the loser."

Clover's eyes wandered up to meet hers, her face curling into a "I don't like where this is going" expression.

"How abooouut... The loser..." Violet began.

"Don't."

"... Has toooo..."

"Please don't."

"...Touch..."

"Why do you hate me."

"... Solomon's tail?" Violet grinned proudly.

"... You really hate me, don't you?"

"Come on, Clover" Violet cheered. "There's still time for you to score some points~!"

Clover wanted to reply something when a weird round of girly giggles caught their attention.

Around the dining tables, a group of female succubi where currently being served by Beel.

But they didn't seem to be interested in the drinks in his hand, but much rather in the man holding them. Even from the bar, the human girls could hear their excited squeals as they kept batting their eyes at the demon.

Clover's head landed on the bar counter in a depressed sigh.

"Whatever... I don't really care about the game anyway..."

In an instant, Violet's whole tone had changed.

"Clover..." She mumbled, voice soft as the patted her friend's head.

"It's been like this the whole evening" Clover grumbled, eyes pointing to the group of succubi. "I can't blame them, but... When I hear them thirsting over Beel, I…"

"Just go up to him" Violet said. "You know Beel, it's not like he'd be interested in some random demons."

The frown on Clover's face deepened. "... And in no random human, either..."

"Stop saying that. You know he likes your company. Likes you."

Clover shook her head.

"Just... Leave me, okay. Thank you, but... I'm just a little angry at myself. I also had so many chances to squeeze his tail but... Yeah..."

Violet clearly remained bothered, but Clover was quick to change the topic.

"Did you get that Luci-butt already?"

"... No" Violet cried. "He dashed away to grab Mammon, and they vanished in the staff room."

"... That's why Mammon was tied to the ceiling fan!" Clover called out. "Explains a lot."

Violet gave a nod, however continuing with her trail of thought.

"It's been quite a while, though... He should have been around the casino area, but wasn't there... And now he's on break, but, again, I have no idea where he is."

"Go search for him" Clover said. "I'll back you up here. I need something to do anyway, so... Go get your man. There's still his tail in need to be squished, right?"

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

They argued a little, but in the end, Violet accepted Clover's offer and excused herself into an early break. Violet was searching through the whole club. Asking some of the brothers, too, but none could give her a clue. She wasn't able to find him anywhere, so in her desperation, she went up to Simeon.

"Hey, Simeon? Have you seen Lucifer anywhere?"

The angel turned to greet her as well.

"Hello", he smiled. "Does he have a shift right now? If not, maybe he is using the restroom."

"Hm... I've been looking for him for a while now, though..."

Simeon mustered her for a moment.

"He might also be outside to catch some fresh air" he continued his trail of thought. "But I fear he might get a cold if he stays out for too long. Would you mind taking care of him?"

"Huh?" Violet's eyes widened in surprise.

"Lucy always had a bad habit of taking too little care of himself. So, could you check on him? I am sure he would be delighted to see you."

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

When Violet pulled open the heavy doors of the bar's back entrance, a head turned towards her immediately.

"Lucifer...!" she called out, looking down on the demon sitting on the stairs.

"Violet... Did something happen?"

He was already in the movement of standing up, worry spreading in his face.

"No no, everything's fine!" Violet quickly assured him. "I just came looking for you."

He stopped mid-motion, but in the end sat down again.

"Why?"

Violet bit her lip. She decided to plonk down beside him.

"I'm also on break now. I thought we could spend it together and relax a little."

She felt his gaze on her, but as soon as she turned to face him, he was looking off into the distance.

"I am pleased to hear you decided to grand me your free time" he smiled. Then, he gave a sigh.

"However... I should probably head back in soon. Someone might need my help-"

"S-stay!"

Violet impulsively grabbed Lucifer's arm before he could escape.

They stared at each other. Until Lucifer let out a breathy laugh.

"Well, if you demand my presence that much... I fear I cannot turn down a request from you."

A little silence came over them. From the side glances Violet threw him, the demon looked kind of... Odd.

"Ah... Is there something you need from me, perhaps?" Lucifer asked. "Or why is it that you want me to stay so badly?"

And from how he looked at her, his perfect attire not shattered, but shreds of exhaustion glistening in his eyes, Violet knew that he wasn't okay.

"I'm good", she replied. "I simply... Wanted to check if you're doing good, too."

Surprise crossed Lucifer's face.

"Of course" he replied. "I am used to working until late."

However, Violet kept inspecting him.

"... Are you worried about me?" he asked. She did not really answer with more than a guilty glance off to the side. "Your worry is misplaced. I am nothing out of the usual."

Violet almost gave a grumbly noise. So he wasn't going to break through his perfect face so easily, huh?

"Okay", she said, tone almost as if she didn't really care. "You know, because I feel kind of exhausted."

Lucifer was hesitating. "... Explain."

"We've been running around for hours" Violet began to list. "The music inside is rather loud, especially near the dance hall. Mammon keeps causing trouble... Well, not only him. It's always tricky dealing with an angry Satan, too, or Beel when he's hungry, or with Asmo when he's... horny..."

The demon interrupted her by giving a huff. He had seen through her plan.

"... So you've come to pity me? Do I seem that weak to you?"

"What? No!" she exclaimed. "I would never think of you as weak!"

She made a little pause. A little nervous, she stretched out her hand to link her pinky finger with his.

"But I... Also don't think it's a sign of weakness to share your exhaustion with others... Let alone to be exhausted in the first place."

His crimson eyes met hers.

"... Why would I be exhausted?" he mumbled. "Dealing with this scumbag of a brother, keeping Beel from illegally eating food supplies without paying for them... Asmo groping strangers, Satan mocking me on purpose... Levi clinging to my side, whining that he wants to go home like some toddler... Oh, did you know Belphie locked himself in one of the toilet stalls to sleep? For two whole hours?" he was waiting for her to laugh, but had to endure her worried expression. "And then there's Lord Diavolo... Mixing his own sparks of crazy into this chaos..."

Mumbling the last part, he looked down on his clothing... Or rather the places where he normally would wear some.

Then his head perked up again.

"Why should I be exhausted?" he asked again. "All that is... Nothing out of the usual..."

Violet's lips curled into a sad smile.

Now she placed his whole hand into her palms.

"You work really hard, Lucifer."

He tried a cheeky smirk. "Words of flattery won't be enough to convince..."

But Lucifer's voice trailed off.

One could even debate that his mouth fell open just a slight bit, seeing the look Violet gave him.

So warm that it truly caught him off guard...

As if admitting his defeat, Lucifer went silent.

He enjoyed how her thumb gently brushed over his hand for a while as he was taking breaths of the fresh midnight air.

Violet was patiently waiting for him until eventually, he would speak up again.

"Aren't you cold?" Lucifer asked. "Your human body surely isn't used to the temperatures of Devildom nights..."

"Huh? No, I'm fine, don't worry about me."

"Oh, surely you are..." The teasing tone in his voice was back. "And I'm sure your outfit is only helping, isn't it~?"

He shot Violet some obvious glances, leading her to instinctively cover her body in a blush.

"Like you're one to talk...!" she mumbled.

"You got me there..." he chuckled. "I would lend you a jacket if I had one, but..."

Lucifer silently gestured at the arm sleeves, shrugging in a manner of "nothin doin".

He got a laugh out of her, and his relief immediately showed on his face.

"Your smiling face will have to keep me warm, then" he said.

Violet's smile turned into a blush immediately.

"Oh~?", he smirked. "A blush is fine as well, thank you~"

Struggling, Violet turned away slightly, trying not to embarrass herself even more.

Then, she felt arms being wrapped around her.

"However, I fear I have to take responsibility for keeping you warm as well..." he murmured close to her ear. "After all, it is my fault you have to sit here..."

The girl turned, and wrapping her arms around him as well, nuzzled her face into his warm skin.

"It's not your fault", she replied softly. "I chose to come and find you."

"... I still don't understand why."

"I told you" Violet smiled. "There's nothing wrong with taking a break from time to time. And if I, in any way, can help you with that, I'd love to do so."

She heard him breathe softly as he was searching for a response.

"... Thank you", he decided to say.

She squeezed him tightly. "You're welcome."

"...Stay like this for a little longer" Lucifer asked of her when it felt as if Violet was trying to pull away.

Of course, she agreed, and so they relaxed into each other’s embrace for a little longer.

Without meaning to, over time Violet's arms were sliding down his body a little, just enough to accidentally brush over something fluffy with her fingertip.

But, oh well, who would even mind gathering points for some silly game when there was something -- or rather, someone else to focus on...

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

They only parted after Lucifer's phone pulled them back into reality.

Sighing, he announced the end of their break.

"I'm glad we are closing soon..." he mumbled and helped Violet stand up. "Although, cleaning the place will probably leave us with another hour of work until we finally get to head home..."

"It will be exhausting… But we'll power through it" Violet assured, squishing his hand in encouragement.

"Yes..." Lucifer nodded.

Then, he pulled her closer one last time, wrapping one arm around her waist while looking down into her eyes.

"However... I would much appreciate it if we could keep our break a secret."

"Uhm..." the girl blinked, confused. "Sure, but may I ask why?"

"No reason in particular... I would simply ask that as a personal favour."

Then, he leaned in closer. Resting his chin on her shoulder, his hand reached to her lower back.

And Violet gave a gasp as she felt how he provocatively played with her bunny tail.

"In return, I will keep your secrets safe, too."

He pulled back, responding to her dazzled expression with a sly smirk, before passing her to open the door.

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

Being the gentleman he was, Lucifer held the door open, smiling at the lady as he gestured her to step inside.

"Thank y..." Violet was about to say,

Then both of them looked inside the kitchen.

Beel stood there, together with Clover, both giggling as they snacked on some sweets.

Violet wanted to smile at the sight… But the "shit, we got caught" expression on both of their faces, paired with Lucifer's tangible anger, made her frown instead.

"... Oops" Clover and Beel pressed out, simultaneously letting go of the meringues they had in their hands.

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

To understand how that situation came to existence, we should go back in time to take a look at Clover's side of the story.

She was cleaning the tables when yet another giggle pulled her out of her thoughts.

The girl felt tired, and had started to count down the minutes left until she could finally go home.

She was really done with life. And those certain giggles made it only worse. She would admit that she wasn't good with things like jealousy.

She just couldn't deal with it.

Not in a way like Mammon, for example, was expressing his tsundere feelings.

No, her way of coping was more... Self hating (like Levi I guess),

And hearing for yet another time how some hot demon girls called a certain waiter over to them drove her insane.

"Do you want to try my cake, Beel~?"

Clover flinched.

She peeked up to see how a demon caressed Beel's arm as she waited for his answer to her question.

Clover couldn't see his face, but, judging from his tone, he was wearing his usual frown.

"... I'm not allowed to eat the food we serve..."

"Oh, don't be like that..." The demon responded, loading some cake onto her fork. "It's my cake now, so I decide who gets to eat it. And I really want yooouuuu..."

She stopped, then one of her friends giggled.

"Are you going to finish that sentence?"

"It's already finished", she purred, seductively winking at Beel before leading the fork up to his face.

Beel was hesitating, for two whole seconds, before chomping down on both, cake and fork.

"Oh... Not again..." He mumbled.

The girls gave a giggle.

"Beel, you're such a beast!" The main (bitch) demon hummed. "That's no good, though... I wanted to feed you another bite, but how, without fork...?"

"Guess you´ll have to do mouth to mouth feeding...", Another chick chuckled.

And as the demon girl stood up to do exactly that, Clover stomped away impulsively.

In her fury, she didn't notice how someone was calling for her. She targeted the table in the most opposite corner possible as someone pulled her arm.

Belphie was staring at her, holding her by her wrist.

"... You're pathetic" he said.

"Thank you, tell me something I don't know yet." Clover pulled her arm out of his grip. "And, what, you've got nothing better to do then watch me be pathetic?"

Belphie blinked in surprise. “I would usually agree that it´s pretty funny to watch you get angry, but I´ve seen you be like this all night. What´s getting you this agitated?”

A deep frown spread on her face, but Clover didn´t answer. So Belphie looked back to Beel.

“Is it because of the succubi? Because of Beel?”

“… Please, leave me alone…”

She didn’t see his worried expression as Belphie was trying to figure the answer to his question.

“… Are you really this insecure?” He finally decided to ask.

As her only response was a short side glare with wet eyes, Belphie understood she wouldn´t talk about it.

“Really… Both of you can be such a pain to deal with…” Belphie breathed before leaving Clover alone.

And Clover felt even worse now.

Not only being so horrible inside, but Belphie tried to help her and she rejected it.

She fought tears as she furiously wiped the already clean table.

Pathetic. Yes, she was so pathetic. Honestly, Beel was probably in better company with those succubi than with an idiotic, childish human like her-

Clover got lifted off of the ground.

Squealing, she noticed too late how arms had wrapped around her thighs, leading her to now flail in the air in panic.

"Wh-what?!" Clover panicked.

"It's time for a break" She felt the culprit cheering into her back.

"... Beel?"

Beelzebub began to head through the local, the girl still in his arms.

"Let's go to the kitchen" he said. "Belphie just told you need a break, and I need your help with something..."

