#it only gets beaten out of people by the trauma of the system and being forced to struggle to survive

[statementlou]

So I see folks pointing out that Louis' circle A tattoo is more likely an aesthetic choice than an announcement of a political commitment to anarchism, and saying basically that that maybe makes him a bit of a poser and I mean- I GUESS. But I don't like to look at things that way and I don't think it's useful. As I see it the subversive sexiness of the symbols of resistance have ALWAYS been gateways for people who are drawn to the struggle in vague ways and that's GOOD. Aligning yourself with those values is good no matter the reason, in my book, especially given the wretched options available out there, but also the journey doesn't necessarily stop there. Gatekeeping queerness victimizes people who are just trying things out and starting to discover that it may run deeper than just trying on a new look who should instead be welcomed and helped along their path, and I fail to see how gatekeeping political affiliations is any different (plus how counterproductive to actual movement building is that?)

ANYWAY. What I really want to say about Louis is that while I KNOW that Louis is probably not secretly a theory reading anti-state communalist anarchist, I think that actually Louis' optimism and idealism (and his unwavering commitment to allying himself with the working class and embracing those roots) are a perfect fit for the philosophy and always have been. I know that anarchism is mostly understood as being about throwing molotov cocktails and fighting the state (and the allure of its symbols are that they signify this, a terrific aesthetic for him to choose to sign on with in my book), but that's honestly largely cartoonish stereotyping that comes directly from anti-anarchist state propaganda. That resistance is necessary in this hellscape of oppression we live in and is super important, but in its heart anarchism is only about the state in that the state and capitalism currently stands in the way of its goals. The whole point of anarchism is that it's NOT about the state! It's about being able to imagine something better than a state, it's about how we live and about how we SHOULD live, it's about HOPE and picturing something utopian and something free of the ways capitalism pits us against one another! What could be more Louis than that?

"I need you and you need me and I love that" is as beautiful a way of talking about the cornerstone of anarchism that is mutual aid as any long winded essay I've read (even if what he meant was contextually different), and I think when he talks again and again about how special the space fans have made around him is he is expressing an intuitive understanding of the importance of autonomous zones, places and moments outside of the shitty life imposed on us by the system (also a huge part of anarchist thought). Maybe I'm just being an optimist but I think that Louis DOES understand that caring for people and wanting self-determination and freedom for all and allying himself with the working class involves a certain amount of resistance to and positioning yourself in opposition to the state. Thinking the symbols of smashing that state are cool isn't meaningless; it's a CHOICE. There are other cool symbols out there and I just happen to think that feeling a resonance with certain ones is something in and of itself, even if at this moment he does not choose to start a fight with the media about it all.

[gayboysteve]

It makes such perfect sense to view Marmalade as a manifestation of her wild youth whereas "Baron" is the simple dreamer she wishes she could've been. His being naive and his misusage of words are SO important. He's the person that could've been. And then the "Baron" we see after leaving the prison is the grounded mature version of both mixed together- calculating but also kind, a man but also a woman. Marmalade created Baron to protect her from her trauma and to control her more wild impulses; while in kinda Baron created Marmalade to protect his inner softness that wasn't able to be beaten out of them by a cruel life. "I just want to be with my one and only. She's my girl to protect."

And Baron is talking about themselves. She is her own protector. He has his own plan for justice. Not just for himself, not even just for their mother, but for other abused kids who were failed by a corrupt system and other old people who were failed by an entirely different corrupt system. (Both are represented by the same CEO.) To do so he must let that part out of herself again- that rage-filled impulsive girl stunted by her abuse. It's not a coincidence she appears just after Baron gets news about his mother's medication rising. She is his protector as much as he is hers.

It's important that Baron describes Marmalade as his dream girl to Otis. It's just not the kind of dream that Otis interprets. She basically "arrives" ( maladaptive coping mechanisms reemerging) to plan out the heist. It isn't just that Baron is the person Marmalade wishes she could've been in another life (naive and kind and part of a community), it's that while Marmalade is also a representation of their wild youthfulness she is also now the person that the present "Baron" (recently presented with the rising cost of his mother's medication and medical bills) wishes he could embody again despite having grown out of it because of his loving mother's influence.

I think it's very important that the almost sex scene after they get the masks but right before Mama Eda "dies" is shot almost like a horror sequence with discordant music and quick flashes of Marmalade on top of Baron in their respective masks. This happened just after the heist of the thrift shop where they stole the masks, Marmalade pistol-whipping the cashier before fleeing. An old woman staring up at Baron in fear on her knees.

Whether this is the reality of how this played out (with obviously just Marmalade there) is unimportant. Baron and Marmalade are the same person and when she looks into that mask and sees herself she's horrified at what she's capable of, the kind of harm she can inflict even when her intentions are at the end of the day pure of heart. That her letting back in her past negative impulses makes her a worse person than she is as the adult "Baron" who has repressed his trauma but matured because of their loving relationship with their mother.

Mama Eda's "death" comes quickly after and Marmalade's culpability is called into question narratively. She increasingly answers that she doesn't know what happened and that she was in the other room. She wasn't present. Nor was Baron. This, I think stems from Marmalade's manifestation of her guilt over Mama Eda being in a home where they can't actually care for her directly- and as a manifestation of any potential fears he might have at the idea of attempting to do so. As well, it's just a very real fear of her mother's inevitable death, especially as the heist has already commenced and now the final act is in motion.

If her plan fails then he won't be there for Mama Eda. There won't be anyone there to deliver the pills she (and others need) and thus if the plan fails then any deterioration in her mama's health is her fault. Her culpability for the plan. For not being there. For being in another room when/if/should the time quickly come.

Which is why I think the confrontation between "Baron" and Marmalade is so important. It isn't Baron being unable to trust Marmalade it's Marmalade being unable to trust herself. Trust in her plan and so the two sides of herself stand against each other in a kind of opposition. Self-blame and doubt, rage all in response to the fear she feels at the final leg of the plan.

It's important that this is the last time that we see Marmalade as she appears in the physical manifestation of "Baron's" story. The music goes dreamlike and ethereal as they speak. "You are the man of my fucking dreams. I love you like I've never loved anyone and I've never been loved."

Marmalade is speaking to herself. The version of the man that she's become and the person she is now; it's representative of Marmalade reconciling his past trauma while preparing for the final play in her plan- enacting revenge against those that caused her trauma. Marmalade as the wild youth she was before meeting Mama Eda was someone who never felt like she was loved, and that part of herself is now looking at the grown version of her that loves her back and accepts herself for all her faults. Her parting words are, "Dream big or don't dream at all".

And then we're thrust into the action from the start of the story with "Baron" getting arrested. And so she has now fully become one with herself. Both facets of her life are on the same page, reconciliation of the self. Acknowledgment of that trauma and the plan to enact in order to move on from it.

And then the final piece in her puzzle- Otis. She obviously had been keeping tabs on him. The comment about keeping his hair long because of a show he watched about Rastafarians tells us that he already knew about Otis' mother being from Jamaica. Baron had to sell Otis on Marmalade, he had to make Otis fall in love with her and trust what Baron was telling him was true about their love for each other. Baron needed to truly love Marmalade in order for the story to sell and the plan to work. And by embodying that she finally learned to fully love and accept herself.

"I just want to be with my one and only. She's my girl to protect."

[eyesforahead]

Mxtx x male reader

A cross over.

When a modern era young man transmigrated in PIDW that has crossovered with other Novel's such as MDZS & TGCF thing's are bound to be both fun & traumatizing!

-----

Name & Description are different but originally this was on my ao3 some things are arranged to suit it being an X reader. My ao3 is Elijah_Ezra.

TRANSLATION MAY NOT HE ACCURATE.

-- MAIN SHIPS WILL NOT HE CHANGED ( such as hualian , wangxian. )

-- SHEN YUAN IS NOT HERE.

shang qinghua is. I have favorite's.

-- Canon, what canon plot line?

-- Don't like, don't read.

-- Hate towards me or anyone is not tolerated.

-- This is a crossover.

-- A lot of spelling mistakes probably.

-- No upload schedule.

-- What Ships is reader in? I'm aiming for it to be a Liu Qingge X Reader however if this is not liked I take recommendations as well.

THIS IS PIDW TECHNICALLY NOT SVSSS.

• SHEN JIU'S PAST!!!!

• TW FOR THAT. PLEASE, STAY SAFE.

Shen (Name) groans and sighs before getting up from the chair to grab his sword Bǎohù

It was time for the Disciple selection..

He flew down and was immediately greeted by the peak lords he was well liked and loved unlike his elder brother Shen Jiu or also known as Shen Qingqiu.

That’s right he (Last name) ( First Name) , A lazy modern guy , died and transmigrated into PIDW not only that as an OC insert the scum villains younger brother!

Airplane , what kind of messed up tragic sad backstory did you need to give Jiu-Ge?!

Naturally they grew up together which meant his childhood sucked too!

Granted not that bad compared to him as that Qiu Jianluo took a very good liking to him and loved his naïve personality he was rarely beaten.

Which now knowing WHAT Qiu Jianluo liked and was thinking made him want to scream cry and rip off his skin to erase the feeling the skin that was touched by him.

What seemed liked innocent hugged were actually very much not innocent.

years later and after much trauma he became a peak lord!

So, that's that! Yippie hooray for you.

The (History of God's and Ghost's) "神与鬼的历史" (Shén yǔ guǐ de lìshǐ) peak lord!

It is the same ranking as Qing Jing Peak.

In this peak they learned about God’s and Ghost’s that are hidden and roaming around somewhere.

Their cultivation was communication with them.

Some Ghosts would occasionally help them when in need by lending them their strength.

In turn they would also help the ghost move on.

However, this is not safety assured as ghosts can be deceiving.

Shen (Name) would know himself, he’s half possessed by one called SYSTEM who forces him to do certain shit!

{ HOST, QIU JANLUO DID NOT NEED HIS DICK! }

Shen (Name) grimaces remembering that memory when the SYSTEM took control of his body and just chopped off someone’s dick.

‘ You didn’t need to use my body! ‘

{ D: Then, who else would SYSTEM posses? Your brother? No, thanks. }

‘ Die. ‘

{ SYSTEM will die when HOST 002 dies. }

Ah, right. Did he mention the author transmigrated with him?

Airplane Shooting towards the sky transmigrated into Shang Qinghua.

“ Didi, are you alright? You’re frowning. “ Shen Qingqiu asked snapping him out of his thoughts.

He hummed and looked towards the disciples hoping that today he will meet the protagonist Luo Binghe .

Yue QingYuan nodded at him and asked if he will choose a disciple.

Right, He himself rarely accepted new disciples they had to be specific and needed to be blessed or gained the attention of a god or ghost.

But as he looks down no one seems to have the veins that are gold or red.