Clover gave some more confused noises, but it was impossible to move in the demon's grip anyway.

"O-okay, but... You don't have to carry me, I'm probably heavy..."

She felt him chuckle. "Heavy? I can carry you with one arm. Look!"

He stretched out his right arm to demonstrate. Beel led them into the kitchen.

The local wasn't serving any food at this late hour, so they appeared to be alone here.

"U-uhm... Beel, are you going to put me down somewhen soon, or...?"

"Yeah, soon..." he mumbled, then walked up to one of the shelves hanging on the wall. "Do you perhaps see anything on top of the shelf?"

Clover tilted her head.

"Yeah, there's a box of... What's that...? Meringues?"

Absolutely delicious meringues!"

Clover gave a little chuckle at the excitement in his voice, but her expression did a full turn when she saw the note attached to the box:

'BEEL. DO NOT EAT.'

"Could you get them for me?" Beel smiled innocently.

The girl hesitated, so Beel asked again. "Please, I can't reach them alone. The shelf is up too high."

"Well... I'm guessing someone hid them there on purpose..."

"Please, Clover... I'm so hungry..."

But as he realised she wasn't going to hand him the box that easily, he let her down to rest on the counter they had been standing in front of.

"Beel, I know you're hungry, but..." she began, however halted as she noticed how terribly tired he looked.“... Are you okay?"

The demon gave a little sigh. "No... I'm exhausted... Not like after training, but just... drained." He leaned against the counter next to her. "What about you? Aren't you tired? Have the customers been nice to you?"

"Huh? Yeah, they have."

"Good" he nodded. "We were afraid that some of the guests might harass you or Violet, but I guess Lucifer's official warning was enough to scare them off..."

Clover fiddled with her fingers.

"There was no need to worry, though. I don't think anyone would have approached us… or me, at least" she said, laughing awkwardly. "I don't have a fair share of people crushing on me like you, hahaha..."

Beel looked at her. "Good. You don't need any demons trying to seduce you. I wouldn't want you to go through a hassle like this..."

"... You don't like the attention?"

He shrugged. "Not really... But I have to be nice to them, so I tend to just ignore what they say. I won't say no to free food or extra money, but... I don't really see why they behave like this."

Clover chuckled, feeling relief at his words.

"Diavolo already said it... Good-looking staff makes more profit."

Beel blinked at her, processing her words. "... Thank you."

"Nothing to thank me for" Clover smiled shyly.

He went silent.

"No... No, there is", Beel then suddenly said, pushing himself off the counter to stand in front of her again. "I've been hit on the whole evening, but... somehow, it feels nice if you're the one to compliment me... You always make me feel nice inside. And for that, I should thank you."

He blessed her with a smile that, obviously, was directly followed by the girls' heart exploding in the love she felt for this man.

However, he still gave off odd vibes.

"...Beel?" Clover called out, seeing how he was deeply contemplating something.

"I was thinking of thanking you with some... Meringues" his smile widened.

"... Beel."

"They're supposed to be delicious! I could feed them to you... If I manage to contain myself. But I'd try really hard, because it´s for you.”

"Beel..." Clover sighed, watching as his puppy grin spread on his face more and more.

"Wouldn't that be nice to feed each other a nice treat...?" he changed into begging puppy eyes.

They stared at each other.

"Beel."

"Clover?"

"We both know you have wings, or could have simply climbed onto the counter if you wanted to get those sweets."

"... But I wanted to share them with you...?"

"We also both know how Lucifer tends to cast spells on the things that you are absolutely not allowed to eat. But those tend to apply to demons only most of the time."

Beelzebub went silent.

"What was that earlier?” Clover continued. “About you not wanting me to be lured by demons? And now, I find myself sweet-talked like this?"

His face had ultimately changed into sulking puppy mode.

"... But I... I'm... I really mean what I said…"

Clover crossed her arms.

"You're a sly demon, mister" she scolded. "And to think you'd take advantage of me like this...!" She fake cried in disbelief.

"I'm sorry..." he pouted.

Silence came over them, in which Clover fully knew that he was thinking of both, how to make it up to her AND how to achieve his goal anyway.

His idea surprised her, though.

"... Want to touch my bunny tail?"

"... Huh?"

"I've seen you and Violet do this to the others" Beel said. "I don't why, but you seemed to have fun, so..." He turned around to expose his tail. "AND I'll treat you with some of the meringues, of course", he added as he noticed Clover was seriously considering his offer.

Clover was grunting something. "Lucifer will kill us", she said.

"He doesn't have to find out."

"... You're evil..."

"Well, I AM a demon, after all" Beel laughed.

And as he teasingly wiggled his tail at her, Clover gave in to the temptation...

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

"Beel... Clover... Would you care to explain what I have to look at right now...?"

Lucifer crossed his arms as he spoke.

Yeah, they were SO screwed.

"... Uhm..." Beel started to mumble while Clover felt her stomach turn in guilt.

"Beel" Lucifer called out again. "Could those be the meringues that I have personally bought and reserved for me to enjoy after work?"

"... There was no name written on it" the avatar of Gluttony said.

Lucifer pierced him with an angry stare. Then he turned towards Clover.

"And you" his tone had the girl shiver visibly. "Demons were unable to touch that box. Hence, I assume it was you who got them? AND ate them, as well?"

"I forced her to do it" Beel immediately chimed in.

"Huh?” Clover blinked in surprise. "Beel, no... I got them! And asked Beel to try them with me. It's my f-fault" she lied.

Now Beel was the one to look confused, and the two kind of drowned in a spiral of trying to protect the other one. But the ruckus only fueled Lucifer's displease.

Already stressed out, he felt like he was about to explode.

If not for Violet who kept him steady.

"Lucifer" she mumbled in a mellow voice, stroking over his arm in a calming gesture. "Don't stress yourself. They will buy you a new package."

Lucifer shot her about the same angered glare as he had done with the others, but softened as he mustered her comforting smile.

With a sigh, Lucifer stepped closer to Beel and Clover.

"... You are lucky to have Violet standing up for you..." he mumbled. "As compensation, I order three boxes of those meringues. Oh, and when we close the bar, do not expect to leave until everything is as tidy as can be."

"Y-yes, sir...!"

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

Slowly (very slowly I know) but steadily, the evening came to an end...

A lot has happened, way too much to fit into this... One shot... Story... * glances at the total approximate reading time of one hour*

...Well. Let's not talk about that...

A little after 4 AM, every last customer had left the bar/ had been carried out of the dancing hall (like, a few of the most drunk ones literally had to be yeeted out of the local.)

Now everything that was left was cleaning up the local.

Lucifer took it upon himself to punish all of his brothers - and Clover - for annoying him at some point during this event. So those appeared to have an extra load of work, while he pulled Violet aside with him for some more leisure cleaning.

Around five in the morning, it seemed like the bunny crew was finally finished.

"Alright..." Barbatos mumbled, stepping out of the last hall he needed to check. "It seems we are done. All that is left is to take out the trash as we go."

"... How are we supposed to take out the trash? Mammon is still tied to the ceiling" Belphie mumbled casually.

"WHO DID YOU JUST CALL TRASH?!" Some Mammon screamed from the staff's room.

Clover mustered them in amusement, when Violet walked up to her.

"Ooooh, Clooveerrrr...." the girl hummed in a rather... Scary tone.

"... I don't like the look on your face" Clover stated in growing fear.

"You know... We still need to see who's won the challenge" Violet grinned.

Clover crossed her arms. "... Do we really need to compare?"

"Yes."

"Uggghhh..." Clover frowned. She pulled out her phone:

-------

Clover: Lord Diavolo? May we ask how many points you have?

Diavolo: I managed to gather 12 points, fair and square. How many do you two have?

Violet: I have 20 points in total... Although I'm not 100% sure if Lucifer noticed me earlier...

Clover: ...

* Clover has left the chatroom *

------

"Violet, I don't want to do this."

Clover's friend mustered her with a smirk.

"Well..." Violet hummed. "I'm not forcing you, but... You did loose, after all..."

"Violeeet..."

"And look" she pointed at the hall in front of the dressing rooms. "He's standing there, alone, for some reason... It's fate, Clover."

Clover gave the ugliest growl.

But in the end she walked up to Solomon.

She didn't even know how to approach this. Should she try to make it sneaky, or just awkwardly ask?

Legs wobbly, Clover came to a stop behind the sorcerer, reaching out her hand in the same moment that he turned around to face her.

"Oh, hello", Solomon cheered. "Can I help you?"

She flinched backwards.

"Uuhhhh..."

Solomon gave her a confused look, but didn't get to say anything.

Coincidentally, Levi happened to walk up to them as well, wanting something from Solomon.

The human turned around as the two talked.

And finally…

Solomon's bunny tail got touched.

...

Clover escaped immediately. Avoiding any kind of interaction, at all costs.

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

The last thing to do before everyone could return home was getting dressed normally again.

And everyone felt so tired that they really just wanted to hit the hay, when...

A panicked scream rang out of the stall Clover was changing in.

"... Clover?" Violet called out, already dressed normally again.

The girl gave continuous panicked noises, pressed out random “What is happening-?!”´s.

Then, all of a sudden, silence came over them.

“Cl… Clover…?” Visibly concerned, Violet was standing in front of the stall´s door, unsure what to do. As she didn´t get an answer, she was trying to open the door, but it was locked.

She had to hurry to get someone to help, and as her face screamed “we have trouble”, most of her friends came to look what was going on.

Barbatos had to help open the stalls door, and when Violet carefully pushed it open…

They saw a small, brown bunny sitting on the floor.

Its green eyes were staring up into the countless pairs of puzzled eyes as they tried to understand the situation.

Violet was the first one to move again. She slowly lowered herself, reaching out to the animal.

“Is that you… Clover?”

“HUH?!”

Half of the people there stared at the girl in disbelief.

“You´re telling me THIS is CLOVER??” Mammon asked with big eyes. Violet had picked the bunny up and stepped out of the stall to get a better look at Clover.

“What happened to her?” Beel asked, worry spread over his face.

Bunny Clover seemed to understand their words. Or at least, she suddenly turned her fluffy head, staring directly at Solomon.

And, well, the sorcerer stared back, an amused smile on his face.

"Ah... So Clover DID touch my tail, after all!"

"... What."

The whole group was now demanding answers.

Solomon chuckled, placing his gaze on Violet now. "I was waiting until one of you would finally approach me and touch my tail... But oddly, none of you seemed to have interest in touching it... I thought I had made myself an easy target, but I must have made it too obvious..."

Violet´s mouth fell open a tad bit.

"... So you really knew of our challenge?" She dared to ask.

But Solomon would only continue to laugh.

"I honestly thought my efforts would go to waste..." He mustered the bunny in her arms. "Don't worry though, the spell will wear off eventually."

"Eventually??" Levi repeated.

"Yes, in a few days or so."

"WHAT?!"

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

The whole way back to the house of Lamentation, Violet had to deal with this grumpy, pissed, simply angwy bunny in her arms. Clover couldn´t speak, but the little facial expression she could give said it all.

“Hey, Cloverrr…” Violet attempted to cheer her up. “Don´t look at me like that… It was fun, wasn´t it?”

Bunny Clover snuffled grumpily.

Yeah, yeah, she thought. It´s all fun and games until it´s about Solomon.

Meanwhile, Bunny Clover had to endure how the brothers kept poking her fluffy fur or took pictures of her.

If she could, Clover would have given a big sigh.

THIS is exactly why I don't trust Solomon... Never did, never will...

[nightwingmyboi]

I'll always remember Devin Grayson as the woman who wrote Nightwing getting raped by a supervillain and then tried to pass it off as "wasn't rape, just nonconsensual"...which is LITERALLY THE DEFINITION OF RAPE, YOU HACK!

MSL: Male rape is a topic rarely touched on in comics. Why is it suited to bring it into Nightwing?

DEVIN GRAYSON: For the record, I’ve never used the word “rape,” I just said it was nonconsensual (I know, aren’t writers frustrating? *smiles*) [x] 

Yeah there is no other word for what happened in Nightwing #93 other than rape...I can’t imagine why she would say otherwise. She did technically apologize, but that was ten or so years later. So she eventually, finally did come out and just admit what everyone already knew, but she was still way too late to actually fix any of the damage she caused with how she completely mishandled things. I also don’t think her little apology begins to cover all the issues I have with her. 