Gold means a god has noticed them.

Glowing Gold means they have been blessed by one.

Red means a ghost has either noticed them or blessed them.

It was surprising to learn ghosts can bless people.

A ghost’s blessing boosts up your QI similar to the gods blessing but a ghost blessing also gives you luck while God’s give you some protection but not luck that would be on you!

Suddenly again he heard Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu fighting which is normal. However, they were fighting over a disciple.

He didn’t feel like getting involved and zoomed out before Shang Qinghua whispered to him.

‘ Bro, Go with Shen QIngqiu that’s Luo Binghe he took! ‘

he glared at Shang Qinghua for not telling him sooner and ran after Shen Jiu.

MEANWHILE…

SO, IT BEGINS TOUGHT A MAN WEARING SIMPLE WHITE ON A THRONE HIGH ABOVE WHERE NO ONE CAN REACH HIM.

THE man was beautiful with long brown hair and warm eyes.

The male wished he can help the poor soul yet, he is not allowed to interfere only drop some helpful information nothing more…

---

His peak was often described as a picturesque peak ( he was very proud of his peak ) adorned with tranquil ponds. The water is crystal clear, reflecting the beauty of the lily pads floating gracefully on the surface.

Koi fish gracefully glide through the water, their vibrant colors adding a touch of elegance.

The croaking of frogs adds a harmonious melody to the scene. The air is filled with the sweet fragrance of blooming flowers, and the sight of fluttering butterflies brings a sense of joy.

The overall ambiance feels inviting and pristine. Even the teachers and classes exude warmth and friendliness. It's a place where one can find solace and inspiration.

Near the peak lord's house you'll see a more beautiful building. The building is a shrine. Inside of it is a statue of the main god they learn about.

However, the statue isn't alone along with it is the God's husband.

The crown prince and also now heavenly emperor Xie Lian & his husband Crimson Rain Sought Flower Hua Cheng.

If you're lucky enough (or you're Shen (Name) ) you'll see silver butterflies flying around.

It make's a wonderful painting , silver Butterflies in the moonlight.

From the outside the shrine has an ornate and elaborate design, with intricate carvings.

Inside the shrine, you'll find a serene and reverent atmosphere. 

To the side inside the shrine is a long table where offerings and candle's are lit.

His peak is always calm and right now that's where he wants to be not in his olders brother bamboo house with tension so high he's surprised the kid Luo Binghe hasn't fainted.

' It's the tea scene where he pours hot boiling tea on him ' he thinks.

He wishes he can move from his brother's side yet he can't.

The tea is poured , the child gasps and the master leaves looking back once at his brother.

Shen (Name) immediately goes to the poor disciple.

He grabs the towel from the table and gently wipe away the hot tea.

"I'm sorry, please don't mind my brother."

The child looks up naive brown eyes shining at him.

"N-no shifu it was this Disciples fault."

The peak lord can't help how his heart melts.

Shen (Name) from the past hated this scene and didn't understand why Shen Qingqiu did this. The Shen (Name) who he is now understands.

Luo Binghe's eye's and hair are similiar to Qiu Jianluo.

The child's name make it even worse. Luo Binghe..Luo...

Ning Yingying didn't help either immediately calling him A-Luo...

... something Qiu Haitang used to call her brother Luo-Ge...

Still, it's no excuse to what happened to this child but he can be sympathetic.

He'll show him around himself and leave he can't be absent from his peak but he can visit his brother and this child.

Maybe, in the way he'll see his cute shidi Liu Qingge.

Dropping off Luo Binghe at his dorm's in which he knows he won't be staying there longer Shen (Name) leave's and goes to the shrine.

He needs some advice..

He knows the god probably won't respond but he'll feel his presence and that's enough.

[system-of-a-feather]

For realsie though, I really wish I could look at the people who are diagnosed with DID and get upset at people "making it look like a fun disorder to have" with some level of sympathy or empathy, but I really honestly think that rhetoric is really honestly destructive as a means for self soothing and one I really just can't stand personally.

Like this disorder sucks ass and the reason it happened sucks ass and recovering with it sucks ass, but I don't see that rhetoric as any better than stating that "anyone who went through that could NEVER recover or live happy".

And I get where that comes from, I do, but at a certain point in trauma processing, stabilization and recovery, things start to click that trauma is over and PTSD inherently is referencing an event that has already passed. Trauma sucks. Severe chronic trauma SUCKS, but that's the past and - while its a LOT more difficult than it is to just say - that past REALLY doesn't have to define the present even a quarter as much as trauma makes it feel.

Of course, I understand and get those who feel like DID is horrible and a hell disorder - I 10000% understand that and its a valid feeling / opinion / statement to make, but to claim that it is impossible to have fun, be happy, and make casual content and just genuinely make the best out of a shit situation; or to claim that anyone with DID would be totally dysfunctional and miserable and unable to do XYZ - it's just... really self depricating and a huge negative self fulfilling prophecy don't you think? Also not to mention a LOT of projecting?

Other people don't deserve you forcing your self loathing and pain onto them. You are allowed to hate your situation, you are allowed to hate your disorder, you are allowed to feel and think and experience your experiences however you want, but a line is drawn when it comes to displacing that hatred, those feelings, those thoughts, and those experiences onto others and demand that they should meet your standards of misery.

I apologize, but I'm not going to pretend like DID stresses me out when I'm really not stressed by it anymore because most of our regular parts are actually decently connected and coordinated with one another. I'm not scared of them and they aren't scared of me. I'm not fighting them and they aren't fighting me. We got trauma but we also got, ya know, a life going and the trauma gets less and less prevalent and intrusive as time goes on so, life's honestly pretty lit and I really love to see other systems heading in that direction.

I think everyone should aim to be happy and at peace with their disorder. I don't understand, empathize, or support the idea that someone had to meet a standard of misery to be "real".

(TW: suicidal ideation and physical abuse mention)

If I take medication that makes it so I don't scrub my hands raw and have panic attacks over having not eaten a salad "recently" thus meaning I am going to rot from the inside out and die, does that mean I am faking having OCD? If I take medication and improve my life so that I only pluck my hair once a month, is my Trichitillomania faked? If I stop having suicidal ideation, does that mean I was faking being suicidal the whole time? If I stop having bruises, does that mean I faked being beaten as a kid?

(TW cleared)

Recovery and peace should and does not ever invalidate the truth of the pain suffered and the struggle overcome. Happiness and joy can co-exist with the truth of hurt, pain and suffering.

Trying to hold the two as mutually exclusive is a huge part of why a lot of people get stuck being miserable. If misery is vital for honoring your pain as real, it is very hard to let that go and let yourself be happy again, because if you are happy, what will attest to give your pain justice? But pain, justice, misery, and happiness - they can all co-exist and honestly, that's a really important thing to learn and understand in my healing journey as it really opens up doors to letting trauma go.

Your pain doesn't define your truth.

Your truth is your truth.

It will stay true regardless of if the pain persists or leaves.

[illmetkismet]

I'm so sorry if you've talked about this before, but if not, i wanted to ask you what's your opinion on 4make Leon? Do you think he's still a bit like that 21 yr old rookie he was in Racoon City?

:)

Eeeeeee thank you for the ask!! I talked about the ways Leon changes between 2 and 4 a bit in this post (and specifically the second part in the reblog), but more in a general sense. To get more specific, I think re4r Leon still has the same core values he did when he was a baby boy rookie - he's kind, he's selfless, he wants to help people so badly - but Raccoon City made an open wound out of him, and the intervening years between then and when we meet him again in 4 have scabbed the wound over and then mangled him with emotional scar tissue.

Let's start with some good: re2r Leon had kind of a naive trust in authority figures that led him to do some shitty stuff. I'm thinking specifically not letting the reporter out of the holding cell, insisting he has to talk to Irons first, because there must be a reason he's in there, right? Even in the face of a zombie apocalypse, Rookie Leon was like, "The carceral system makes sense, actually." And I'm sure him helping Ada, and being so difficult to dissuade from doing so in the end, had to do not just with his crush on her, but also with her telling him she was FBI. The one time his easy trust of authority figures pays off is with Marvin, but let's not talk about that 🥺

Re4r, on the other hand, opens with Leon basically monologuing about how much he hates the government and then having an uneasy car ride with two cops. You get the distinct impression that he's trying to be civil but he finds the implication that they don't want to be there or help him kinda distasteful. He sees them for what they are: lazy country cops who don't take their duties seriously, and that ticks him off. So right off the bat we see a Leon who's kinda withdrawn (he spends most of the cutscene staring out the car window) and who hasn't retained that blind adoration of a police uniform.

Him meeting Luis and immediately clocking him as 'fishy' is another great character beat. In the OG he just takes Luis at his word about being a cop, but in the remake he asks Hunnigan to look into him, which not only shows us he's not as naive anymore, but actually helps advance their story and relationship in a way the OG never did. They get to have that confrontation later about Luis working for Umbrella, and then Leon has to work his way towards trusting Luis enough to rely on him for the medicine and for help getting to Ashley.

So he's less naive, which is the good, but the bad.... Oh man, the bad... Along with his naivete in 2, he was also kind of an optimist. That's been almost thoroughly beaten out of him by 4 - he's withdrawn, quiet, depressed, and traumatized. We see it so clearly because it stands in such stark contrast to his central motivation in the game: that this time it can be different. He hasn't fully given up on optimism; there's a tiny spark of it in his heart still, and all throughout 4 he's desperate to keep it alive by trying to save Ashley, to connect with Ada, to trust Luis, even in trying to talk Krauser down while they fight.

It feels like in 4 he's mourning the rookie he used to be. He's not as trusting or earnest or open. Instead, he's closed off and brooding, and he uses humour as a crutch, as a way to distance himself from the horror of the situation he's in. So he's clearly developed some unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with his trauma.

I know you didn't ask about 6, but I think what they do with a 6 remake could be really interesting in how things go for Leon from here! 6, as it is now, and the way it segues into Vendetta, follows a through line of a Leon whose little flame of optimism pretty much gets extinguished. In re4 OG we don't get the ending cutscene of him and Ashley looking hopefully at the sunrise, and I think that could be the crux of things going differently for him. The 'things could be different' premise gets resolved in the remake - things ARE different this time! I really hope they carry that over to the rest of the remakes and don't take Leon down the same road of depression and alcoholism... That's a lot to hope for, since it seems like they intend for Vendetta to remain canon, but that's what I want to see, personally.

I want Leon to reclaim the positive aspects of the rookie he used to be, now that he's shed the negatives, and to fan that little flame of hope in his heart until he fucking burns with it!! Resi in general could use some hope, I think!! I'm just not a fan of where they left Leon at the end of Death Island, as this flippant, resigned guy who, ok, is not an alcoholic anymore, but now he's just a toy soldier. Same with Chris in 8, kinda, but that's a whole other can of worms!