Devin’s characterization of Dick is just so, so freaking twisted to me. Really, I don’t think there is a Nightwing writer I despise more than Devin Grayson. The interviews I’ve read from her give me the creeps:

DG: The way I think about him [Dick], he likes everyone, he’s sort of a contact junkie - just this incredibly physical (and attractive) person who lives wholly in the corporeal plane and responds with - processes things in - his body before his head or heart. I imagine that he can be hypnotized by a touch the way other people can be stopped dead in their tracks by the sight of money or the promise of true love. I think he likes kicking and kissing in almost equal measure - except kissing edges out ahead because you can do it for longer and it leads to nicer things. [x]

Yeah that’s fucking unsettling. This is Devin being gross and projecting her sexual fantasy’s onto Dick. And she very much invented this extreme view of Dick as obsessively physical. Pre-52 Dick was always written as a master strategist, an unparalleled leader, one of the best detectives in the world, outside of Devin’s writing. Her fantasy version of Dick doesn’t mesh with that...Dick wouldn’t be capable leader if he’s “thinking with his body” (whatever that means) all the time. He’s survived this long because he’s intelligent and logical. Frankly, Devin’s take on things doesn’t even make any freaking sense. But it gets worse: 

DDG: I’m writing a novel for WB right now that he’s in and I have one scene where Batman has to stop a fight before it gets out of control, and most of the people he can just yell or glare at, but with Dick, he just stands really close behind him and Dick freezes. That’s not supposed to be a sexual thing (though it is kinda hot! ::laughs::), it’s an understanding on Bruce’s part that his physical proximity will speak just as quickly and loudly to Dick as his voice, maybe even be processed faster.

What the actual fuck. You’ve probably guessed it based on how that little scenario played out. Devin ships Dick with Bruce. 

DG: And now think about being a very physical and naturally gregarious and loving person and growing up with someone like Bruce. Then add in the confusion about his status - a “ward” is something you stop being the minute you turn eighteen. Having already lost his parents and then hurling into adolescence at the speed he did...in my personal version of the story, he develops sexual desire and social anxiety about the future at the same time, and this leads to tremendous confusion, on his part, about his role in Bruce’s life. He can’t be a ward forever, in the back of his head he knows he won’t be Robin forever...what is he to this man who is at once his best friend and personal savior, personal god? “Son” is what they eventually settle on, but I think when Dick was in his late teens, the idea of “lover” must have run through his mind (which means, really, as we’ve already discussed, it ran through his body).

Wild that Dick is usually written as incredibly intelligent and emotionally cognizant (was able to puzzle out Damian’s complex motivations and needs when no one else in Damian’s life could for example) and yet Devin thinks he’s not able to sort out that he’s not supposed to make sexual advances towards his father. And by wild I mean stupid as fuck. And, just fyi, Devin goes with the version of events where Bruce took Dick in when he was eight years old! So he’s pretty fucking young when this is all happening! Just when you thought it couldn’t get more disgusting. 

Eventually, much later, Dick gets distracted by other relationships and is able to ease up enough on Bruce for Bruce to relax into his own comfort-level of kindness and affection again (once the threat of sexuality has been removed) and they carry on more or less unharmed. But the relationship remains incredibly powerful and intense for Dick, who ends up feeling apologetic, rejected, and confused on top of all the other issues we already know exist between the two of them. Dick responds to Bruce - or really I should say Batman, since that’s who his relationship is with - on every single level.

So, according to Devin, Dick views Bruce as his “personal god” and is incredibly submissive to and possessive of him. That’s why Devin’s writing is littered with scenes like this: 

Gotham Knights #17

Where Dick acts incredibly awkward and “apologetic” about dating Barbara, because of how he previously made sexual advances towards Bruce in Devin’s fantasy world. Also with Devin, Dick spends a lot of his time stuttering every time Bruce is in the room, even though he’s usually a smooth talker, very chatty, and that’s because of the supposed “intensity” of Bruce and Dick’s relationship. And then there are scenes like this: 

Gotham Knights #18

Where Dick uncharacteristically and disproportionately loses his cool at the slightest insinuation against Bruce and is reduced to an angry hot head. Dick has been noted to be incredibly level headed; he’s also famous for being a mediator among the hero community...this behavior is a complete departure from the way he would normally act under other writers. Dick’s also been one to level plenty of criticisms towards Bruce himself. This sudden personality change where Dick thinks Bruce can do no wrong, where no one can criticize Bruce in Dick’s presence without him absolutely blowing up, where he suddenly can’t control his emotions over the littlest things...it really exists primarily in Devin’s writing. It’s incredibly OOC behavior and it’s rooted in Devin’s sexual fantasies frankly. 

Devin’s writing is also where Dick, despite being incredibly dedicated and monogamous in all of his previous relationships, suddenly became a womanizer. Literally, everyone was written as wanting to get into Dick’s pants: Rose Wilson was reduced to a giddy teenager because of Dick, random women in the streets would comment on how cute Nightwing was, a mob boss’s daughter who was only 15 years old was obsessed with Dick and made advances, Dick had a one night stand with Huntress because she reminded him of Bruce, Bruce called Dick “Hunk Wonder,” Dick undressed in front of fucking Deathstroke (and there was a newspaper with “Richard Wilson” on it as a sly little wink towards the audience), psycho vigilante Tarantula is obsessed with Dick to the point of raping him, the list goes on. If you want more samplings of how freaking disgusting and sex-obsessed Devin was when it came to Dick, look no further than her gross Inheritance book, where she ships Dick with everyone from Green Arrow to Aquaman (here are some quotes if you’re a masochist). And since Dick “thinks with his body” or whatever, Devin’d write him as receptive (or very oblivious) when it comes to this attention. 

Gotham Knights #10

Nightwing (1996) #107

Another thing that made me extremely uncomfortable is how Devin would always have strangers and villains, especially older men--people who Dick very much did not know and wouldn’t appreciate being in his personal space--be all grabby with him. Please leave him alone. 

Nightwing and Huntress #2

There Dick is, “hypnotized” in place by Huntress’s touch. Kill me. It is also especially messed up that Devin suddenly turned Dick into some sexual, warm-blooded hot head at the same time as she decided to introduce him as Romani. 

Q: How could him being Romani be used to inform his characterization?

It reinforces his “otherness” where Bruce is concerned in what I think is a useful, interesting way...It also presents the opportunity for there to be a slight chip on his shoulder, which maybe speaks to his scrappiness. It also maybe gives him a slightly deeper way to relate to someone like Helena--someone who is white but other--and gives the people who love (or lust after) him a potential cultural excuse for feeling as bewitched as they sometimes do. I also just love the idea of Bruce occasionally calling him “hot blooded” just to mess with him, because Dick would of course deny being so in an extremely hot-blooded manner. [x]

Her feeding into the fetishizing of biracial individuals is just disgusting and wrong. If there’s a racist stereotype available Devin really goes out of her way to make sure she includes it in her writing huh. 

Gotham Knights #20

And Bruce being a racist jerk is not charming Devin, it’s terrible. Barbara used slurs also, and was very dismissive of Dick’s reaction to Bruce’s actions...that was also horrible. It’s awful that Dick’s own family would apparently treat him this way. Obviously, Dick isn’t the only one that Devin would write out of character. 

It’s all just so messed up to me, I can’t stand it. When I first read her comics, even when it wasn’t blatant like above, I would feel something subtly off...and once I read her interviews I can’t help but notice these horrible underlying insinuations in all of her work, in so many seemingly “innocent” scenes. There are a lot of big things she’s known for (her horrible treatment of Dick’s Romani heritage and his rape for example) but all these subtle, insidious little details that people don’t even really register...they are equally frustrating to me. Seeing sects of the fandom pick up these details (like, the idea that Dick doesn’t understand personal boundaries, the idea that he’s a hot head, the idea that he’s a womanizer, etc.) when I know a lot of it stems nearly solely from Devin’s crappy characterization and writing of Dick...it’s hard. 

Q: Further to that, if Dick is gay, what kind of guy is his type?

DG: ...Type isn’t as important as passion and opportunity. Because of his psycho-sexual makeup, the other key factor would be a sense that he means something to that other man, that his “surrender” is making that man happy, allowing him to bring pleasure to someone (as he was never allowed to do for Bruce). There’s also a sense, if I may be so bold, of needing to be “caught” and “held down” - this going back to the trauma of losing his parents...being strong and passionate and heroic and virile and loving with a woman is fantastic, he lives for that. But he lost both parents. There is also a part of him that longs to be pinned down and loved a little bit savagely and hurt just enough to reassure him that he’s alive. Man, I’m totally gonna get fired when this comes out....

Literally makes me want to barf. That is supposed to be a professional, official writer at DC. Could go on forever. 

[mimzy-writing-online]

Hey!! I was wondering if you had any advice for a character concept I've been playing with? :) long story short, my character wasn't born blind, but throughout the story she progressively becomes blind from cataracts- cortical vision impairment to be exact. Is this inherently a bad concept? I really don't want to misrepresent this, and the last thing I want is to make people mad about it. Is there a way I should go about this? Thanks!!

Later message from same Anon: Hey! Just following up on my ask of writing a blind character in the Victorian era- sorry if I missed it

Note: in a message between the first and third, anon added that this story takes place in the Victorian era.

You certainly did not miss it, I’ve just been lazy (struggling) with blog maintenance and have been procrastinating answering several asks.  Historical fiction is out of my area of expertise, so this required more research than general advice.

Also, my first and second attempts at an answer were eaten away by computer/tumblr difficulties, so I had to rewrite a lot.

I think it is a fantastic idea to have your character go blind slowly over time. It is also ambitious, so it is something you need to be careful with, but it’s totally doable.

So the era throws me a little because I’ve never had much practice with historical fiction and history wasn’t a fave subject of mine. Most of my research into blind history has been after World War I, because the sudden surge of blinded veterans changed the course of history for the blind community. This and technology overall led to those huge changes.

So I did a little reading up on the recent evolutions of blindness and the world’s general understanding of it in the 1800s.

Conclusion: society was shit with disability, but I already knew that. There were some remarkable inventions and innovations for blindness in this century, which I will get to later.

 So this post will be: 1. The more personal aspects of going blind over time (instead of all at once) such as acceptance vs denial, life changes, and internalized ableism. 2. Speculating on society’s perception of the blind. 3. Innovations for the blind in that era and what comes after.

 So, part one. The Emotional…

As someone who has slowly lost vision over the course of years and has no idea how far this will progress, I can tell you that it’s an agonizing process of realization, denial, understanding, acceptance, adaption.

Realizing you’re going blind comes in small pieces that eventually add up to become a puzzle. And for this reason, adaption follows a similar pattern.

You identify a problem, feel conflicted about this change, wonder if you should ignore or investigate, and regardless of which path you take, you find a new way to adapt.

I’m going to use an example of my process through this, so you can see the actual thought patterns and how they circle between “this isn’t a problem” – “wait this is a problem” – “no I’m fine!” – “this is a problem.” – “I’m fine, what am I complaining for” – “I made this change and now my life is 100x easier??? Who knew? Why didn’t I do this sooner?”

Example from my life: Light is bright. That hurts but I’m fine. I get sunglasses. The pain with bright light is getting worse. Okay, that’s concerning, maybe I should talk to a doctor. Doctor says I’m fine but now I’m thinking I’m not okay. Why are my eyes doing this? Why do I hurt? Oh, and now bright lights at night are becoming a problem, and I get more headaches associated with light. I could wear sunglasses at night and indoors, but society has given me a negative and judgemental opinion of that, so I don’t want to do it. Best friend pushes me to give up on that negative view for the sake of my health. Finally I listen and life feels much better, but I’m still a little uncomfortable with this change. I feel very blind with my sunglasses, but that’s the only way to not feel pain. And now I feel blind when I’m not wearing any light protection, but I’m in pain this way. What’s wrong with me?

And this is just my internal argument with sunglasses and light sensitivity, from age 17-22. On the other side is my struggle with “do I need a cane” from age 21-22, which goes like this-

It’s August and I’m walking through a semi-familiar but gigantic and ridiculously crowded park with a group of friends. It’s bright out and I need to wear my sunglasses. And now I’m realizing there is a dilemma. I can’t see. My sunglasses are too dark to see. But going without is painful and just as bad vision wise. BUT I CAN’T SEE! I’m scared, I’m going to run into someone or something, I’ll get lost or separated from my friends and not be able to find them. I can’t see curbs or pillars or people and the only thing keeping me safe is holding onto K, who knows my current vision situation when no one else does

And I think to myself- this day would be so much easier if I had a cane.

But I haven’t needed one before, and I don’t ‘normally’ need one. Just every time I go outside on a sunny day. I don’t need it all the time, so I can’t have one, I’m fine.

But these things keep happening, where I’m outside and terrified but I think I’m still “sighted” and my only problem is some light sensitivity and not-super-great sunglasses. My glasses let me see 20/20 (or they did, which they did not a year later) so I definitely don’t need a cane at all.

Young past self, you were so wrong. You needed that.

Eventually I had a breaking point when one year later I’m seeing 20/50 with best correction (so, by legal definitions I’m not even visually impaired yet) but I’m terrified of leaving my house and can’t travel alone and am a literal danger to myself because I can’t see and can’t tell people I can’t see because of social anxiety and internalized ableism-

And the breaking point was that I finally got seriously hurt because I was in a situation where I couldn’t see and wasn’t brave enough to ask my current company to be a sighted guide. That’s the day I ordered a cane, and when it came two weeks ago, I finally remembered what it’s like to not be so terrified for my life every time I left my home.

Your character will over time find problems with her daily life that she didn’t have before, and she’ll deal with each one individually, but with all of them will usually be a repeating thought pattern that is unique to her. It depends on her internalized ableism and society’s ableism (and that era is full of it) and accommodations available to them at the time (also not great).