Thank u for the ask again - I hope my Leon rambling answered your question 😅

[delving-verilly]

Steve Harrington - Secondary Teacher

Not sure original sources, if you know, let me know and I can credit.

Imagine 40-year-old Steve Harrington as a Secondary Teacher - History. He survived having his heart broken, being beaten to a pulp by numerous factors/people, being drugged by Russians and journeys into the Upside Down, including being choked out and eaten alive by bats (of which he still bears the scars from).

A failed marriage with Nancy Wheeler after she discovered a relationship based on trauma with Jonathan was never a healthy core. Rather than clinging to the familiar, she decided she didn't love Steve and left him after years of marriage, moving to New York to have a new start, argued by Steve something she should have done rather than marry him.

He also survived a failed relationship with Eddie Munson (yeah, he survived, too), where they bonded through shared trauma. Never a healthy basis for a relationship. It resulted in a nipple piercing, a couple of small ink pieces, and another big dose of heartbreak.

He has come out the other side half-deaf with PTSD, TBI, ongoing headaches and scarring. He still has his bat, though. After years of therapy, he managed to get on top of it all. He embraced his health and swims regularly, trains in boxing (he got sick of having his arse handed to him), weights and regularly participates in tournament bowling with other teachers for fun. He also picked up the guitar with Eddie; arguably, his style is more subdued than Eddie's.

He now lives in Indianapolis, where most of the Hawkins folk were relocated to after Hawkins got locked down and closed off by the government under cover of a 'chemical spill'. Others moved far away. Steve's parents passed away, leaving him, as their only child, pretty much everything. So he invested most of it, bought a nice condo for himself and invested in the one next door where Robin lives. She also became a Teacher, so they still drive to school together. He figured somewhere along the line he was good with kids, and sure enough, he is. Brilliant.

You meet him at a conference in town around developing resilience in youth. He gets excited because you can talk about theory and practice with him and get as excited as he does about how complacent the system is about actively individualising learning compared to cookie cutter, where so many special needs kids are left out or behind or targeted. He takes you for a lunch date and is the consummate gentleman. If anything, you think he's not interested because of metaphorically how far back he stands. You realise there is baggage there, but you also realise he is actively working on bettering himself and growing from it, which is the most attractive thing to you.

The bond is formed slowly, bit by bit, across multiple 'lunch' dates and random walks along the water. Not through trauma like his other relationships, but through genuine care and shared interest. It both terrifies and exhilarates him, and eventually, he lets you in, and you witness the biggest unselfish heart you've ever known.

[ginza-division]

"God seems to have left the receiver off the hook and time is running out."

Timeline:

Age 0:

Is born to two unknown people in Tokyo, Japan.

She has little memories of her time with them.

Age 4:

She is, for some reason, placed in foster care by her parents with no explanation.

She begins to dislike the foster care system because of the children, who make fun of and bully her, and the adults, who consider her a nuisance.

She finds that she likes things a certain way, and likes counting things by '10'.

Age 5:

She is adopted by another couple, who wants a daughter for their estranged son, Chihiro.

Though she tries to appear friendly to her new older brother, he ignores her and verbally abuses her when their parents aren't around.

Though the daughter tries to tell her parents, they assume she is joking and don't believe her.

Chihiro's abuse towards her starts to turn physical.

The daughter finds it easier to stay out of his way.

Age 6:

One day, she loses it and beats her brother to an inch of her life, leaving him badly disfigured.

She is sent back to foster care by her ex-parents, who are now scared of her.

She spends her time in solitary, being kept away from other kids.

Age 7:

She is once again adopted; this time, by a single parent, Uehashi Torajiro.

He is, in fact, a criminal involved in sex and slave trafficking.

She gets punished for the smallest of infractions.

She learns to be quiet and do as she's told, less she gets punished.

Unfortunately, she gets punished even when she has done nothing wrong, as Torajiro is a sadist.

She is frequently locked up in a dark room with only a red lightbulb as a light source.

She begins to love the color 'red'.

Age 9:

Eventually, the police get an anonymous tip about the girl's father.

They make a raid on his house, and he is killed in the process.

The blood splatter reminds the girl of all of the abuse she has suffered, thus far.

She loses her mind and attacks the police as they are trying to help her.

She is given a sedative, which instantly knocks her out.

She is sent to a psychiatrist to elevate her for any mental defects.

She is, unfortunately, sent back to the foster care system.

She beats up an older boy who was bothering and was wearing a red shirt.

She is, again, put in solitary, away from the other kids.

Her 'dislike' for the foster care system turns into a 'hatred'.

Age 10:

After a year of psychiatric treatment, she is deemed stable and is allowed to be put up for adoption again.

She is adopted once more by a couple who, unfortunately, cannot have children.

She instinctively doesn't trust them, due to not having good memories of foster families.

The couple proves themselves to be nice and trustworthy, though the girl still doesn't fully accept them.

Due to previous trauma, she tries to flirt and "please" her father.

She is later instructed that that is not appropriate behavior, and that she shouldn't do that.

Age 11:

After a year of staying with them, she begins to open up and trust them a bit.

For the first time in a long time, she is happy.

Age 12:

She calls the couple 'mom' and 'dad', accepting them as parents.

Her mother frequently plants flowers and gardens around the house. The young girl finds them pretty and calming.

Age 14:

Despite being homeschooled for most of her life, she is deemed smart enough to start high school.

Her parents are tragically killed one day while they are in a government building.

The perpetrators behind the bombing call themselves "Scorpion Den".

The girl spots one of the members fleeing the scene, burning her face into her mind.

The girl refuses to go back to foster care; instead, she makes a living on the streets.

She is frequently beaten and hurt for stealing and shoplifting.

Age 15:

One day, she is about to be beaten and abused by a bunch of older kids.

Before they can do anything, she is suddenly saved by a mysterious boy with a 'wolf-like' appearance, who kills the kids.

He looks back at her, throws her some money, and then walks off.

She falls in love with the boy at first sight and wants to know more about him.

Later, she is approached by a strange priest who offers her home and food.

She is initially suspicious but is won over by his kind words and appearance.

He introduces himself as 'Masa Judice' and asks if she wishes to be his daughter.

She doesn't answer right away, but Masa allows her to stay for as long as she wants in his church.

After a week, she agrees to be his daughter.

The priest begins molding her mind, turning her into a corrupt and remorseless killer.

Age 16:

After months of training and molding her, he pits her against some other street kids.

She effortlessly kills them all, which makes Masa name her the leader of his gang, "The Crossroads."

She names herself "Juu" because it means '10', which she loves.

While on a job, she comes across the boy who previously saved her. She learns his name is 'Max'.

As she approaches him, she spots him staring at a girl whom Juu immediately recognizes: the girl who killed her parents two years ago.

Doing research, she learns her name is "Sumire Shinomiya".

She swears revenge against Sumire and her group, "Scorpion Den".

She meets her father's partner, Eiji Noguchi, whom is slightly afraid of her.

Age 17:

Present.

She actively works with "The Crossroads" to disrupt any operation Scorpion Den is working on.

She meets her father's other teammate, Oki Teagan, whom, for some reason, she admires. She dubs him her "big brother".

Her father makes plans to join the Division Rap Battle Tournament.

She does research on the tournament and on the HypMics.

She kills a thug who has an illegal HypMic.

She has Ippei Fujimoto, a.k.a. "The Scientist", try to create a genuine HypMic from the Illegal HypMic.

She secretly joins the Ginza Division rap battle team, Last Judgment, alongside Masa Judice, Eiji Noguchi, and Oki Teagan.

Schedule

12 a.m. - 2 a.m.: Doing work with "The Crossroads"

2 a.m. - 2:30 a.m.: Returns home and reports to Masa

2:30 a.m. - 6:30 a.m.: Asleep

6:30 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.: Freshens up and gets ready for school

8:30 a.m. - 9 a.m.: Eats breakfast on the way to school

9 a.m. - 12 p.m.: Class

12 p.m. - 1 p.m.: Lunch

1 p.m. - 2 p.m.: Class

2 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.: Stalks Max

2:30 p.m. - 3 p.m.: Returns home

3 p.m. - 5 p.m.: Does homework

5 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.: Helps and eats dinner with Masa

7:30 p.m. - 9 p.m.: Free time

9 p.m. - 10 p.m.: Prepares for night with "The Crossroads"

10 p.m. - 12 a.m.: Doing work with "The Crossroads"

Character Hashtags

Regular Hashtags

#Everything for the Father

#Max & Juu sitting in a tree

#Diabla burns in Hell

Trauma Hashtags

#A building in smoke and flames

#Used and abused

#I LOVE THE RED LIGHT

Other Info

Hobby: Sharpening Tools

Weakness: Bipolar Disorder

Trauma: "This world is cold and unfair; I give and give, but never get anything back."

Twitter: @10ismyfavoritenumber

Drinks: No

Smokes: No

Special Skill: "I'm a master of torture. It's no fun killing them right off. You have to make them wish they were dead. Hehehe~"

Intro Quote: "Oh, new a toy to play with! Try not to break as easily as the last one, okay? Hehehe~"

Trauma Quote: "Let me go! My parents are in there! I have to save them! Let me go! ...Mommy! Daddy! Noooooo!"

Ending Quote: "...8...9...10! Ready or not, here I come! Hehehe~"

[schrodingers-tits]

Butters Stotch’s mentality rant because I need to get it out of my system. Trigger warning for general Butters-family-ness. Also this isn’t edited I just wrote down my thoughts and couldn’t stop

I have spent days watching South Park, specifically Butters. He isn’t an ‘uwu’ Eric Cartman, he’s a kid who spent too much time with the wrong people. When your only influence is an abusive family and Eric Cartman, a master manipulator, it’s obvious who you’re going to trust: Cartman. Childhood trauma can have an intense effect on the brain and general development. I’ve witnessed it firsthand with many of my friends, and their situations look very similar to Butters’. This one kid I knew- my childhood best friend- is a prime example. They didn’t have a good home life, and ended up stealing things and being very bitter. Butters is in an even worse situation, and has only a neo-nazi to look to for help. Professor Chaos allows Butters a sense of control. And control is something that is often strived for in situations like Butters’. Professor Chaos was born from needing control, but Butters was born from the lack of it (a part of the reason I love the DID Butters headcanon so much). And, as shown in the earlier seasons, the only friends Butters had were Dougie and Pip. Even then, they weren’t truly friends: just kids stuck in a basement with Stan. Butters is the butt of jokes, and is blamed for everything. He doesn’t see a problem with this because it’s all he knows (as shown from his comments in the video games when exploring the world, and in Bebe’s Boobs Destroy Society). Adding on to the point from earlier about his role models, in the episode about Butters riding horses (I can’t remember what it is and if I lose all of this writing I’m gonna cry) his parents are preaching about the Russian kid being a communist bent on destroying American society. Butters doesn’t hold these views, but his parents do. Which then lead him to internalizing them. Butters wouldn’t insult someone, but the Brand company is telling him he would. They’re telling him he’s assertive or whatever. And thus; he is. Butters doesn’t do these things unless the people around him do. Just like in Post-Covid, it’s clear the writers themselves acknowledge this. When grounded, Butters won’t come out of his room. Even if it takes 16 years. He’s naïve, all he knows is that he’s supposed to be grounded. Try to escape? He’ll just be grounded even longer, dare I say he’ll get beaten/abused further. But when he’s let out of his room, and he isn’t grounded, he’s just… a normal guy. A normal, happy dude. Cartman, on the other hand, ends up on the streets covered in junk. The ending he always gets: a bad ending for the bad guy. But the writers don’t give Butters a bad ending, they give him a normal one. A happy one. He isn’t a bad guy, the people around him are. And he’s naïve.

TLD;R: the people around Butters are terrible, and thus, Butters emanates this terrible behavior. He isn’t inherently bad, just naïve.

[deerfour]

Assassin Born From Fire - Part One

Pairing: Peter Parker x fem!reader

Warnings: Mention of behind held at gunpoint, torture, mention of death, trauma, blood, injuries, swearing

Summary: It's not easy to live a double life at a facility that wants to use you to get people killed when one part of you loves to, and the other one hates it.

Word Count: 6.4k

Series Masterlist: Here!

~~Part One~~

The only thing that made you terrified was yourself.

Not the way you were, or the way you looked, or the idea of you having the powers of a thousand suns, but the change. How you could go from being a terrified child to a killer without a warning.

It scared the shit out of you every time you woke up and the memories floated back to the surface to give you one more sleepless night. Every time a mission was being put your way, it often ended that way if it wasn't something simple. It was almost never something simple.

The thing that was even more terrifying was that there was absolute nothing you could do about it.

It was those changes that made you the ultimate weapon for others to use as their own, but at the same time it made you the weakest of all warriors. You could kill without thinking twice, or you could crumble to pieces. That was the reason why you never got out on a mission by yourself, why someone held you under constant guard at all times. There was not a point when someone wasn't watching every step you took, every decision you made or every breakdown you had.

You were never alone, but still felt lonely at all times.

Although that was the case not even torturing the scared part of you was enough to keep you doing the job. There was no part of you that could do such a thing. It didn't matter that they had handed you a gun, pointed at a man and ordered you to kill him. After hours of being beaten and left in the dark for not listening to orders you couldn't bring that side of you forward when you had control.

You couldn't do it.

You couldn't kill.

Your reality was a maze of emotions that you gladly avoided. Some days nothing made sense and you just wanted to escape everything, just for it to turn around on one foot and you changed completely. You wanted to prove a point that was hidden in the mist. There was a darkness inside that grew for every time you pulled yourself through a mission and succeeded. But, when the other side of you was triggered, everything fell back to zero.

The first times it had happened you had been curling into a ball, or singing silently to yourself in a corner. Those had been failed attempts to calm yourself down and take you back to the times of smiles and laughter to avoid the stern looks and the radiating pain. Other times you would stare into the wall in waiting for something to happen to get your mind thinking. That didn't happen way too often though. But as the years passed you got used to it. The guilt after every mission she had succeeded with because she never failed.

The scarred child had grown up to a woman that hadn't changed. You had learned, but never changed. You could never in your life kill someone, but you would follow all other orders. If it was going undercover and infiltrating a system, or if it was to interrogate a prisoner. You would do it. Torture someone for days, or weeks, to get them to follow orders that higher ranks had been given them. You would do it. Sit for hours and listen to the screams of children as they were being put into such trauma that most of them died. You could endure.

Everything but killing.

It was a weird thing. To, for a moment, feel like you were a good person that just did your job, that followed your orders. That was the way it had always been and there was no reason for it to change when you got older. But to suddenly turn into a killer that didn't think twice. That made your head spin and nausea hit you without a second thought. How could such a thing freak you out when you had fought agents of all kinds? How could a slight change in your own personality make you want to cry when you had endured so much the past years?

If they wanted someone dead, they needed the other half. The uncontrollable half. The half that could kill anyone at any point. The half that you were terrified of. The half that left you with pieces that you needed to pick up and put together as best you could on your own. The half that returned whenever she felt like it was her time to shine. The half that they loved, because she had no stopping her.

When she took over it was like everything was a game and nothing mattered but the killing and the chaos. To see things getting destroyed and blown up was like a party for that half. When people screamed because of pain she laughed and you remembered that feeling. To feel happy and delighted by someone's pain, and it hurts even more than watching three year old's being tested on. She loved to take over and show her face. But for you, it was terrifying.

They didn't care about you enough to help you endure the aftermath of being locked up with your own thoughts. The only thing they cared about was getting through with their plans that you only knew the third part of, and they were never clear what exactly was expected. To ask questions was properly handled with different methods, whether it was being starved or burnt from the inside or ripped apart by blades was always a surprise to not look forward to. Simple enough, they threw you into a cell after the killing was done, letting you sleep for a day or two before you were yourself again. When that was done you either spent weeks alone in the dark, trained with guards or were being handed missions that didn't require killing. That was until they needed her.

If they needed that other part they could trigger it in a matter of seconds, and they knew that there was a risk of them dying every time, but it was worth it. According to them. According to you? It was a nightmare.

A nightmare that never ended, and the only way to escape for just a little bit was to either let the destruction follow or follow orders. If none of those were possible you would ask for some time to train your skills under supervision. Sometimes you were lucky and got to train for as long as you wished, and other times you got nothing but spit in the face back. During the long winter nights in a stone cell, where your only roommates were blood puddles that weren't all yours and rats that sometimes crawled across your body during the night, you often found yourself in a thinking space that left you feeling empty.

Today was such a day.

You had been locked up for what seemed to be two days with only two cups of water and some bread to keep you occupied. Several times you had asked for the opportunity to go train, but had been neglected every time, no one cared to hear your plea. Even if you couldn't tell time, you were pretty sure it had been two days from what you heard of the change of guards outside. Every third hour they changed guards, that was something you had picked up during a meeting several years from now. With that information you were able to tell the time, at least some of the times. After hours of being drugged to sleep you had no idea how many days had passed by, and you could only make guesses. Same when you slept because you chose to. Guards always stood right outside. Keeping you looked over if a less pleasant part came into view.

The door screeched open, but you kept your eyes slightly closed when the light from the hall hit your face. You hugged your knees to keep the little warmth that you could gather as your head was leaned back against the wall behind you. Footsteps came closer, one person, carrying the usual weapons of a guard, which included both a gun and a taser for long distance and if an attacker got close enough. Even if you couldn't hear it you knew that the guard was holding a needle in one of his hands that he probably held behind his back. But you kept your eyes closed, knowing that it was just a guard. You had heard it enough times to pick up if something were to be different from the usual, and if it was you were always prepared. After years of training and discipline you could perform hand to hand combat with blind eyes.

It was easy to tell which ones were guards and who were directors. Mainly because directors always announced their presence to get everyone saluting them, but also because guards sounded more when they walked with their uniforms and weapons. Never have you heard an intruder who came long enough to get into the cells and escape alive. They simply couldn't. That was one thing you knew from trying to escape several times during your time spent in this prison of a home. Like the first time when you had--

A hand grabbed over your arm and you snapped your eyes open, meeting the guard's. His brown eyes were capturing, his jaw sharp and clenched from what it looked like and his blonde hair was slicked back over his head. You had never seen the guard before.

He had never met you either because he thought you were sleeping. As he jumped back in surprise you chuckled deep in your throat. You couldn't count how many times that had happened when new guards had been getting the mission to take you somewhere or deliver something to you. It always worked. That was the funny part. Two other guards from outside scrambled inside and picked you up from the floor, keeping you standing by grasping your arms. You knew both of them. One being the general for your department from what you had heard, and the other one of the usual with his sparkling blue eyes, making you think of water. That's why you called him Water-boy every time you got the chance, and the best part was how offended he looked when you mentioned your nickname for him. Their gloves left marks that would sit for a few hours after this, but it was nothing that hurt you anymore. You grinned from ear to ear.

Both of the guards had their weapons ready to be drawn, not knowing which part had woken up. The first guard stepped in front of you, staring down at you where you stood grinning like an idiot while biting your tongue, still thinking how you had scared him. How he had been ready for the other half to be the one he had approached, and the way he had almost dropped his face in the thought of meeting her without a weapon in hand. That was a show if anything. That actually might be the only thing you could like about that half, that everyone kept their distance and gave you space. That it was because of fear was more of an unpleasant detail, but it didn't matter to you anyways. You'd rather them to fear you than to underestimate you.

You let yourself memorize his face, just like you had done with everyone else. His nose that looked like it had been broken one too many times. Eyebrows plucked uneven, leaving the right one a little thicker than the other, just so slightly. The way his brown eyes turned serious the moment he stared down at you, trying to scare you with his stare.

This one was new. Interesting.

He looked at the two guards holding you and when they nodded for him to proceed he picked up a flashlight from his pocket. The new guard forcefully opened your right eye and put the light into your eye. It stung as usual, but it didn't hurt like it used to. Just as he stared into your eye you suddenly moved towards him and he jumped once more. He was tense in his entire body and it made you chuckle under your breath, the two guards beside you just holding tightly before motioning for the guard to continue. They didn't have all day standing here holding you in their arms when they had a whole facility to watch over. After he checked the other eye he nodded and both guards let go of you. Making you let out a sigh through your nose so they wouldn't hear it.

"You are very lucky today," the new guard spoke in a harsh tone.

"Is it my birthday or something?" you raised an eyebrow.

You actually didn't know when your birthday was, date or month or year was oblivious to you, but you knew that when the day came you got beaten. That was at least what they told you at the facility. 'It's your birthday today, you're very lucky', and then they kicked your ass without you being able to do anything about it. You had nothing else to believe, so you tried your best to count the days, see the temperature changes and maybe figure out at least a month. You had tried for nothing, because as the years passed you lost count on everything and all turned into a tornado that was too much of a battle to take care of for the moment.

One step at the time.

"Not that lucky," the guard from your left muttered, having been one of those who had delivered a yearly bruise over your eye.

"You're meeting with the head director. He has a mission for you," the first guard continued, ignoring the muttering from his coworker.

"Lucky me," you mumbled loud enough for the guards to hear the sarcasm covering your tone.