She’ll solve each problem at a different point that may coincide with other problems and yet still seem like entirely separate problems to them. Like how I wouldn’t relate my need for sunglasses and my need for a cane at the same time because they felt like separate battles to me with their own timelines and similar but still different thought processes.

You will have to decide on a case by case basis what accommodations or accessibility she can have at that time.

 Society’s view on blindness:

It’s shit.

It’s not great now, in the world of information available at your fingertips. It’s desperately worse in history.

 (TW: abuse of disabled people mentioned -thoroughly- in the next two paragraphs)

Everyone with a disability was treated like shit. Sensory disabilities (Deaf or Blind or Deafblind people) and mental illness were treated the worst. There is historical religious persecution against them, saying that they were made ill by the devil or a vengeful God. Which lead to abuse. They were seen as helpless or unproductive, defective, and so were treated as burdens upon their family and society. Because of this, abuse from parents and family members was horribly common for disabled people. Disabled people were often left in asylums by their family members because they were seen as a burden, where there was usually still more abuse to come.

There are still children with disabilities who are abused by their parents, families, care givers, or any facility they’ve been placed in. The cases of abuse are less, but by no means over.

 Ableism in general is just rampant and it’s only cured through the distribution of information. Most people (today) have never met a blind person in real life, had a conversation with one. Through the internet they can find information, but in pre-internet and media eras I can’t imagine how much ignorance runs about.

Most people think blindness is something that only happens with old age, birth defects, or tragic accidents. Or that blindness is obvious in a person. Not the case, as we both know, but certainly a cause for many misunderstandings.

 This section is where the development of technology and understanding of blind people begins, but there’s still some ugly history involving abuse of the disabled to come.

Technology and History

 (TW: abuse towards historical disabled people in next paragraph)

In 1785 the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, the world’s very first school for the blind was established in Paris, France. It was opened internationally to children who society had previously deemed unteachable. Valentin Haüy witnessed acts of bullying and cruelty done to blind hospice patients and it inspired him to attempt teaching a blind beggar. He taught the boy to read through raised letters (because Braille was not yet invented). The school he founded could better be described as a trade school, because its primary purpose was to teach work skills like letter press and weaving (going back to Valentin’s childhood, whose family worked as weavers)

Due to criminal activity (he was labeled as a terrorist related to the French Revolution and was a member of the Panthéon Club) he was forced to leave the school in 1802. He later moved to Russia (1806) and began a new school upon the request of Alexander I of Russia.

(TW: child abuse mention in next paragraph)

After his leave, the school had a change in leadership and location, and subsequently quality. Sébastien Guillié became the new director and was later forced to leave because of the inhumane conditions of the facility and welfare of the children. Those children lived in a French Revolution prison that was refurbished as an asylum/school for their education. It was cold and dirty. They were kept in the dark, only allowed to bathe once a month, and poorly fed. This went on until 1821 when he was forced to leave.

Louis Braille (the inventor of Braille) was a student of the school until Guillié’s reign of terror.

The school was later moved to Boulevard des Invalides, and it remains there today. Information with this school is hard for me to access. It doesn’t have the prettiest history, so I can only speculate how much was left out of the books to save the school, and what information I could access is in French.

However, back to Braille.

Braille was invented by Frenchman Louis Braille in 1824. Before his invention, he was taught to read through raised lettering, and he concluded that raised lettering was impractical because-

1.       It is difficult to read, the letters had to be printed in huge font to be fully felt out and printed on thick paper.

2.       Thick paper means higher quality, more expensive. Larger font means more paper is needed for a single text.

3.       This made it inaccessible due to expense and the sheer volume of a text.

4.       If today’s Braille books are hard to access and giant compared to traditional books, I can’t imagine how inaccessible those raised letter books really were

 Five years later The Perkins School for the Blind was founded in America, making education accessible to blind and deafblind children, and this time it focused on reading and mathematics, more education than trade school.

Though it would not have been possible for your character to attend the school herself, it could be possible that she became acquainted with a teacher or former student of either school, who might have passed on some O&M skills to her or some not so pleasant tales.

Side note: the Perkins Brailler (a typewriter machine for Braille) was developed by a wood working teacher at the Perkins School for the Blind – in 1951, so not applicable to your character’s time period, but I didn’t know this, so I must info-dump

 This is before the eugenics movement of 20th century America, when the belief that people with “poor breeding” should be prevented from breeding. The eugenics movement targeted not only the disabled, but lower class and people of color.

  The white cane as an accessibility tool was not “discovered” until the 1930’s by Philip Strong, who painted his walking stick white to make himself more visible. This piece of history is a little flimsy in my opinion. Techniques are discovered and lost and rediscovered all the time. You can’t prove he was the first person to “wave a stick” in front of him to find obstacles.

But he is credited for making the white cane something that could be a standard identifier to tell people (moving obstacles) “hey, I’m blind, don’t hit me with your loud vehicle” and made a movement of other people getting white canes to identify themselves.

I very much thank him for it, seeing as I’m so sighted-passing sometimes. If white canes weren’t standard everyone-must-know-what-this-means sort of thing, I think people would just watch me “wave a stick” around and think I’d lost my mind.

(TW: suicide of disabled character mention in next paragraph)

So when you see something like in Downton Abby (season 2) when Thomas and Sybil are trying to teach a blinded soldier how to use a cane to navigate… it could be possible, something that actually occurred to some people then. Although, now that I think about it, that character killed himself by the end of the episode and that still upsets me.

Downton Abby got the period-typical ableism right, I will give them that. Both the internalized ableism as well as how strangers treat you, they got that right. What they did to their disabled characters still bothers me (i.e. death and cure subplots)

(TW has been lifted, you made it past.)

But with World War 1, there was a huge number of blinded veterans entering the world and that did make way for big changes in the world of blindness-

Within a few decades guide dogs were being trained, white canes were becoming a thing, Schools for the Blind were thinking, “hey, maybe we should teach adults these skills too!” and life continued on until it eventually reached out modern world. Which, not applicable to your era, but I think it’s important to know what wasn’t available or common knowledge for your character.

If anyone has other information about historical fiction, the Victorian era, and historical ableism and disability, please feel free to reblog with your input and I’ll reblog it.

As always, this post can be found on my blog through the tags: reference, blind character, historical fiction

[roswelldetails]

RNM 2x12 - Crash Into Me

EPISODE SUMMARY:

WELCOME TO CRASHCON �� As the town prepares for CrashCon, Liz (Jeanine Mason) and Max (Nathan Dean) attempt to piece together who may be behind a potentially deadly plan targeting the festival.  Elsewhere, Maria (Heather Hemmens) and Isobel (Lily Cowles) take drastic measure to learn more about the night Mimi (guest star Sherri Saum) disappeared, while Michael (Michael Vlamis) is forced to do someone else’s bidding.

DETAILS:

Max is secretly practicing with his powers.  Was Max's "light cardio" actually just him trying to strengthen his powers?

Max has a land line. Hee. Which Liz doesn't mind answering for him.

Liz is looking for a pen on his desk when she finds the empty vials of the antidote.  Max plays them off as being leftover from when he had amnesia.

Liz mentions that the phone call was Max's bank calling to verify a deposit for him. 

Max is choosing not to worry about Michael because he and Isobel can feel that he's not badly injured or in serious danger.

Liz called Dirk:

"He said before she left she was getting nonstop calls from a 575 number. The Sunset Mesa facility where Mimi DeLuca lives."

"Wait, Mimi was calling your mom before the abductions?...Mimi was always obsessed with alien movies. Maybe fiction and reality are blurring. Your mom is working with Flint Manes who spent years making an alien-killing weapon while at Caulfield. What if your mom found out Rosa was killed by an alien? She'd want revenge."

Note: Max and I apparently think alike, because this was my assumption going into the episode as well. For the sake of detailing and not making this confusing plotline any more confusing...Max and I were both wrong. 

Also, I love that they mentioned cell service issues during Crash Con.  That is extremely realistic and makes a ton of sense, speaking from experience at like, concerts and baseball playoff games and such.

Maria gets Liz's voicemail and immediately confronts Mimi.

"I just got a message from Liz. Mom...when you disappeared, it was Helena Ortecho that took you...You didn't have butyricol in your system when they found you. You know Liz's mom. You'd remember if you spent a month with her.  Mom, are you covering for Helena?"

"Everything is going to be fine."

"I'm not fine. Alex and Michael are missing."

"Helena is a lot of things, but she won't hurt your friends. I'm sure… (Isobel walks in) You're the blonde. The one that Rosa was afraid of."

"Hi Mimi...I'm your cool Aunt Isobel.  Hopefully we can get to know each other under better circumstances sometime. Sure about this DeLuca?"

"Desperate times call for desperate alien invasions."

Isobel's first trip into Mimi's mindscape:

"Show me what happened the night you disappeared, Mimi."

Mimi turns to see headlights approaching. It's the hunting van. Helena is driving it. After they greet each other they talk in the van.

"I saw her. I saw her in a vision.

"I didn't believe you. I had to see it with my own eyes."

"You saw her.  You saw Rosa."

Flashback to Liz and Rosa arguing over Rosa's necklace in 2x01.  Just as a note, Isobel is in Mimi's head, not Helena's, so she shouldn't really be able to see this flashback since Mimi wasn't there when Helena saw Rosa.

"This is a good thing, Helena. Your daughter is alive. She needs you."

"When Jim Valenti was dying, I came home to say goodbye. He kept saying Rosa could live again, that she was preserved."

"But you didn't believe him. No one ever believes us."

"If Rosa is alive, it means Jim was telling the truth. Which means everything else he said could be true, like aliens are real and Jesse Manes has a weapon that can kill them. It means I have to go to war, Mimi. First, you need some shoes."

Then Mimi somehow kicks Isobel out of her memories, which gives Isobel a nosebleed. But Mimi doesn't seem to know what happened.  It's almost like she has a kind of subconscious protection on her own mind, somehow.

Note: the hunting van must not be Flint's, because Helena is driving it when she first considers teaming up with Flint, I assume based on the above.  Maybe she was the suspicious figure in Flint's house when Max and Kyle were hiding in the closet? And what about the car that Rosa blew up? Did she have access to multiple vehicles? Am I overthinking this?? Haha.

Kyle's tip to Max:

"I found this at Flint's, but it's from a florist my dad used when he was in the doghouse with my mom. I finally guessed the password today. Rosa's birthday. The only thing on it is a note my dad wrote to Helena. It's a lot of romantic crap followed by details for a storage unit he had up near Haystack Mountain."

Haystack Mountain is an off-road vehicle recreation area about 30 miles northeast of Roswell.

Michael working on the "bomb". Charlie is working on the toxin nearby and Helena is keeping an eye on both of them.

"This entire process would be more efficient if I could attach the release chamber to the other side."

"Ay, mijo. Now is not the time to get creative. Time is running out. Follow the blueprints exactly."

"You don't look like an obedient soldier. Who'd she take to force you to do her bidding?"

"A friend. It's complicated. Why are you helping her? Jenna's free."

"Flint Manes has a sniper rifle on the roof pointed at her bedroom window. If I step out of line and something happens…"

"You'll never forgive yourself."

"I'll never forgive myself anyway. Helena has me formulating a pathogen that I invented when I was 17.  It's a poison that dismantles specific DNA. If targeted your death is quick and ugly. A bleeding from every orifice kind of deal… I thought that I was saving people. Okay, imagine a weapon that you could drop into a populated city and the only people targeted would be al-Qaeda leaders and their direct descendants. Okay? In the right hands my weapon could prevent innocent civilian casualties and save our troops."

"I'm guessing these are not the right hands? Why am I building the bomb when the inventor is under Helena's thumb?"

"I do chemicals, not mechanics. And technically it's not a bomb. It's a catalytic toxin atomizer that was developed in a top secret operation involving weapons specialists from both the Army and the Air Force."

"Project Shepherd. One more question for you, Charlie. Whose DNA is that poison you're making gonna target?"

"Judging from conversations I've heard between Helena and Flint, it's alien DNA. Like, literal aliens."

This is actually the part of this story that's crystal clear to me. We've been getting tidbits on this dating back to 1x12, when Flint told Alex about his "smart bomb".  Jesse told Jenna in 2x04 about Charlie's toxin that could pinpoint specific DNA, and even used a similar metaphor in explaining it as Charlie did in this episode. The part that doesn't make sense to me is, why did FLINT need Michael to build it, if he developed the blueprints?

Liz and Rosa in the lab discussing Max taking the antidote.

"He's only supposed to take a drop when he has amnesia. It's not vitamin C. In high doses it could cause surges of adrenaline that could be dangerous."

"No offense, but you sound like a mom. Like a real mom, the kind who actually give a duck. Oh I just figured out what autocorrect is. It's hilarious."

"Speaking of moms, ours hasn't reached out to any of your old dealers and she hasn't shown up at any of the churches in town, so you got any other ideas?"

"It's CrashCon. We usually find her wearing the loudest t-shirts and flirting with the richest nerds."

"Yeah, but Flint and Jesse Manes hate aliens. I mean it's literally their only hobby. If she's with them, I'm betting she's lost her affection for the simple charms of UFO novelty kitch."