Water-boy glanced your way with a raised eyebrow, while the others just looked at you like you were insane. Even if it might be the case, you continued to stare down the newbie, making him feel as uneasy as you could by just being in your presence. The general was so used to seeing your gazes that he didn't even care about it, and instead sighed loudly at his time running away from him. New guard boy turned on the spot before one more of your comments entered the room, and he walked out into the dimly lit hallway. For a second you hesitated, but it was enough for the general to get impatient, so he grabbed your arm and launched you out into the corridor. If you only could fight back you would, but with your powers bound there was no use since the corridor outside was full with dozens of guards. You could never fight so many of them. Instead you followed the new guard and held your head high, not letting the fear invade your system.

The corridor's walls were covered with, not only guards that stared you down, but also doors made out of the thickest iron and steel in the world. Nothing could get through them. As you let your gaze travel over the doors you silently prayed to a god that had never heard you before that those inside of those doors would be freed from this prison some day. You knew perfectly well that there was someone behind each and everyone of those doors that divided the ranks at the facility. They were all different kinds of people, all from small children from this world to the next, and there were elders that had given up on their life but had no choice but to continue fighting. At first when you had arrived here you had thought you were all alone and the only one that knew of this pain, but when the night fell and you heard the cries of pain you knew you were incorrect. There were others. People who got treated just as bad, if not worse, than you. So, every time you get the chance you let your heart get dedicated to them; to somehow save them mentally. Their cries were nothing that bothered you anymore. You just slept through them, and tried your best to not think about how those screams would haunt you for the rest of your short life.

At the end of the corridor the guard locked it up with his green eyeball as a security code, and the door clicked open. You had seen this door unlocked a million times, but it still made your heart jump when you saw the halls beyond. They were a familiar place to you that wasn't special in any way, but the way the cold always seemed to linger there even during the winter gave you goosebumps. The corridors made out of stone and steel to keep you away from reality led through the facility to get to the administration offices. Just because they changed their appearance didn't mean that they gave you less creeps than before. Not only did the general and Water-boy walk at your sides but you were followed by nine guards that walked in unison. On your way there you tried your best not to think about what the mission could be, but you had your suspicions. At the end of the hall that turned left and right a few times that you didn't need to count, you reached three elevators that got you out from the dungeons. Following the new guard you got inside with five other guards that you had seen before at some point, one of them being a woman with an ugly scar that leaped from her forehead, through her eye and down to her chin. Making her blind in the right eye. Still, she fought with her other senses, which made her just as good as anyone else.

Your gut turned as you felt yourself going up, and even as it had happened so many times before you felt your knees buckle and if it hadn't been for the general and Water-boy you would've fallen to the floor. The walls in the elevator were made out of glass, which gave you the opportunity to look at the passing corridors. One being a familiar one. The way up you passed the medical bay where you could spot a man with an open wound screaming for help he didn't get. He had not been given any painkillers and you knew that he wouldn't be given anything any time soon. Either he would die by bleeding out, or he would die later by an infection. If he was strong he might survive a little longer, but from the way you could see his lungs from just a second of passing by made you realize that it would not happen. It was nothing you hadn't seen before, but it still aches in your chest, even if you keep staring without letting them know that the feelings are flattering around inside. They could never know your weakest point. That was a request for trouble, and them thinking that you were slowly turning into the warrior they desired.

A few floors upwards you came to the halls of the laboratories where you had spent hours strapped to a bed while they took blood from your veins. People in lab coats paused as they saw who was going up, and their eyes grew wide. Whatever that meant was their own business. You didn't care what they thought about you, or what the rumors said. That you were a killer was not a surprise, you just wished they could see the difference between a killer and a victim. So, when an old man that had been haunting your nights as a child saw you without giving away his fear you grinned. Nobody noticed the quick interaction between the two of you, but you knew that he was onboard with what you had just indicated. In a day or two he would ask for more tests being taken from you, but you didn't regret it.

As you, finally, got to the administration floor, which was way more sophisticated than the rest of the facility. It was weird how every part of the building looked so incredibly different, from the dungeon's gray stone walls to the plywood walls of the office where the only colors were wooden and black. It looked just as much as a prison as the one you were kept in. As the doors to the elevator opened the leading guard walked out, almost knocking straight into one of the workers that were currently holding a lot of papers in his arms. All of them fell to the floor, but as he was about to complain, you stepped out and he closed his mouth. Your mouth corners twitched as he began picking up his papers while his round glasses were sitting askew at the bridge of his nose, his black hair messy and the brown eyes keeping a target that was the floor. From what you could determine from his appearance he looked like he was in his forties, but of course you could not know for sure. If you were honest you knew that you were one of the best to identify people in the branch, and nobody could say anything else. There was a reason why you went undercover most of the ones the facility had in their grasp.

The guards didn't stop until you had taken thirty-five steps forward, made one left turn and then taken fourteen steps more. The newbie knocked on a big double door that opened just as he took a step back. You knew that inside stood two guards keeping the director under constant coverage to make sure that he was safe from enemies. From enemies that had become mine just as well as his. All of you stepped inside the grand office with bookshelves covering one of the walls, with at least a hundred copies, and the other wall had a fireplace with a pair of leather armchairs in front. The fire was lit and sparkled in your eyes as you let your gaze linger there for a moment, before facing the wooden desk in the middle of the room. A man, that you knew all too well, sat behind it reading through papers, not looking up as you approached. He eyed his papers, picking out a few to place on his left, while most of them were replaced in a drawer he had opened on his right. The head director didn't look up as you left the guards saluting to sit down in one of the black leather chairs before the desk.

"Leave us," he ordered, the guards thinking twice.

You were never left alone.

Not even for a moment, and definitely not with the head director in your grasp.

"Are you understanding English, general?" the man in a gray suit asked, still looking through his paper and writing a few things down in a notebook beside him.

"Ye- yes," the impatient guard that had been showing no signs of weakness just a moment ago, stammered.

"Then, what did I say?"

His voice was like a knife that cut through the air. A smirk crossed my lips as I gazed at the guard, which only made him gulp and open his mouth without any words leaving him. It was laughable. That little power that the director had of everyone, the power that was all that needed to be reminded about to make someone shake in fear. It was hilarious.

"You said 'leave us'," he reported, his gaze averting to yours once more and you saw the anger linger behind his dilated pupils.

"And who is following orders around here?"

"Me," he sighed. "But, she--"

"Will not hurt me. She knows better. I guess you checked her before bringing her up," he let his gaze rise to the guard, making him sweat.

"Yes, sir," he gulped before he signaled to the rest of the guards to leave you alone with the director.

You grinned at the newbie before he turned and walked after the rest of the guards that had already left the office. The ones that had been keeping the director under guard also left, making the office suddenly turn incredibly silent as the door closed behind them. You wanted to laugh at the way the general had been nervously picking around his collar as if he couldn't breath, but instead you turned around to face the director. The man with brown hair, that slowly turned gray as his suit from aging, stood up and began to walk around his desk. His eyes were locked with yours, but you just stared him down without a flinch even though you wanted to curl up in a corner.

"You are getting a new mission today. The most important one in your career."

Career, you wanted to mutter, but instead you kept your silence and leaned yourself backwards, putting your hands behind your head to keep him talking. Either this would end in a reasonable mission that could give you something in return, or it would be a one-time thing that wouldn't give you shit. One of your eyebrows got raised as he chuckled and sat down at the front of his desk before you. He knew that you wouldn't go along with any missions willingly if there was a killing part. Still, if that was the case he would just bring her out and she would burn the whole world, not caring about anything else than the flames. His eyes were a little narrowed from the chuckle, his arms crossed over his chest, and the wrinkles across his face slowly smoothed.

"We need you to go undercover for us, get us intel and then report back here. At the end of the deal, you'll kill the target."

"I won't kill."

You answered quicker than he thought you would, taking him aback, but only for a second before a smirk covered his thin lips. It was three simple words that didn't like being heard by anyone, but you said them nonetheless. You didn't care about what he thought about that one weakness. The weakness that forced him to bring out the messier part of you if he wanted something done. When you began telling him that you wouldn't kill for him he had been beating you personally, but as the years passed he let others do it. Every time there was a beating when you refused. He just waited for you to break enough for him to not have to make you do as you were told through violence. It took his time.

"I know that, believe me," he chuckled and looked you straight in the eyes, burning into your orbs. "But this is different. This mission is special for you and your work here."

"Continue," you spoke as he paused.

"Is it interest I'm hearing?"

"Impatience," you corrected him without moving a muscle.

"Very well then. You will not be having any guards watching over you this time."

"What?"

It didn't mean to sound like you were surprised, but you couldn't hide it in your voice. You cursed yourself mentally afterwards when you saw the cold smile that crept over his wrinkly face. Long ago you had learned that surprise was enough for your enemy to know weakness. The easiest way to bring someone down was to use surprise against them, and even if you knew this better than anyone, this made you still let your chin drop. He clicked his tongue to make this more dramatic than what it actually was. A minute ticked down that felt like an hour. Was he seriously letting you out on a mission on your own? Without any guards watching you from a distance to make sure that you didn't try to flee. This was something new. And that meant that there was a catch. There was always a catch when it came to the director.

"It's too risky. We can't have you being discovered, and people sneaking too close to the Avengers Compound will raise suspicion."

"Avengers Compound?"

You had heard about the Avengers on several occasions during your time in imprisonment. They were the thing that stood between the facility and getting full power, but taking them out had been shown to be harder than they had first thought. It seemed like a new idea had arised, and you didn't like the sound of that for some reason. Other than them being complete assholes to the organization, you knew that one of their heroes had been the Winter Soldier. One of the strongest warriors from the facility. Made into the ultimate weapon with mind control and a code to make him do anything. It had been an experiment that had been prepared to be done to others. You included. Sadly it never did.

"You will go undercover as an intern there, and find everything we want to know about their plans, and how much they know of us. You will be there for as long as needed, and we have found a place for you to live during your time there since coming back here every day might be a bit of a journey."

It sounded reasonable, but you didn't trust this yet. Something was not adding up to you. If you were just getting inside as an intern to find information, then why would you need to kill? There was no reason if the only thing he looked for was facts, because that was something you could gather easily.

"So, what do you say?" he asked as you stared at him, drowning in your thoughts.

You looked him in the eyes, knowing there was something he didn't say. Something he was hiding to make this mission easier, and hiding things that you might want to know was never a good idea. You would find the clues to his secrets and find out what he was keeping away from you to keep his ship sailing. Secrets were nothing you had ever appreciated. But at the same time this mission was the first one you would go out on your own. Something you had dreamed to be able to do since the first one you ever went to. After failure and successes you had never gotten this big of an opportunity, and that was something new, something that you wished for. To wish for things here was not a wise choice in life. But you had nothing to lose except for your life, and that was not much to keep protected in the first place. The freedom of being alone in the real world was calling your name, and it made the decision even harder to make.