"Wait, if you were going to get revenge on aliens, CrashCon is the perfect place. There's all kinds of conspiracy theorists and press. You know how mom loves attention."

"You think something's gonna happen tonight?" 

"Papi is there by himself setting up. I think he should come home."

Note: my phone autocorrected duck to fuck. So I guess that tells you something about me. 😳

Also I just realized that for once ROSA and not Liz is the one who put the pieces together! Good for her. I wonder if that's purposeful since she's the daughter who is more like their mom? Like, she understands Helena's motivations better than Liz or something.

Steph and her father are going to CrashCon together. Kyle helps her with her makeup. Super sweet, but rather pointless since the scenes of Steph at CrashCon were cut. Mostly just including this here as a reminder that she's there in case it comes up in the finale.

Max and Cam, who got her job back!

"Thanks for the assist. I'm guessing that guard wouldn't let me through with bolt cutters unless I had an officer of the law present."

"Oh well, don't be jealous, Evans. Valenti has me on desk duty. So this little adventure is my lunch break."

"Valenti did the right thing, giving you your job back."

"Yeah well, you know, apparently some local bartender gave her reason to doubt the events the night of the gala were my fault. So I owe you."

"I've lost track of who owes who what at this point."

They break into the storage unit. It's empty except for an empty shelving unit, a locked chest, and a puddle of purple alien goo.

"What is that?"

"It looks like embryonic fluid. There must have been a pod in here."

Note: no, Max! Pod Goo evaporates upon contact with Earth's atmosphere/air. So it's not pod goo.

There isn't a super clear shot of inside the chest, but Max pulls out a love letter from Helena to Jim Valenti. I can transcribe it if you want me to. It's pretty easy to read and frankly, there's nothing important there. My heart is forever yours...it feels good to actually love and be loved in return...blah blah cheesy platitudes.

But seriously. Just send me an ask if you need me to transcribe it.  But I'm gonna skip for now.

Isobel is chugging acetone straight from the bottle in the middle of the Pony.

Isobel's second trip into Mimi's mindscape:

"Mimi. I know you think you're doing the right thing, but Helena is holding people hostage. We have to understand her motive."

"You all think I'm losing my mind. But I just...slip out of my time and into a different one every once in a while. Sometimes Maria's. Or Mama's. Other women in our future or past. I saw you when you were a baby. The sky was red."

"What can you tell me about your time with Helena? She had you for a month."

"We were in a motel. We watched movies. We laughed and gossiped. She wanted to trigger my visions...gather information."

"What information? What did you tell her? What did you see?"

"What's important is Helena will take care of our girls. I'm not afraid. That's enough."

Mimi kicks her out again.

"I tried.  She's fading."

"She's tired. It's harder when she's tired. Come on, Mom. I'm gonna take you back to Sunset Mesa."

"Maria, you just have to look for the signs in the water. You have to believe. Go on, you'd better hurry."

"Hurry where?"

"CrashCon closing night! You don't want to miss the fireworks. You always loved the fireworks."

Max and Cam going through the chest of letters back at Max's house:

"Okay, all these notes are from Helena to Jim Valenti. This is from the week Rosa died. I mean even 20 years after their affair she's still writing and he's still saving her letters."

"Pining after an Ortecho for years and years. It's so weird. Who does that. This is a receipt. It's a money transfer he made around the same time. He paid Daniel Fuller a thousand bucks."

"Fuller was the county coroner. Okay we still don't know how Noah got Rosa's body into the pod, right? But Jim had Project Shepherd connections to the morgue. So maybe if Noah knew about Jim and knew that he'd be grieving Rosa, he could have told him where to find the pod, right, and maybe he didn't even take the pod back until after Jim died."

"I mean, this is all a bunch of conjecture."

"Jim pulled me aside at high school graduation, he said I was the kind of guy the sheriff's department could use. Look, I mean maybe… I mean, he never let on, but maybe he knew I was an alien, right? Maybe he knew more than that."

"Okay, Evans? Breathe. You're looking a little clammy. What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"No. See, something's going on, and you're gonna tell me or I'm out, I swear to God."

"Okay you can't tell anyone."

"You know I won't."

"Okay, I've been taking this antidote that Liz made. No...she doesn't know. But its rebuilding some of my memories from before the 1947 crash, right? I was just a little kid, but I had a destiny. I had responsibilities."

"Right, you're the savior."

"Yes! Well, maybe. But I was starting to remember these symbols from our old language, right? I remember what they mean, but it's like the meaning is just out of reach. And I'm out of the antidote. And you know, Liz is getting suspicious. So…"

"No."

"I didn't say anything."

"Really? Can you tell that to your face? I am not using my friendship with your girlfriend to steal alien steroids for you. Okay? Our partnership has limits."

Michael and Helena:

"It's done. So now what? You inject my spine with your mind-eraser?"

"We only used the butyricol on Jenna Cameron because there was still work to be done. And Flint was afraid she'd ruin it for us. You told Flint Charlie was creating a toxin that would kill aliens. But if you wanted aliens dead, you'd be testing it on me right now. 'Cause that's what I would do if I was a criminal mastermind."

"I needed Flint for the schematics and the muscle. Our agendas didn't need to align perfectly."

"You don't have to do this. If you kill anyone tonight, Liz and Rosa will never look at you the same."

"That ship has sailed. Besides, I'm not killing anyone. If disaster never strikes, justice won't be served. Do you want to see Alex or not?"

Liz tries to get Arturo to go back to the Crashdown.  She tells him that the kitchen is backed up because it's so busy.  The interesting part of this exchange from a character perspective though:

"Papi, please. I have a bad vibe, all right? A gut feeling I can't shake."

Diego walks up.

"Who are you? Elizabeth Ortecho doesn't do feelings. She believes in facts and evidence."

"No, I do feelings now.  I've evolved."

Alex is chained up in the house.  There's a takeout box and coffee cup next to him. He's humming a song under his breath. Michael walks in and they talk.

"Guerin, you were right. They used me to get to you. My dad hit me over the head and then he swiped the piece of the console. And then Flint showed up with a gun to my head."

"Did anyone hurt you?"

"Nothing I can't handle. Helena's been weirdly motherly. She's bringing me clothes and meals."

"Your leg."

"Yeah they took the prosthetic. I tried to bludgeon my brother with it. Come on, use your powers. Get me out of this."

"Helena dosed me with something. I'm basically human until it wears off."

"Okay then find something that'll break the cuff or my wrist. I don't care."

"Alex, tonight at CrashCon, your dad plans to release a toxin that kills anyone with alien DNA...Helena made Charlie and I build an identical device, but one that targets a different DNA. She somehow got her hands on your dad's cells. She knows your dad killed Kyle's dad. She wants revenge.  But she wants him to take himself out. When he pulls the trigger on us tonight your dad's gonna die because of a device I built."

"No, that is not on you, okay? Now let me out of here."

"I can't. The atomizer will kill anyone in your dad's direct line. You are safer here."

"Are you serious?"

"And I gotta go. I'm gonna come back for you."

While Michael explains to Alex, we get a flashback to Helena in her totally fake blonde wig at the hospital in 2x02.

Helena disguises herself as Jesse's maid using her totally fake blonde wig and switches out the bombs while Jesse is in the shower.

The @ladiesofrnm have their first scene all together! (With Max...and eventually Michael…) reading through Helena's letters together. Michael makes quite an entrance. Afterwards:

"You're such an idiot! You don't comply with a kidnapper's ransom demands. Without telling me."

"Alex was in trouble. He had to go."

"Mikey, where are Alex and Charley?"

"They're safe. Your mom doesn't want to hurt them."

"Look I don't get it. Does she want to kill aliens?"

"No. She's avenging her murdered lover."

Back to the house where Helena talks to Charlie:

"This atomizer contains the poison that kills anyone with alien DNA. I need you to destroy it."

"Does Flint know that you have it?"

"Flint. Jesse really broke that boy. Some people were never meant to be parents. You can go when you're done.  The door's unlocked. Flint's rifle shoots blanks."

"What's to stop me from leaving now?"

"The knowledge that that deadly device only exists because of you. You decide. I'm off to CrashCon. I hear there will be quite a show."

Note, when Helena says Flint's name she says a word in Spanish that I can't make out and isn't in the closed captions.

Max and Liz's conversation about racism and privilege:

"I want to help. Your mom's not the villain here. All right? She's going about this all wrong, yes. But Manes is already a murderer. I mean, if he'd succeeded today…"

"I know...I could have lost almost everyone I care about in a moment. I remember every day what it was like to lose you and Rosa. I don't think I could survive that again. She could've built a decoy bomb that wouldn't have hurt anyone."

"He'd just get angry and do it again."

"Yeah, but he's not the only one that this would hurt. I mean, the headlines if she gets caught? Illegal Mexican Immigrant Slaughters Decorated American Vet via Bioweapon. People will line up to lay bricks at the border wall. But hey, maybe the president will talk about my family at his rallies. That's gonna be fun."

"That's not gonna happen. This will get covered up like every other strange death in this town."

"In case you haven't noticed those cover-ups don't tend to protect the Mexicans. Even when…"

"Even when Rosa died. You can say it, Liz. It's okay. It's fair. Rosa got blamed. White people didn't. Okay? I get it."

"I know you're on my side, but you don't get this. And that's not your fault, that's just the reality of our experiences. If I mess up. If I so much as roll through a stop sign, it reflects badly on any Mexican who came before me. And it hurts any Mexican who comes after me. I used to think that nothing would ever change that, but lately I think...maybe if something extraordinary happened it could."

"Extraordinary? Like what you're doing in your lab?"

"I've discovered something that could be the key to curing people who have no hope otherwise. I can't walk away."

"So you're gonna turn my family's stem cells into the hottest commodity?"

"No, I won't. I...we'll find a way to synthesize it or replicate it."

"Is this about the people you're trying to save or about becoming the poster girl for immigrants everywhere? You want the president to talk about your family because of you. Because you saved the world."

"If those in power see what happens when people are given opportunity…"

"You want the glory."

"I want recognition. I want to be the example I never had. And people who want glory, they're just in it for selfish reasons. People like Jesse Manes want the glory. He wants to be a big American hero. He wants the parades, he wants the medals. If he sets off his alien atomizer at CrashCon, a handful of twenty-something's will die of some mysterious ailment and it's barely gonna make the news. That's not what he wants. We're missing part of his plan."

"First, something violent. Large-scale that'll draw media attention. And then, once all eyes are in Roswell…"

"He'll blame the violence on the aliens. He only gets his parade if he makes people afraid and then he destroys the thing that they fear. If he makes people think that you're terrorists before he kills you."

Graham Green's reveal at CrashCon.  Graham is announced and takes the stage as Max, Liz, and Rosa arrive to find Michael, Isobel, and Maria nearby.

"Hey, you guys shouldn't be here."

"I was held hostage, Max. I deserve to ride the Sizzler until I barf cotton candy, and maybe watch a bad man die."

"You guys, we think that…"

Graham Green starts his presentation.

"Hello loyal fans and devoted supporters! You patience is about to be rewarded. Today I am thrilled, nay, honored to show you the result of years or painstaking work. The moment we've all been waiting for. Irrefutable extraterrestrial proof! A bona fide alien artifact!"

Graham pulls the curtain and reveals what appears to be something similar to Michael's console, only it is complete and intact.

Flint brings Alex food and they discuss Flint's motives:

"If you're doing this to impress dad, it is never gonna work."

"I'm not trying to impress dad. His shutdown of Project Shepherd was an inform decision, but he's trained me my entire life to take it on.

Flint goes to leave but Alex stops him.

"Do you remember when mom used to drive us to the res, and you would sit at the loom with Granddad? Weaving stories. When was the last time you made something, Flint? Anything that wasn't built to destroy?" 

"Around the time that mom decided that to leave dad, she had to leave us."

"She didn't know what he would do to us."

"He didn't do anything to us. Me and Clay are fine. He'll, even Gregory is coming to see dad today."

"...You are wrong. We are all dad's victims. Sure, he beat me up, but what he put the rest of you through was abuse too. He made you watch while he kicked my ass… He scared you into thinking that there was only one type of man that you could become."

Alex manages to knock Flint out, steal the key to his handcuffs, and free himself.

"You're so pathetic. You don't know me at all. This has nothing to do with dad and everything to do with our history. Aliens are a foreign threat. They're invaders."

Back to CrashCon, where the gang discuss the alien object:

"Alex's piece must have been the last one that Manes needed to finish building it. Where's he been keeping the rest of this?"

Sanders appears out of nowhere.

"Kid, I seen that thing before. Your mother built that back in the old barn. I don't know what it is, but it is definitely explosive. I always wondered what'd happened to the pieces."

"Maybe Harlan or Tripp Manes gathered them up. Rebuilt it."

"Yeah but if Manes is gonna use that to blow up CrashCon, it's gonna make Graham Green look like the bad guy. No one's gonna think an alien planted it."

"Unless they follow the money. I got an alert from my bank this morning. A $10,000 deposit had cleared."

"You think Manes set it up so that the investigation would lead to you?"

"If I become the world's first alien terrorist and he takes me out, the world cheers."

"Guys, you need to do whatever you can to get as many people out of here as possible, okay? Get help."