"How will I report back here if I won't be seeing you any time soon?"

"Simple," the man spoke and got back to his side of the desk.

Phones would've been the easy answer, but they were traceable. The facility never worked with things that were traceable. Too risky. You leaned forwards with your elbows on your knees as you glanced his way. He opened a drawer and pulled out a small little metallic device that was round with an octopus on the top. You felt a chill run down your spine, but he still handed the device your way. Without thinking twice you took it from him. The metal felt cold in your warm hands as you looked at it while the man explained.

"You just simply push the button at the right side and you will call my office," as he said this you pushed the bottom and a similar looking device beeped at his desk. He placed his finger across the octopus and a hologram appeared over it showing your face and half your upper body, currently looking at something. It scared you seeing that face, making you gasp and throw the device across the desk. You could imagine him smiling, not reaching his eyes, but your gaze was trapped at the hologram.

The device landed before the man and he appeared on the other device as well, the one you were staring down. You gasped slightly at how detailed it was, showing all in such a close up that it was impossible to miss out on something. When you gazed back at the one you had been holding it now also showed a hologram, you. It showed both ways. You stood up from the chair and walked around the one that had been on his desk in the first place, but it still showed you. It was showing in all directions. Showing everything with a pulse and warmth to it.

"Something wrong?" he asked, and you felt a sting at the back of your neck.

"No, everything's fine. Who am I assigned to kill?"

He seemed surprised by the question, showing by his body stiffening a little bit, short enough for someone with an untrained eye to look through, but for you. It was clear that he thought you would actually do it. He should know better than that at this point in your deal. The thought of your freedom didn't make you spin that far away. You didn't kill, but followed all other orders without questions. That was the deal for you to keep this little part of yourself standing.

"Tony Stark."

"Iron Man?"

Even here you knew who the famous Tony Stark was. The richest man in all of the United States, might even be the whole world. You had just heard him during a few meetings during brief conversation, and at some point you had gotten your hands on a file about him that you just read the first page off.

"Yes, Iron Man. The one owning the Avengers Facility, or compound, or whatever they wanna call that stone block. I need him gone for my project to be complete. It's your mission to get him out of my way so I can continue without having to worry about him disturbing me."

He sounded bitter. Not focused on what you would say at the moment, giving you the perfect opportunity to slink in a simple question that you hoped wouldn't raise any suspicion.

"And what's your project?"

Somewhere you knew that you wouldn't get an answer to that question, but you still wanted him to tell you more. Maybe you could get him to crack what he was hiding, if only for a moment so that you could read his feelings. This game was being played well from his side, but you needed to win. For once, you needed to win to know if it was worth it.

If the freedom was worth it.

This might be the mission of your lifetime, just as he had spoken. You hated that truth, and you hoped for all your life that it was a lie, even if you knew that it wasn't. This would determine your whole future here. If it went well you would be treated with respect, and might even rise in the ranks for the first time in several years. There was also a possibility that you would fail the director, which would leave him with no choice but to put you down once again.

Just as he had done a million times before.

"Stupid question," he simply spoke before a burning pain ran through your body, before you got a moment to read anything from his body language.

From the randomness of the lightning that spread across your body you fell down to your knees, letting out a yelp in pain. You didn't mean for the sudden scream to erupt from within, but being unprepared for your blood being boiled from within, hurt more than you could remember. If you had been prepared you would've been able to hold in the screams for at least a minute before the tingling would've gotten to you. There was no way you could ignore the pain that pierced your skin when it came out of nowhere. It streamed up and down your body, thousands of nails biting at your skin, trying to poke a hole into it. Your hands turned into fists that you lost the feeling of first. The numbness traveling up your arms. Your screams echoed through the administration offices, but no one cared. The ones that bothered to stop for a moment didn't try to find you. There was never someone looking.

"Are you ready for the mission, assassin?"

The question was hard to hear when the only thing in your ears was beeps and crackling, and the burning of your own skin crawling across you, eating at your brain. Still, you could hear the words as if they were being told straight into your head. There was no way for you to handle the question and get up with an answer as your body twitched and you fell to the floor. Suddenly it stopped and you breathed for air, trying to collect yourself, and getting ready for one more zap. It didn't come. You were just laying there, defeated on the floor, and you tried to think through his question, but it had disappeared. If you didn't get up and said something he wanted to hear it would come back. Your skin burning in a way that you could never manage to do on your own.

So, instead of standing your ground to prove something that wasn't worth the time, you got up. You rose from the ground, slowly but surely as your body was harder to control. Being numb in your fingers, toes and calves made it impossible to get up completely on your feet. Instead, you looked up at him from beneath your hair that had been falling in your eyes. He had a smirk on his face, knowing that you would agree to this. You would follow through, even if you didn't kill him. You would find the information they needed and then they would let her escape. With heavy breaths you let your eyes gaze over to the hologram that showed a clear picture of the director that smirked your way. Knowing that he had defeated you once again, and that there was nothing you were going to do against it. Knowing this, you locked eyes with him through the hologram and let one word escape your lips.

"Always."

[vizthedatum]

Understanding that I'm AuDHD (autistic+ADHD) has made my life more tolerable, even if it's not where I want it to be yet.

Today I cooked two grilled chicken sandwiches, and they're awesome. I pan-fried the chicken myself, I cut up the veggies, I knew how to proportion things, etc.

I ground up whole coffee beans and made a whole pot of coffee (with saffron added in, because my friend had alerted me to to a study about how saffron is a natural stimulant).

I'm cooking and making things myself more and more. I've been so embarrassed over most of my PhD training years that I haven't cooked more - I was doing it pretty solidly the first two years of my PhD training, but I went into varied levels of functional disability when I lived with my ex-spouse.

I still did things, of course. It became harder and harder the more I self-abandoned and the more I was emotionally controlled.

This past year, I've been doing so many more things. It's been hard, though. I wish I could go faster with my healing.

I wish I could cook all the time (I want to, and I am trying to take it slow), I wish I could do all my hobbies, I wish, I wish, I wish.

But today, I felt proud that I've gotten this far. AND IT IS SO MUCH PROGRESS. I'm trying to tell my past self, "See, we got here!! So what if it took you so long to get started? Didn't it feel great to not do it under mountains of pressure?"

--

I have a lot of trauma from childhood and early adulthood about people criticizing the way I do things, the way I don't do things, and how I am.

Everything up to my stims, my facial expressions, my eye contact, the way my hands shake, and so on and so on. I got yelled for all of it.

I got yelled at, beaten, and punished for the intrinsic way of how I am.

And when the trauma sits in, it gets even worse. I have an endless stream of self-defeating thoughts: you're stupid, you can't do this, you can't possibly know how to do this, people hate you, people just put up with you, stop fidgeting, you're too still now, etc. etc.

--

When I meltdown or shutdown, I go through massive skill regression. People usually lose trust in me after that. Sometimes it only takes one or two episodes of seeing me not being able to (or flat-out refusing to) do something

That or when I have a pain- or fatigue-flare and I have to cancel plans very suddenly.

Or when I'm deeply emotionally uncomfortable, and I can't stand to be in my body, and I cancel plans.

When I regain my skills, I am fighting so much self-doubt and doubt from other people... the heartbreaking part is when you've lost trust in yourself.

It makes it so hard to do things that you know you can do.

--

Regulating my nervous system is one of my FIRST AND PRIORITIZED goals for this life... I don't want to continuously go through cycles of panic attacks, meltdowns, shutdowns, and bouts of skill regression or executive dysfunction.

Plus when I'm stressed, I almost always flare.

I'm still figuring out how to lead a balanced life FOR ME. When I'm feeling well, I push myself too hard and then I get off balance again.

"Trying my best" means that I have to try less sometimes.

--

I've been realizing that I have been self-soothing and self-assuring myself a lot this past year, living by myself.

I'm becoming best friends and partners with myself... maybe for the first time.

I CAN DO THINGS. Of course, I can. I can do a lot of things, and even now that I'm academically/professionally qualified, I think I surprise people by doing things. Which is weird to me.

I also need a lot of compassion and understanding. There are many things that I have to do a certain way. There are things I need help with that other people may not need help with.

And that's normal. This is all NORMAL for me.

I accept myself.

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

“The group functioned as an antidote to that manipulation. “There was a general feeling of ‘Something fucked-up happened to me,’” says Zoë. “But we were all making excuses for him. We were all like, ‘Maybe we’re overhyping this. Maybe we’re being dramatic.’ Once we all started talking, it was easier to see, ‘Holy crap. I’ve actually been through an amazing amount of trauma.’””

On the morning of Friday, December 9th, 2022, a young woman named Zoë awoke and found herself to be in avenger mode. Strictly speaking, a disguise may not have been necessary for the doling out of justice Zoë had planned for that day. But it had been a year and a half since she had seen the man who, she says, raped her, and at the thought of potentially coming face-to-face with him, her whole body tingled with fear. At the very least, she didn’t want him to recognize her.

Standing in front of her mirror, she gathered her strawberry-blond bob and secured it under a short wig, which she topped with a black baseball cap. Her boyfriend, Tom, helped trim some of the hairs from the back of her neck, and she affixed them to her upper lip with eyelash glue. She put on a heavy plaid shirt, green cargo pants, and brown men’s boots. When all was said and done, she realised that the disguise was ridiculous, but Zoë was comforted by the fact that she looked ridiculously unlike herself.

By 11:55am, she was in the passenger seat of her Mini Cooper with Tom at the wheel, barreling toward the Bronx. “All right. We are going. We’re doing the thing,” Zoë recorded herself saying in an iPhone video. She panned the camera over a stack of flyers that bore a black-and-white drawing of the man’s face and the words “Have you seen this man? Accused of Rape/Assault by over a dozen women.” At the bottom was a physical description and a website where people could learn more. The URL was the man’s name.

As they neared the man’s neighbourhood, where they would post the flyers everywhere — even on his own front door — Zoë’s breath went shallow. She checked her disguise in the mirror. Tom gripped the wheel and stared at the road, sensing her unease. For the past year and a half, Zoë had been consumed with trying to bring her alleged rapist to account. Maybe, Tom ventured, it was starting to be unhealthy. Maybe she had done enough.

Zoë shook her head. “I don’t want him to be able to hide anymore,” she replied, gazing out the window at block after anonymous city block. “Like, we did this the right way. We turned every fucking stone, I reached out to every fucking DA, I went down to the precinct, I did everything by the book, the way it should have been done, and still: nothing. They always tell you, ‘Oh, trust the process, trust the process… It’s a due process. In the end, he’ll get what’s his.’ But if I don’t take it into my own fucking hands, no, he’s never going to get what’s his, because he just keeps getting away, and all these girls keep getting hurt… It just fucking keeps me up at night.”