"Hey, where are you going?"

"Michael and I have studied this material before. It's part tech, but it's also part organic. And if it's part organic, that means it can be killed. I gotta get back to my lab."

Diego sees Max toss Liz his keys.

Max and Michael sneak backstage and convince Graham Green to let them have a moment with the alien ship thingie. Max takes photos of it with his phone.

"Do you think we can destroy it?"

"No. The pieces want to be together and now that it's complete if we break the bonds with brute force we risk a violent reaction."

Max hears voices whispering and reaches out to touch the alien tech. The alien symbol forms under his hand and he pressed it.  There's a surge from the tech and it almost appears like Max is absorbing something from it. The voices get a little louder. When he breaks the connection it almost seems like it takes effort and he seems stunned.

"What the hell just happened to you?"

"Nothing. I think this is a remote. I think this controls a ship."

"It's a what?"

Gif by @maxortecho

Note, the way Max laughs when he says nothing is oddly similar to how he responded to Cam when she called him out on his weird behavior from the antidote. Like he's hiding something or brushing off the worry or something. 

Sanders interrupts before Max can respond. Points out that the top of the stage is varnished which is highly flammable. 

"Wait, if this is fresh varnish, this whole platform is set up like a tinderbox."

"There's gonna be fireworks tonight."

"One spark'll light a fire. I mean, this whole thing, the whole platform will go up."

"If this giant remote goes kaboom aliens will be framed as terrorists. You have to get out of here."

"What? No. I'm not going anywhere."

"Max you are all sorts of worked up right now. What happens when you're worked up?"

"Sparks fly. Right, okay. Yeah. I'll go."

Before Max leaves he spots something on one of the display boards that makes him pause. He grabs it before leaving.

Charlie is working on her chemicals in the makeshift lab when Flint sneaks up on her and puts a gun to her head, demanding that she gives him the atomizer.

Maria and Rosa hurry through CrashCon discussing each other's alien biology and Mimi's vision. They spot Gregory Manes and decide to try to get him to leave since the Manes bomb would kill him. He has 12 kids with them so they suggest that he take them to the Crashdown for free milkshakes. He recognizes Rosa, but they tell him she's Rosa's cousin. 

Liz works in the lab while blasting Alanis Morissettte - great call back to last year when she told Michael that Alanis helped her channel Rosa's creativity. She says to herself:

"Destroy the organic cell membrane. Disable the nanotech." 

She mixes some chemicals which react and explode her flask and start a fire. Really don't know if that's supposed to represent success or not. 

Flint and Helena talk at CrashCon. She is surprised to see him.  He tells her that he cleaned up the mess at the house. 

We flash back to the house which is on fire.  Charlie is chained up and trapped.

Liz hurries from the lab and doesn't realize that Diego followed her there.  He sneaks his way into the building while Liz rushes for the car.

Speaking of cars...they're in the middle of nowhere. Where's Diego's car? I had the same thought last week when Max and Kyle were searching Flint's house and they almost got caught. Whoever pulled up in the hunting van should have seen their car!

Maria and Rosa are helping get the kids loaded onto a bus when Rosa points out Pisces to Maria. Call back to 1x03 when Maria tells Liz that she and Rosa used to compete to see which one of them could spot the constellation first. It gives Maria an epiphany. Pisces is "the water sign" which was one of Mimi's clues from her vision.  Maria goes to follow the sign. She runs into Max who tries to get her to safety. They spot Flint Manes carrying the atomizer. Max tells Maria to get out of there and hurries after Flint. He tries to sneak up on Flint, but Flint is able to disarm him and beat him up. Flint sets the atomizer to go off in two minutes and then throws it like a Hail Mary into the crowd. Max chases after Flint while Maria goes after the atomizer. She pushes through the crowd and spots another clue from Mimi's vision - a poster of aliens asking "Do you believe?" The atomizer is sitting below it. Maria grabs the atomizer and takes off running with it. Cam spots Maria and follows. 

Flint beats Max up again and then pulls a gun and threatens to shoot Max. Max disarms him and is holding the gun to Flint now. He laughs and asks Max if he's really going to shoot a soldier. Tells him that he already pulled the trigger to kill Max by setting off the atomizer. Max tosses the gun aside, and uses his powers instead to kill Flint,

Michael and Isobel are trying to keep the stage from catching fire, but then the fireworks start going off into the wind (which blows the embers towards the fair). The hay bales easily catch on fire. Isobel used her powers to hold back the flames.  She can feel that something is wrong with Max and send Michael to find him. 

Instead Michael finds Jesse and Alex. Their exchange: 

"You know, I actually started to believe that you had changed."

"You never could tell friend from foe. I actually counted on it."

"Hey I know exactly who you are. You were gonna let all of these people die and you were gonna let the aliens take the blame."

"It's high time they got blamed for something, I think. I'm gonna drag them from the shadows."

"Yeah and then what? You're gonna use the atomizer to kill them all? Then you become some hero by destroying the enemy that you created?"

"American children are gonna read about the events of tonight in their history books... And don't worry about collateral damage, son. That's just an unfortunate aspect of war. You know that better than anyone, Alex."

"You're gonna become your own collateral damage if that thing goes off. Helena Ortecho switched the devices. That's not gonna kill aliens.  That is set to destroy your DNA. If it goes off, you are going to die in a puddle of your own blood."

"What are you doing? Are you bluffing to protect the aliens?"

"What I'm doing is I'm trying to protect our family. Dad, if that goes off it kills all of your direct descendants. Flint and Greg are somewhere in here. And I don't care how much I disgust you, I am still your son!"

Greg runs up looking for help responding to the fire. He spots the atomizer and immediately recognizes it as a weapon. Alex tries to get him to leave. Michael runs up and Jesse pulls his gun on him. Greg steps between Michael and the gun to protect Michael for Alex.

Maria throws the atomizer off into the desert and immediately begins bleeding. Thankfully Cam is there to try to help.

Max kills Flint which in turn gives him another heart attack. Liz arrives as he's collapsing and starts CPR. Rosa runs up and tries to get Liz to let her step in to help Max so that Liz can stop the alien device from exploding… And cliffhanger.

MUSIC:

1.  Valley Queen "Chasing The Muse"

2.  The HawtThorns "Give Me A Sign"

3.  Everclear "Everything To Everyone"

4.  Alanis Morissette "All I Really Want"

5.  Gary Numan "I Am Dust"

[erismerald]

MY NEW ROAD - Chapter 1

» Older Daniel Diaz x reader 

» Warnings: mature, romance, blood, gang                                             

Chapter 2

» So i was hoping i could read something about daniel diaz, at the end of 5 ep, and as i was sick of waiting,  so i decided to write a long short about older daniel diaz, so let's go :)

And there I was, in this moment  i was terrified, I could I feel my blood coming out of my belly, it hurts a lot... I couldn't breathe, or think, to be honest I didn't know what to do... Who is he? Why is he here? For a few seconds i felt my body being lifted up.

" Y/N ? Oh please wake up... ahhh SEAN!!!!"

I recognized this voice, but I just let my eyes close, I felt my body fall asleep.

*A FEW HOURS EARLIER*

So HI!! My name is y/n, im 17 and right now I'm living on my own in Mexico, more property in puerto lobos.

I'm a very simple girl, I grew up in LA with my grandparents, I never met my parents, and during my life, my grandparents never told me about their daughter, they just told me that she had abandoned me when I was Little, and as for my father, they didn't know who she was, so I never really cared about that.

I've been living here for about six weeks,I study in a small americam school, near here. I'm loving living here I never thought, that a dream I had since I was little would come true so soon, I decided to live here, because I love Mexican culture and not to mention that living by the beach never tires anyone, and I still have the privilege of seeing the sunset disappear into the waves...

Since I was a child I was very shy and I don't know how to express myself to others anht this is the reason why I've not be able to make friends in this new school yet, I feel ashamed when they look at me or try to talk to me, it's complicated, however, I've always managed to make some friends in LA, people I talk to almost every single day.

it's already 7 am i think i should be preparing for school but i think laziness has won ahaha, I got up and tried to take as little time as possible, I don't want to be late again or Ms. Lopez will kick me out of her class again.

I was new to that school and it wasn't the first time I was late, which I can say I love sleeping, but I have to work harder to make sure that doesn't happen, and I'm going to start right now haha.

I tried to take as little time as possible, of course that for me it's kind of impossible, because, I still had to take a shower before going, but I think at least I won't be late this time, I look at the clock and OMG is already 7:50 and the classes start at 8:00, ahhhhh how will I get to school in 10... Afff so much effort for nothing, well at least I can still get to the beginning of the first class.

On the way to school, I saw him again... I think his name is Daniel, he's from my class but I never talked to him before, and to be honest, I never had the courage to talk to him, well... not only with him, I think with everyone in general, so far I haven't made any friends, except the lady from the apartment next door, and we only talk on Sundays, because we have the same way when we go to church.

  I think I've been looking at him too long... why do I say that? He's looking at me right now. I can't deny it he's beautiful... he's so mysterious, but from what I've seen of him, at school he's very fun, reserved, but fun.

I felt him staring at me, which made me completely ashamed, and my only option for not having to talk to him was to hit him and not, to look at him as I passed by, even with my back to him his gaze managed to make me feel a huge chill, but it's a good thing that I'm already arriving at school.

For real I didn't know what to tell him anyways.

When i arrived at school i came across Ms.Lopez on the way. And I think it was at this moment that I realized I was completely fucked up, I tried to go unnoticed, but without success.

And when I turned back I only saw her ferocious gaze directed at me.

"Miss l/n shouldn't be in class already. Preferably sitting at your desk waiting for me." - she looked at me with a deadly look on her face

"oh I finally find you y/n, thx for waiting for me, and here you have your Spanish book that you lent me." He looked at me and winked at me, so that I could continue with the theater.

"O-of course I do, Daniel, there's nothing to be thankful for" he stands next to me and takes my hand. And he gave me the book, I felt my heart go off a thousand an hour...When I lifted my face I saw his eyes glued on me, why did he protect me?

"Is that why you were late?" She looked at me and then at Daniel, I felt the anger in her eyes

"yes i decided to wait for daniel" i smiled at her, and i felt daniel put himself behind me

"Vamos, no te enojes con ella, maestra. Sólo fue esta vez (Come on, don't get mad at her, teacher. It was just this time .)" Daniel grabbed my shoulders and spoke, I saw Ms. Lopez calm her eyes and take a deep breath.

"Hum being so, i let you pass your delay this time you two have 5 minutes to introduce you in my class, and miss L/N thank the boy Daniel for helping her " his voice was calm now but his words were cold.

She continued on her way to the classroom, and I hear Daniel laughed

"You're welcome!" daniel said as my body moved, his voice was now hoarse, I sounded hypnotized by the voice of him.

"T-thank you for helping me." I tried to be short and quick in my answer. I was so nervous and idk why.

"let's go to class before Ms. Lopez decides to murder us, because we're late" daniel just went on her way but stopped 3 steps ahead of me.

"will have to pull you?" he laughs softly and throws a half smile, my heart, jumped a beat when i saw that smile.

"Y-yes" I just followed him.... When we arrived in the room each one sat in his seat, but for some reason, Daniel kept looking at me and it made me nervous for the rest of the time.

During the rest of the day, everything went as usual, except for the failed attempt by me to escape Daniel's gaze, I  don't know what he was looking for in me, but I think I managed to make him lose interest for a while. I think.

When I finally rang the exit bell, I was the first to leave for the first time, I didn't want to know anything else, I just wanted to get home and enjoy being alone.

When I walked through the school gate, I took a deep breath and tried to rearrange my ideas, how can something as simple as talking to a person make me so nervous?

I'll speed up the walk and look at the sky and then at the sea at the end of the street to calm myself down. I didn't understand what was going on this day but I just asked it to end quickly. Yeah, to tell you the truth, I've never had a boy look at me for so long, am I getting a crush on him? AHHHHH well  I hope not.

When I was almost at home, I felt a chill on my back and soon I could be able to realized what was happening....

"Are you trying to avoid me?" Not that voice, not again.

I turned slowly and there he was, did he follow me? When I looked at him I felt my face boiling with shame.

"Did the Cat eat your tongue?" he looked at me and laughed, and began to approach me.

I tried to ignore to not have to answer, I really suffered from many anxiety problems and did not know what to do in these situations.

"okay i got you, you don't want to talk to me don't worry" he looked at the floor and his cheerful expression went to sadness

"well see you tomorrow at school" when he was going to turn around and continue on his way i screamed

"WAIT"

He turned to me and smiled... OH God that smile was so sweet

"I thought you weren't gonna answer ahaha."

"I'm not ignoring you, or avoiding you...I'm just too shy to talk" I couldn't face his eyes so I just looked at the ground.

"Are you sure? I didn't want to get into it with Ms Lopez, but I knew if I didn't, she'd kick you out of her class" when I looked up I came across the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen.

It made me blush, involuntarily, I didn't know what to say.

"thank you...and it's okay, I'd be kicked out if it wasn't for you too, so thank you for helping me."