Plus, she wasn’t the only one kept up at night thinking about the deeds of Johnathan Michael Holmes. There was Dylan, who alleges that she was raped and beaten in 2015; May (a derivative of her first name), who claims she was raped in 2017; Addy, who says she was physically assaulted in both 2017 and 2018; and Jane (a name she chose to go by in this article), who states that she was raped and strangled in 2021. Holmes has denied all of their allegations, calling them “false, defamatory, and terrible” in an email to Rolling Stone, and claiming that the five women, and others, have conspired to tell lies about him. But the women remain resolute. For a year and a half now — ever since they’d found one another, compared notes, and begun to see what they believe to be a clear pattern of dangerous behaviour — they’d banded together to try to get the New York Police Department to recognise that pattern and act on the assumption that it would continue playing out if nothing was done. Now, the women had reached a breaking point. It was time to seek some justice on their own.

IT IS A mathematical reality that the vast majority of rape victims never see legal justice. Roughly two out of three rapes never even get reported. Of the ones that are, most will never be solved. Where the legal system offers a clearer path to justice for the so-called perfect victim — someone raped by a stranger, who fights back and reports their rape immediately — more than 70 percent of rapes are committed by someone the victim knows, often intimately, and has an ongoing relationship with. Such entanglements are not only more difficult to prosecute from a practical standpoint (a rape kit is of no use if two people have also had consensual sex), they also require emotional messiness to be parsed by a system that mirrors a societal inclination to victim blame. As a result, the system often refuses to take on those cases at all. The NYPD’s Special Victims Division, in particular, has a high rate of prematurely closed cases, and an extremely high rate of ones left in limbo: one study of 150 cases found a closure rate of only seven percent. Last June, the Department of Justice opened an investigation into the SVD, citing a failure “to conduct basic investigative steps and instead shaming and abusing survivors and retraumatizing them.”

Yet when it comes to allegations of partner rape, the victim blaming is very often done by the victims themselves, as Zoë came to know all too well. Of course she thinks she should have seen the red flags in Holmes’ behaviour after they’d connected on OkCupid, his profile showing a dark-haired guy with full lips and high cheekbones alongside a description of himself that was “a little out there” but also “really emotionally intelligent.” Of course she should have been sceptical when, on their first date on Tuesday, June 8th, 2021, he had stared into her eyes and dreamily said things like “It must be really hard being that beautiful every day.” Of course she was taken aback when, after he’d asked her to spit in his mouth, he pulled back from kissing her and suddenly spat on her face. It didn’t occur to Zoë that maybe Holmes was testing her boundaries, seeing what she might permit.

Two days later, on Thursday, June 10th, she invited him over to make dinner. After they’d started kissing, Zoë says, she playfully pulled out pink handcuffs and Holmes snapped, pushing her off of him and “having a total meltdown.” But, she adds, when she suggested that maybe he just go home, his energy shifted. Soon, he was “touching my legs and saying, ‘I think we should have sex. Let’s fuck.…’ He was relentless.”

Eventually, she gave in. When they moved to the bedroom later that night, the sex had been consensual until, according to Zoë, Holmes began calling her his “dirty little whore,” his “dirty little slut,” and slapping her repeatedly across the face so hard that an earring came out. When she told him to “stop, please stop, John, it hurts, please stop,” she says he instead flipped her over, pressed her face into a pillow, and continued to have sex with her until he ejaculated, as she struggled beneath him all the while.

In correspondence with Rolling Stone, Holmes, who is 28, denies these allegations, countering that he was actually victimised by Zoë: “She tried to surprise-handcuff me against my will, and just kind of laughs about how scared I was… I tried leaving as soon as she did this and she apologised profusely and asked me to please stay.” But he didn’t offer details of what happened later, details, Zoë says, she went over and over in the shower as Holmes slept in her bed and she scrubbed her skin raw. “I was still trying to process: ‘Did I just get assaulted? Did this really just happen?’ ” she says. When Holmes emerged from her bedroom in the morning, he seemed to corroborate her recollections of their sexual encounter. “Can I ask you a question?” she says she ventured. “When I was telling you last night, ‘Please stop, it hurts,’ why did you not stop?” “Because it felt good,” she says he answered. Then, he got up and started making breakfast.

Throughout the rest of that day, according to Zoë’s account, Holmes lingered at her home, acting so much like nothing untoward had happened that when he finally left that evening, she didn’t feel angry or hurt — just numb. “I was emotionless. I was just ready for him to be gone. The second he left, I called my friend and said, ‘I think I was just raped?’ Like, ‘Am I overdramatising this?’ ” Her friend didn’t think so. “He was like, ‘Please never see him ever again.’ He was like, ‘You were absolutely raped.’”

Still, that didn’t seem to track with how Holmes acted over the course of that evening and the next day, texting Zoë repeatedly and in a breezily sweet way. When she responded that she was “having an emotional day…” Holmes let her know, “I’m here to listen.” When she replied that she was “sexually exhausted and like wrecked…” he wrote back, “I’m so sorry .. Ahhh :/ my bad.” When she told him, “I’m not used to degradation play and being in that sub space. I’m trying to mentally just get right again,” he doubled down: “Ohh shucks I’m sorry honey bun.. your emotions before during and after sex matter a lot to me. Even without sex they matter to me. I dead-ass appreciate you and will be more courteous and caring towards your wants and needs.”

Zoë was lonely. It had been four years since she’d been in a serious relationship. She craved the sort of emotional attention that Holmes seemed to so effortlessly provide — the barrage of texts, the declarations of affection, the sharing of confidences — all things that she thinks might have been warning signs had she not been in a vulnerable place at the time. Having broken free of her conservative, Midwestern upbringing — homeschool, a church steeped in misogyny — she was drawn to how he could seem both transgressive and earnest. When she revealed that she was bisexual, exploring her gender identity, and made her living, in part, as a dominatrix, she was touched that he took it all in stride.

Outside of this context, there were things she did over the course of the next few days that she knows make no sense. She should never have sent Holmes a topless picture. She should have never invited him back to her apartment on Monday, June 14th. She should never have let him make an OnlyFans video with her the next night; an experience that she says was entirely consensual, although degrading when he called her his “little dyke.” Afterward, Holmes passed out in her bed again and Zoë sat in the living room, her stomach churning. “I was like, ‘What the fuck did I just do? Why is that guy here?’”

That was when she noticed his phone on her ottoman. Almost instinctively, she picked it up. She went to his photos first, finding not only sexual pictures and videos of herself that he had taken without her consent, but also those of other women, who, like her, seemed unaware that their image was being captured. His texts, she says, showed countless exchanges in which she could clearly recognise the profound level of emotional manipulation being employed, how Holmes preyed on insecurities and then quickly offered sweet-talking balm, how he boomeranged between verbal abuse and adulation. What shocked her most, however, was a recent exchange in which one woman told Holmes that it would “not be possible” for her to be with him because of how he had hurt her. “I told you to stop snd [sic] told you not to do what you were doing but you decided to disregard me entirely and do what you want,” the woman wrote. (Rolling Stone has reviewed screenshots of all texts and other messages quoted throughout this story.) When Holmes pushed back — “I literally stopped once I realised it was hurting you which is why you need to chill… You’re being extra about this” — she stood her ground: “I’m not being extra you just don’t realise how messed up this situation was and you won’t because I guess this is the type of person you are.” “LMFAO,” he responded, “what the fuck are you talking about? Stop tryna make me out to be a rapist you sick perverted fuck.”

Zoë drew in her breath. “It was at that exact moment that everything kind of clicked. All the puzzle pieces came together, and I was like, ‘I’ve been gaslit. I’ve been manipulated,’” she says. “It took seeing that it happened to someone else, and in the same way it happened to me, to acknowledge.” The clincher? The messages were from June 8th — the day of Zoë and Holmes’ first date, just one week before.

By now, it was well after midnight. Not wanting to be alone with Holmes, Zoë went outside and around to the back of the building to hide. She took down fourteen numbers — all women Holmes had been conversing with in the past week or so — and created a group text in her phone before smashing his. She sent a picture of Holmes to the group along with this message: “Hey ladies, sorry we have to meet this way. But uh does this belong to any of you?... Johnathan Holmes, this guy who said I love You on the second date then sexually assaulted you and gaslight [sic] you?” Within minutes, responses were coming in: “Can you delete my number off his phone pls” and “if he has photos of me he took them without permission” and “Please be safe kicking him out he has a crazy temper… He got locked up for assault.” Within a few hours, all fourteen women had responded, all expressing alarm. One woman kept writing about Holmes’ propensity for violence. Five more would go on to indicate that they believed they had been sexually assaulted or raped.

Later, after Zoë had called 911 and watched Holmes being led from her house, handcuffed and shirtless, she met with two detectives at the hospital where paramedics escorted her to get anti-STI drugs in the early morning hours of Wednesday, June 16th, 2021. When she owned up to the gray areas of her interactions with Holmes, how they had made an OnlyFans together and interacted after the alleged rape, she knew her case might be over. “As soon as I told them I was a sex worker, the whole energy in the room changed,” she says. “They basically were washing their hands of this.” Still, she felt hopeful that there would be strength in numbers. “I was like, ‘Hey, I have multiple other people now. Can I give them your information?’” One officer said no, “This is your case only.” Zoë was stunned. “I was just like, ‘You’ve got a rapist on the street hurting people. Why don’t you care?’”

IN THE TEXT exchanges and WhatsApp discussions and, eventually, face-to-face meetings among the women who connected in those early hours of June 16th, 2021, the picture of Holmes that emerged was of a self-styled Byronic figure — charming yet tortured. Surely, not all the women he reached out to over OkCupid, Tinder, or Hinge were susceptible to his advances, which involved love bombing, future faking, and a sort of anachronistic courtliness. But the ones who had been now realised that if Holmes didn’t have a physical type, he certainly had an emotional one: spiritual, artistic, and often marginalised (the children of immigrants, bisexual, biracial, or some combination thereof). Most if not all were feeling somewhat lost when they encountered Holmes, and were easily swept up by his charisma and need for control, they say. Several described being pulled into a cult-like arrangement, knowing that they were one of many women Holmes was with, and often knowing where they stood in the hierarchy. A number described a pattern in which sexual situations would begin consensually, then get darker and darker until they were in pain and begging Holmes to stop. Afterward, they say, the gaslighting would begin. The women’s susceptibility to it was a great irony: exactly what made them imperfect victims for the NYPD made them perfect ones for Holmes. Far from being proof that abuse didn’t happen, their continued interaction with Holmes, they argue, was further evidence of it.