"You're welcome, I've always seen you being very shy with everyone and you don't seem to be the kind of person who would be late on purpose, well, I won't take up your time. See you tomorrow"

he said with a perverse smile on his face

"Oh and if tomorrow you want company for the school I can wait here for you".

I didn't have time to say anything else I just agreed and entered the building.

When I got home I lay on the couch, looking at the ceiling, trying to see what had happened, I didn't notice it, but I felt my body tired and ended up falling asleep.

"Daniel... Something about him attracted me...'

I opened my eyes very slowly, I looked at the window and it was already dark, I picked up my phone and turned it on, I had 5 unanswered calls from my grandmother, this was strange she didn't call me so often

I dialed her number and called...

"y/n honey is you?"

"yes Grandma, what's going on?  I'm sorry I was so tired that I fell asleep and didn't hear you call".

Without telling me anything else she felt like she was crying, but what happened to make my grandmother cry she hardly ever does, and when I say that she doesn't, it's because it's rare.

"Honey, I have something to tell you... Your mother is looking for you," those words left me unanswered, my mother?

No...

No...

Couldn't be, my mother abandoned me 16 years ago, for me she died... I started crying, that person who abandoned me 16 years ago, now its looking for me why? I had so many questions in my mind, I couldn't talk to anybody, I just need some time.

"honey are there? Y/n?" My grandmother called me...

"I'm sorry Grandma, I need to think a little, I'll call you later."

"darling no-" i hung up on her, i don't like to do this but i need time to process

I got up, grabbed my jacket and went out towards the beachWhen I got there I sat down on the sand, and watched the sea, and the waves coming at me, I didn't want to believe that my mother was looking for me, if she hadn't wanted me in 16 years, she wouldn't want me now.... Now I did not even want her back

At that moment I felt that I was not alone there, I turned around and saw a group of people coming towards me.

I got up quickly and tried to get out of there, but it was too late.

Fear sometimes makes us irrational, and at this moment I did not know what to do, I did not know how to react, I was scared, I felt one of the men grabbing me by the arms, and attached me to his body

"hey you, don't move so much kittens, let's talk"

The second man spoke and stood in front of me, and grabbed my face forcing me to look at him.

"so you're the Diaz little princess aren't you?" I wasn't noticing anything, I just tried to get away but without success, I wonder what would happen to me...

I tried to fight and I tried to let go, but unfortunately I only did worse, he pressed himself behind my back and won't let me go.

"Let's teach that boy a lesson, that's what he and his brother will pay to judge us dumb."

One of them pulled a knife out of his waist and approached me...

"NO PLEASE DON'T"

I started screaming, and crying madly, I was now completely scared.

At that very moment, I felt the blade pierce my skin... I didn't know what to do, I just tried to struggle

But when I turned my head, there he was, out of nowhere, the people around me were thrown away, I felt my body fall into the sand...

And there I was, in this moment  i was terrified, I could I feel my blood coming out of my belly, it hurts a lot... I couldn't breathe, or think, to be honest I didn't know what to do... Who is he? Why is he here? For a few seconds i felt my body being lifted up.

" Y/N ? Oh please wake up... ahhh SEAN!!!!"

I recognized this voice, but I just let my eyes close, I felt my body fall asleep...

But to be honest I felt my body warm, from this moment on, it just got dark.

_______________________________________

[chisanluv]

Schadenfreude (Overhaul/Kai Chisaki x Reader) Chapter. 1

Based in the movie Saw

I will post this chapters in Wattpad too!

( Please keep in mind that this contains explicit violence and gore. Also, my native language isn't English but I do the best I can ! )

------

The three tall men walked inside of 'The Casino's Life', one of the most appreaciated casinos in Japan, full of alcohol, cigarette and strippers. Some people were on the machines, while the other part was playing cards. The Yakuza boss from the group scoffed and ajusted his mask, the toxic air was enough to make him upset.

Not so far away from them, Shimasu Damasu (also, more known by the name of 'Card's Master') was sitting on a big but plain chair, surrounded by women and some men that had their faces red thanks to anger. He was pretty known because of his high status and 'good luck' with Casinos in the 'normal' life, while in the underground he would be one of the best people to ask for 'clasificated' information. His work wasn't cheap, thought.

He simply smiled after he had eye contact with some amber eyes.

-" You came pretty early, Overhaul. "-

-" I could say the same thing "- stated Overhaul, taking a chair in front of the table. -" So, how many information do you have about the new one ? "-

Card's just sighed, it was one of those weird occasions where he felt fear and danger about a new wanted person.

Three months ago, twenty-six people went missing in the same day; twenty were important people, both women and men. The other six were middle class people.

The problem was that all of them disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The first one that was noted was the most famous and important of all the twenty-six people, this man was described by his people as a selfish, ungrateful, cold and racist man. He would normally make racist comments and also offend many of his costumers.

The second one, was more pleasant at least. He was a layer, had good reputation and a really good life. The problem was that the infamous layer would always make his best to protest against homosexual people, and support pedophiles. Of course, he kept all of this in secret, but everything went to the light after his missing.

Most of the other missing people were alcoholic, thieves and drugs addicts. In addition of that, all the women in the list where prostitutes who worked in various casinos ( including The Casino's Life ). Obviously, this caused a huge impact, sending waves of terror in the city.

At first, the police and heroes that were working on the case thought that the kidnapping of the victims was for gaining easy money, but days after the incident there was no call or any proof that could hold the theory.

No investigator or hero had a clue, but afterwards of important searching the missing people's life, they saw a patron on it.

From star to end, all of them had done illegal things, 17 could be considered villains of low level but the most notable thing was how ungrateful and brats they were. The common sense hit the heroes like a truck.

The time was very curious, it went from exactly 7am to 6pm. It was like the kidnapper knew how many time would cost to the assistants or bosses to take note about their disappearance.

The case was extremely hard to pick parts and proofs.

After the news were spread, one man from the cell decided to speak. Normally, prisoners who want to give information would ask for a reward, but he didn't ask for anything, so it was like a plus to the police. The information given from the thief wasn't a lot, but it kind of helped.

The man who talked simply said that it was the kidnapper's fault of why his teammates were dead. Just because they tried to sneak up into their place for robbing some guns and knives.

Somehow, the base were this person keeps people had an 'air poision' that made everybody who smells it quirkless for 24 hours. Making everyone really weak, specially because many of them never went to train or cared about their strength, thinking that their quirks would 'keep them safe'.

After explaining many parts of the case, Damasu decided to make a disappointment face, it was the first time that there wasn't any explanation or description of the kidnapper.

But the worst part was when the Heroes found all the lifeless corpses of the missing people.

It was so disgusting.

Some of them didn't even have their faces or skin; You could literally see all the putrefact bones, flesh and organs that were cut and ripped apart from the bodies. Hell, one of them had all of his body intact, but his chest was stabbed 12 times and in his face, one of his eyes was out, with his mouth all wide open without any teeth.

Every single soul was disgusted. The heroes were literally speechless, frozen and scared, while the villains were quite surprised. Sure, they weren't good people but that was reallly repugnant for them. Never in their life they saw and/or heard such cruel and bloody torture. Just what kind of monster could do something so inhuman like that ?

It may be a coincidende, but half of the tortured and death people had a debt with the Yakuza. And that's why Overhaul got a little spark of interest in this new criminal.

Everyone was asking the same question:

What kind of quirk could they have ?

Because you obviously need help to do such torture.

Apart from that, the searching of this criminal was exahusting; no clues or good information were found. Obviously, many investigators left the case because there was nothing to do about but pray. Pray so this massacre wouldn't happend ever again.

━「₪」━

There you were. Sitting in your black chair, staring into the screens while you took a bite of your hamburguer.

Everything that you could see and hear throught the cameras was pathetic.

The heroes were discussing with the police about you, and how they must continue with your case.

How?

You used one of your last victims to hack into security cameras of the city and the police that was trying to investigate you. Sadly, the man didn't past your test and died in the process. Huh, he could have been a good tool but he wasn't good enough, so he getting a painful death didn't affect you. Actually, he deserved it, even if he passed the test he'd try to charge back at you with anything that he could find in your base and that would have end up with his blood everywhere, and you didn't want that.

Just the first time in a long time that you decided to open up a little and you got betrayed. Idiots. They got involved in your traps and ended up killing themselves.

Your work is pretty dangereous, thought. But you don't really need help in kidnapping other people, so it's better if you work alone.

But lord help'em

All people faces that you saw when they found the bodies were priceless. They are 'heroes', aren't they supposed to be used to see things like that?

The thought alone made you chuckle. If they can't stand that they won't be able for the next time.

You decided to select heroes in this round. The list is of only 10 people, but that doesn't matter. After all, they must experiment your traps and see if they are worh living or not. This time, you could take an assistant ! Of course, it can be impossible because they are of low level, but you'll teach them many things.

It was weird how people couldn't see from another point of view. Everyone had the same idea, that you were the one who killed them.

That was a horrible lie.

You didn't kill them. Actually, they were so deseperated to get out that they ended up killing themselves, such as stabbing, betraying each other and more things.

And it finished in their deaths.

Basically, or they get stuck/committe an error in your traps and kill themselves in the way, or they betray each other. Not even caring about listening your instructions.

Mentioning betray made you think about that guy.

He almost gets it. He scaped his first test, helped 3 other people but in his half way his teammates decided to use him. All because they didn't listen to the instructions.

You almost feel pity for him.

Almost.

What kind of trap could you use the next time? Huh, maybe the buckets are a good option.

Finishing your hamburger, you started to move with your chair that has small wheels between traps being worked on, broken dolls, and unfinished books, leading to your photo's section while you slowly hummed a sweet lullaby.

-----

I know this is short but this is just the prologue so yeah

Chapters will have between 3.000 and 9.000 word

I hope you like my story!

Started 20/July/2019

Finished 00/Month/0000

Next chapter: In progress

[dailyaudiobible]

02/28/2020 DAB Transcript

Leviticus 22:17-23:44, Mark 9:30-10:12, Psalms 44:1-8, Proverbs 10:19

Today is the 28th day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it's great to be here with you today coming to you from the holy city of Jerusalem where we…well…we spent the entire day kind of in and around the old city and…and all of the different things to see here in Jerusalem. Today will be escaping and going down to the shephelah, which is the lowlands for the day. So, that's exciting. It's…it's…it's beautiful to see the green lush open land again after being more in a metropolitan, kind of large congested area. So, that will give us a breather and get us ready for our final day of this pilgrimage tomorrow. So, let's…let's get into the Scriptures. Let's see what the Bible has to say to us today. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Today Leviticus chapter 22 verse 17 through 23 verse 44

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the gospel of Mark today Jesus is moving around the countryside teaching, doing ministry, doing what he does, and John comes to Him with this really, really interesting situation. He’s like, “we saw somebody trying to cast out demons in your name and we tried to put a stop to it because he wasn't…he wasn't one of us.” That is sort of the first rumblings of an issue that was…that was certainly going on among the Hebrew people but then bled its way into the early church and still continues until this very day. Even though Jesus spoke very very clearly from His own lips about how He saw it. So, like as believers, we usually kind of…we usually find a group, we might call it our church community, but we sort of find a group of friends, other believers and we…we stick together. And that's community. And there's nothing wrong with that. If we’re defining ourselves as believers in Jesus, we’re following the way, we are practicing our faith, knowing that we have not mastered anything, that…that we’re in process and that we’re walking with God and we’re walking together then we’re the body of Christ. It just gets weird once we decide we have to define precisely what that means. And then we get our theology books and start with our dogmas because invariably at some point we will think we have it right and someone else, some other group, some other people who don't see things the way we see them, they have it wrong. So, the ultimate question then becomes “who gets to be in the kingdom? Who gets in? And is that something that a human being, no matter how judgmental, and no matter how much authority they seem to hole, do they have any say in it at all?” After all it is God's kingdom. But we can get ourselves so segregated into our group that we then can't even fathom the concept that God could use anyone to do anything that thinks differently than we do because they’re not really in. So, John was seeing somebody that they didn't know that was not part of their group casting out demons in the name of Jesus and he tried to shut it down because he wasn't part of the group. Same thing was going on with the Pharisees toward Jesus and now it's in Jesus’ inner circle. And unfortunately, it's always been with us and is still with us today. But Jesus said “don't stop him. Anyone who is not against us is for us.” And then He went on and He had a little child and He uses the example. What He was saying was, “like anything that's done for anyone who belongs to Christ, even something as little as like a glass of water isn't gonna go unrecognized.” So, in our own lives may we understand that if and when we encounter God on the move, whether through a group of people or a person or something that we don't understand, let's quit with the labels, let's understand that we are at a crossroads. And as we've been talking about in all kinds of situations, let's understand that wisdom will be there and just the humility of knowing none of us have this all sorted out. That's why we’re practicing our faith. That's why we’re all undergoing the process of sanctification, the process that sets us apart and makes us holy to God. We’re all at different points in our journey. Criticizing everybody else's journey does not further ours. It actually walls us off and it doesn't take long before we look like the Pharisees. May we offer grace, the same kind of grace we would like to see as we love our neighbor as ourselves.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit we invite You into that because what freedom it would bring, what freedom it would bring. And we confess, the reason these kinds of things usually happen is truly based in fear. We do not want to get it wrong, not with You, not with You. The implications are far, far, far too dire. And, so, we live in fear that we might get it wrong when we will get it wrong. But You have offered us an open door. We can always return. We can always repent. And that is for everyone, not just for our group. So, come Holy Spirit and give us grace. May we see the kingdom at work in our world today and may we understand that we are a part of it. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

Okay. So, we’re like down to our last couple of days in the land of the Bible for this pilgrimage and that's always kind of…of a mixed…mixed feeling. We’ve been in motion for so long now and it’s just our heart…heads, hearts, just bodies, everything. We’re full, empty and tired and elated. And, so, it's just all of that. And, so, yeah, longing to be home but hating to leave all of that just kinda comes. Yesterday, ooo, it was a long day around Jerusalem. Beautiful day, thank God. It was a beautiful, beautiful day but we…we were…we were working and we saw a lot, covered a lot of ground. I'm trying to think if I can even remember it all.

We got up early, like 1/2 an hour early to get in the line, queue to…to be able to go on to the Temple Mount. And that's pretty extraordinary on a clear blue-sky day. The dome just kind of stands out. It…it's just a really…it’s a remarkable place with definitely conflicted history all over the place over all kinds of time. But that's kind of the nature of Jerusalem. That's been the story pretty much all along. So, yeah, you can feel the tension, you can sense…you can sense that because it's ancient, it's always been. And, so, there’s just a lot of jostling around. But a beautiful morning up on the Temple Mount.

And then we came down and went to the pools of Bethesda. And this is where Jesus healed a man that had been…had been suffering there by the pools on a…basically on a daily basis for 38 years. And Jesus came along and said, “do you want to be made whole?” And that's a challenging thing. That's a challenging thing to consider, especially here on the pilgrimage. It’s like…it's like so much comes down to that. “Do you want to be made whole?” Not “can you” or “should you”. Like, “do you want to this and the collaboration that happens with God when we say yes to that?” And, so, yeah, spent a little bit of time, kind of pondering that and putting it in our hearts. It’s a beautiful church from the Crusader era right there with the acoustics that are really breathtaking as well. And often it's really full, really hard to get in there but we managed to get group in there, and Jill lead us in…in a song and just could hear the echo of our voices just bouncing all around. It's really majestic. It’s a lot of fun to do. It's just a really, really unique experience. It’s like you’re in a huge cathedral and you are, but just being in Israel in this ancient church and singing to the Lord and just hearing the echo of it is…is wonderful.

So, we did that and then many…many of us walked on the old walls. You can kind of walk a portion of the old walls, beautiful views and you gotta climb some stairs, but beautiful views. And then coming down and also just little small sections of the city that from the Roman era as well as like the wall, a portion of the wall of Jerusalem from the time of King Hezekiah. And that is also pretty remarkable, see how wide the wall is. Even though it’s like all buried, you know, you can’t see how high. And it's a small section but just kind of see like, “this is…the this is what a wall at this time, a fortified city at this time would’ve look like.” And their thick. I'm thinking, I don’t know, we’re like above it, I'm thinking 30 feet maybe 35. Maybe…I don't know. I’m not so good with that and I didn’t have a tape measure, but really really thick. So, you know, it's…it's easy enough to imagine the kind of battle the…like the kind of ongoing onslaught that it would take to breach a wall like that. And we read of those kinds of stories in the Scriptures, especially the tactic of surrounding…like starving the city basically and weakening everyone's morale. And there’s plenty of stories that we will encounter in the Bible about that including Hezekiah's story when we get to it.

Then there was some lunch in the Jewish quarter and then to the Jerusalem archaeological Park, which is again, it’s…I mean there's a lot to see but it is really spectacular. Your down below the walls of the old city. So, like the southern temple steps are there. Part of the steps that what would've continued up to the temple when it was there. And some of them have been re-created but some of the original steps are there. And, so, that's one of the places that you can be where…where you’re…you have just a pretty near certainty that Jesus would’ve walked there, that Jesus would’ve taught things on those steps and would've been there. And, so, for us to be there and not only have that touch point with Jesus, but also to open up the book of Acts and read the story of the Holy Spirit's coming and Peter's first message, and 3000 people following the way of Jesus after that and being baptized and considering where…where that might've taken place and understanding that the temple complex is really the only place that would have that kind of resource to do that many baptisms. So, that's a likely scenario. And just having that touch point is great. Like all these things are great by themselves and you start stacking them up and it's really great and then just kind of following all of the archaeology around the old walls and then making our way over to the Western wall and being able to go to the wall and join with brothers and sisters all over the world and…and pray, touch the wall.

I took Ezekiel to the wall this time. I mean, we prayed and that was…that was really sweet to watch his little hand reach out and touch the wall. Probably should've took pictures of that, probably would've wanted to remember that, but it just seemed like a moment that needed to live in memory. I don’t know. Sometimes you have these moments where you’re like, “I really really should video this or I really should take a picture of this”. But maybe that, you know, maybe that ruins the whole thing. Maybe this is just a moment that we have. So, that…that…that happened and was beautiful.

Then we went into the, what's called the rabbinical tunnels. So, a lot of archaeology has been done under the ground along the walls of the old city because the temple mount itself, the second Temple era, this is during Herod's development phase. And he was crazy. I mean you read about it. He was crazy. But he was a fantastic developer and so much of his fingerprint on this land still stands today, including…including the, you know, the Temple Mount, the whole support system to hold up the Temple Mount, like all these massive retaining walls. But they sort of disappear. You have this like one little section of that with, you know, with the western wall or the Wailing Wall as it has been known. But it continues. It's just, you know, the cities built up. But archaeologist have for years been working beneath the ground. And, so, you can kind of go down there and see all of that, basically walk the whole length of the Temple Mount under…under the ground and see that, “yeah, these are the same. This is the same Herodian era all the way down.” Ssee some of the Roman era. There’s opportunities where they had like glass, you could look down all the way to the second Temple period, the time of Jesus, see the street down below. So, that's pretty…pretty fantastic as well.

And then we finally…finally got back to our hotel pretty exhausted. We did a lot of walking. But it was a beautiful day and we made it…we made it and we saw a lot in Jerusalem today and we got sort of the…the full force of the city…like the change of complexion that Jerusalem brings. So, the wilderness, very different. The Galilee, very different than the wilderness. The Mediterranean coast, very different than the Galilee. Jerusalem, very different than the cost. So, we’ve kind of experienced all of that and it's been wonderful and today we’ll be heading into the low lands and I’ll be telling you about that tomorrow.

Thank you for your continued prayers and…over all of this…and as we prepare…even though we have a couple days left…as we prepare to reenter our world as we go home and prepare for that. Thank you for your prayers over all of that.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage, and I thank you profoundly for your partnership. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

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And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi this is Laura from Castle Rock and I just joined with the DAB this January. I just happened to find it. And, so, I’ve been listening every day and enjoying the Word and the prayers and today I just heard Harold call in and I just burst into tears because he prayed the prayer of salvation and I’m so happy for him. And I just have been following his story and ever since I heard about him, you know, praying for him and just thinking about all the other people that maybe don’t feel like they have a place. And I’m just so grateful I found this community and I, because of my own life circumstances, have been kind of isolated from the church and just been through a lot of hurt and trying to work through that but this format just is so nice and feels safe. And I just…I’m praying today to for Diana’s boys and just joining in with the prayers of the people that…that they would feel comforted and they would feel surrounded by love as they walk through the grief of losing their mom. So, I just wanted to say hi, introduce myself, and…and join in with the prayers of the community. Thanks. Bye.

So, this is my first time calling in my name is Emari Davis. You all can call me SOG1031. I’m from Houston Texas. This is this is my first time calling in because I was using the wrong app. I was using the old app and I was always wondering like, “I don’t see no red button up at the top. I’m not understanding how I’m supposed to call in and pray.” But finally updated to the new app, praise God and…and I’m loving it. I really am loving it. I’ve been plugged into the Daily Audio Bible this…for this year like every day. But I started a couple years ago. My mom actually showed me the app and I listen to it every once in a while, you know, but it’s just…just this year alone of me listening to it every day has really impacted my life and everything. And today I was listening and I just…I just want to pray…I just…I just I want to ask for prayer. Can you guys pray that…that…that the heart…that my heart is a good heart, you know, that it receives the Word like it should and just that God makes my heart a clean heart and…and that the that the word just takes deep ,deep root, deep root, deep, deep root. And that’s all…that’s all I ask of you guys. I also want to send prayers out to Diana Davis’s sons. You all will be in my prayers and…and everything. So, God bless you.

Hey this is Cindy the Silver Lining Miner from Seattle. I really have it on my heart to call and chat with you Daniel Johnson Junior. I think probably two years ago, maybe three, you sent or you sang a little doughnut song and I don’t remember what it was but I remember it was so adorable and it really lifted my spirits and I just…I wanted to take this opportunity to lift your spirits. And I know you’ve got issues with congestive heart failure and you’ve been laid off, but I just want you to rest and I don’t know how old you are, but rest assured gray capital is a thing. People will value your wisdom and your experience. And please don’t let your age deter you. Anybody who’s older and looking for work, man I work with some people who are older than me, which is surprising but it’s also encouraging because everybody’s got something to offer. And please don’t let those lies deter you from finding a job. I’ll be praying for you. Also wanted to pray for trusting father in South Carolina. I’m just praying for your daughters and your son. I’m happy that you have spiritual replenishment and I’m praying that you can be a beacon of light for your family. Kimberly who was abused by churchmen, I’m so glad you’re feeling a part of this community and enjoying this fellowship and I’m praying for you as well. There was a woman who called in tonight who…well…I listened tonight to the episode. and she just joined the church and she gave her life to Christ. Hang in there and listen to God, listen for God in the quiet times. His love is all around you and we will be praying for you and we welcome you to this community and we support and love you and God loves you a hundred times more. So, rest in that. Thank you.

Hi this is Norma from the Bronx. I just needed to call and thank Brian for today’s…February 19th…today’s devotional. Something really penetrated me, my spirit so much. Brian said something. He said that we try so hard to get out of the wilderness instead of trying to see what it is that God is…is trying to teach us or trying to show us. And it totally made me refocus the pain that I have been enduring to be lessons that God is trying to teach me. And I just want to be…hope that I’m thankful so much for Brian. It has given me a new sense of hope to focus on the lesson. And he also said something, that it shapes you. And that is so true. The wilderness, it shapes you and prepares you for what God has called you to do. That is so powerful. God bless you.

Hey DAB family this Kingdom Seeker Daniel from Chicago and I am…I am overwhelmed right now with tears of joy. I…I just left a facility that I service for the mentally disabled and there’s a young lady in there that I…I had a chance to connect with just in passing. She’s one of the residents and it’s been several months since we’ve connected, but as I just left the facility, she called my name out, she called my name out, she remembered my name from of very, very brief exchange that we had. And it just blessed by soul. And, so, I just wanted to encourage someone with…with the reality that God knows your name. God knows your name, Beloved, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you’re dealing with, He knows your name. Michael, Elijah, Charisse, He knows your name. Don’t ever think that God doesn’t love you. God bless you guys.

Hey DAB family it is Shanda the sister from South Dakota. I am calling today because I…well my son is in need of prayer. He is 18 and we’ve had to kick him out of the house because after he got off probation we found…I found marijuana in the house and an apparatus to smoke it with and we have young children and we had an expectation any he broke that expectation. Now he’s living with one of my family members that is most likely a practicing meth addict. And I know how much my son longs for acceptance and confidence and all the things that drugs…drugs falsely present themselves as - confidence and beautiful and wonderful. I’m just…I’m praying against the enemy making advances on my family anymore through drugs. I’m praying for the cycle of addiction to be broken. I started by getting clean and I am almost 2 years clean. And I just am praying for this generational curse to stop and…and for my family members to see the light of God. And God has told me to trust and not to worry and it’s been kind of hard lately but I’m gonna try and I’m just asking for you guys to rally behind me with your powerful prayers and I will keep praying for all of you guys. I love you guys. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.

Good morning this is Laura from Georgia I’m new to DAB. I’ve been here officially January 5th and it’s been a blessing to me. And I haven’t really called in for prayer for myself. I’ve called and prayed for other people and have given praise reports, but I need prayer. I am…I feel like I’m in the wilderness here. I am from Oklahoma but moved here two years ago two and a half years ago because of marriage. And the gentleman, after four months of marriage, emailed me and told me he wanted a divorce. So, I felt lost and alone, but God had me here for a reason because the only person that I could draw my strength on…strength from was Him. And I saw him do so much wonderful things for me. But the bottom line is is that I haven’t established any true friends because I am a member of the church, a beautiful church, but I only get to go on Sunday’s. Because of my work schedule I can’t go to Bible Study, I can’t get in connect groups or whatever. And my prayer is that God would bless me with female companion that loves the Lord and that we can experience Georgia together. I am dating but I miss that friendship, that female companionship and I need that. And there are days when I feel really, really low and, in fact, when I joined or came across DAB I was at a very low point, very depressed and feeling very, very alone. So, I thank you for mt DAB family. Keep me in prayer please and reach out to...