The group functioned as an antidote to that manipulation. “There was a general feeling of ‘Something fucked-up happened to me,’” says Zoë. “But we were all making excuses for him. We were all like, ‘Maybe we’re overhyping this. Maybe we’re being dramatic.’ Once we all started talking, it was easier to see, ‘Holy crap. I’ve actually been through an amazing amount of trauma.’”

Of course, this wasn’t true for everyone. A few of the women had only just met Holmes online and bowed out of the group, grateful for the warning. Another was so angry about her alleged rape she kept talking about putting a hit on Holmes; she and the group parted ways. The woman Holmes had called a “sick perverted fuck” claimed to the others that she had already reported him for rape, had done multiple interviews with detectives as well as a controlled call — in which police had listened in while she’d tried to get Holmes to incriminate himself — and that her case had still gone nowhere; she wasn’t sure she had the emotional bandwidth to participate further (she did not respond to Rolling Stone’s inquiries). And some, it appears, turned out to be moles.

The evening of June 16th, one woman sent the group a screenshot of a message she’d just received from Holmes: “can you please tell me honestly if youre [sic] part of a conspiracy to put me in jail?.. I just got home from jail.” The tenor of the chat soon became panicked. Many of the women had shared where they lived and other personal details. Zoë was particularly taken aback: Holmes’ message, rather than any information from the NYPD, was how she found out that he had been released from the precinct.

But she didn’t feel hopeless, not quite. Already she could sense that, far from being the “conspiracy” Holmes claimed it was, the chat was allowing women to support one another as they confronted experiences that didn’t seem invented so much as suppressed. “To the girl who made this group, I’m so appreciative of you and proud of what you did,” wrote May, a personal trainer whose messages reflected a sort of New Age wisdom. She had stayed in intermittent contact with Holmes for years, even after the July night in 2017 when, she alleges, he forced her to watch a video of him having violent sex with another woman before ripping off her underwear, pinning her wrists down, and entering her against her will. For her, the chat’s collective reckoning had a profound effect. “I didn’t want to face the shame that comes along with being a sexual-assault victim,” she says. “It wasn’t until Zoë reached out after her assault that it dug up a lot of stuff that needed to be healed.”

Within days of connecting, the group had made that sort of deprogramming their mission, alongside the goal of locating other alleged victims and trying to warn potential ones. On Thursday June 17th, 2021, Zoë registered the domain name www.johnathanmichaelholmes.com and began building out the website with individual stories of women’s encounters with Holmes. She spent hours on hold with the Queens district attorney, hoping to alert the office to the existence of other victims (the Queens DA did not respond to Rolling Stone’s requests for comment). “Then I went to the precinct,” she says, “like ‘I need to talk to someone.’ They stopped me at the door and were like, ‘You can write an email.’ I left no stone unturned, and these people did not want to help me.”

Forging ahead was how she coped. “I wasn’t working. I wasn’t eating. I was not OK,” Zoë says of those days and weeks after Holmes’ arrest. Every morning, she would walk to the coffee shop on the corner to work on the website and research criminal law, trying to turn her trauma into something productive. She also started a new chat with the women who felt that this was a way for them to do the same. She cast about for a name that would feel empowering. The one she landed on was the Avengers.

At the same time, May and Jane started identifying additional women they knew or believed to have been in Holmes’ orbit, using screenshots of call and text logs that Zoë had taken from his phone. Jane was able to track down Sin’Kira, who Holmes had lived with in 2020 and who shared pictures of her face after the beatings, she says, he had given her (“He forced me to have sex when I didn’t want to, and then when he couldn’t perform, he would start hitting me”). May found contact information for Gigi (a nickname), who had dental records from the time she said Holmes had punched her so hard that he’d knocked out a tooth (“I hope this motherfucker goes away for his whole fucking life”). May also helped the group get in touch with Addy, with whom she’d texted somewhat contentiously when they were both dating Holmes back in 2018. Upon seeing the group’s initial message, “I literally wanted to throw up,” says Addy, a muralist whose chill sophistication gives off Zoë Kravitz vibes. “I thought I was done with him. I thought I was never going to have to deal with that shit ever again.” But she was galvanised, too. She shared a photo of the black eye she says he’d given her and stated he’d once kicked her in the head with a Timberland boot so hard that she’d lost consciousness. When Addy told her family that she’d been in contact with other Holmes victims, her mother introduced the group to a lawyer friend, Noreen Travers, who agreed to meet with them and gauge whether they might have legal recourse. They created a new chat with her: Karma is a Gemini.

On the afternoon of Wednesday August 4th, 2021, Zoë, Addy, May, and Jane gathered in the lobby of an imposing stone building in Manhattan and nervously rode the elevator to the sixth floor, where, over the course of an hour or two, each woman shared her story with Travers. Zoë’s case had gone nowhere, and it had been a few years since May’s and Addy’s assaults. But Jane’s was recent. Travers listened as the soft-spoken Jane, now a grad student studying art therapy, shared her account of how Holmes had strangled her into unconsciousness — leaving bruises on her neck so dark that she wasn’t able to fully cover them with concealer. On another occasion, he had grabbed her and pulled her back under him as she tried to crawl away, crying and saying, “No, please stop.” She explained how she had been trying to figure out how to get away from him when she got the first text from Zoë, how it had solidified her resolve.

Travers thought that Jane’s case might have a chance, especially with the other women agreeing to testify to Holmes’ pattern of behaviour. She agreed to take it on pro bono. “What motivated me was I was truly worried he was going to really hurt someone,” Travers says. “What he had been doing all of these years, just the amount of stories, really frightened me. This is a dangerous person. And he’s young. He needs help. It’s about stopping a predator.”

After the meeting, the women went to a nearby Mexican restaurant, taking advantage of the first time they had all met in person. “We had margaritas,” says Zoë. “We sat on the patio outside and got to know each other a little bit.” They marvelled at how different they all were, but how oddly similar, too: “It was a sisterhood in the making.”

DYLAN HAS WIDE, searching eyes, a dry wit, and the slightly guarded cool of someone who works in an art gallery — which she does. In the fall of 2021, as the website rippled through social networks, she was on her bed studying for grad school when her phone lit up with the link to the site about Holmes. “I was like, ‘What the fuck?’ ” she says. “The weirdest thing was reading the stories and all the similarities to what I experienced.” Immediately, she wrote in, sharing her account of being raped and repeatedly beaten by Holmes while she was studying abroad in Europe in 2015. At one point, she alleged, he had kept her captive in her own apartment, holding her head out over the seventh-floor balcony as it flashed through her mind that she was probably about to die. “Afterwards, he told me that he has a really difficult time cumming unless the girl’s actually in physical duress,” Dylan told the group. “He was like, ‘It’s a problem I’m really working on.’”

As Dylan was welcomed into the Avengers, Zoë sent an email to info@queensda.org (subject line: “Serial Rapist needs justice served”) imploring the office to have her “case reopened and revisited because this is a dangerous man,” and explaining that Holmes “has held women hostage, he has threatened death, he has harassed, verbally assaulted, sexually assaulted, raped, and brutalized women since at least 2014. Please take me into consideration before he goes too far and some poor woman loses her life.” She says she never got a response.

Then something almost miraculous happened: Travers reached out to say that she’d been in touch with the Special Victims Division and there was a detective who was interested in the case. In January 2022, Zoë, Dylan, Jane, and Addy all went to the Manhattan Special Victims facility at 137 Centre St. for individual interviews (May’s was over the phone). It was nerve-racking, talking to a total stranger about such intimate details. But, says Addy, “He really sold me. He’s like, ‘I can’t imagine this happening to one of my daughters.’ He really made me feel like he was going to help me — help us. I remember being so happy when I left that place. So fucking happy.”

That happiness was premature. On April 4th, Jane heard from the detective that he had brought Holmes into the precinct that day for questioning and that Holmes had denied everything. “I was like, ‘Of course he did,’” Jane says. “Then [the detective] was like, ‘We told him to leave you alone, and he said OK’ — as if that settled the matter. I just remember being so frazzled, standing on some random street corner in Queens, calling myself an Uber to go home, crying in the back of this Uber, like, ‘OK, so this man who is so violent now knows everything? And I’m supposed to believe I’m fine?’ ” (When approached for comment, the detective said he could not speak to particulars of ongoing investigations.)

Right after the detective’s call, and after years of no contact, Addy says Holmes started liking her pictures on Instagram, which felt like a threat; she told Travers she was seeking a restraining order. Then, on May 26th, the website received a new message: “Johnathan Michael Holmes raped me as of recent [sic] on May 18 and I need someone to talk to about it. I’m only 18 and am scared of this man wanting to hurt me again. Please help.”

When the Avengers reached out to the young woman, who I’ll call Sara, she told them that she had met Holmes for their second date outside of 137 Centre St., where he had been for his interview with the Special Victims Division. He had declined to give her his last name, but, the Avengers say, after she’d tracked it down from a food-delivery bill, she had found their website. When Sara confronted Holmes about it, he’d told her that he was the victim of a group of jealous exes, prodding one another to spread lies. “They’re mad cause I said I love you to more than one of them,” he texted. “I’m mad that I meant it.” He went on to assure her that he had “never hurt anyone,” adding, “Babe I’m pretty traumatised from what these girls have done to me” and “please don’t believe the crazy stuff about me.”

On June 6th, a couple of days after Sara gave her statement to the NYPD, Holmes was arrested and charged with rape, forcible touching, sexual misconduct, sexual abuse, and harassment. For the Avengers, the moment was bittersweet: There was finally a case making its way through the judicial system that had the potential to break Holmes’ dangerous pattern, but it was built on one more woman’s report of abuse. And then even that avenue closed: by August, Sara (who declined to be interviewed for this story) stopped cooperating with prosecutors or speaking with Travers, and she let the Avengers know that her mother just wanted her to put the experience behind her. Without a witness, there would be no case. The Avengers did the only thing they could think of to do. They reached out to me.

AS A PERSON, let me go on record saying that I believe women. As a journalist, my job is to question everything. In reporting this story, I have tried to navigate both. Over the course of the past four months, I have formally interviewed eight women who say that Holmes either raped them or assaulted them, and I have seen electronic communication pertaining to the rape or assault of at least five more. I have also obtained court documentation that Holmes pleaded guilty to obstruction of breathing in 2016 (pleading down from charges of unlawful imprisonment, strangulation, and third-degree assault) and to second-degree harassment in 2017 (pleading down from multiple charges of assault and harassment). I have learned that he grew up in Manhattan, and that he spoke to many of the women about being subjected to childhood abuse. I have reached out to Holmes’ family by phone and by mail, and have received no response. I have also interviewed at least six people who know, or knew, him well and say that the allegations track with his disposition and certain behaviours they witnessed or experienced.

Throughout my reporting, I have visited county clerks’ offices in multiple boroughs of New York and have spoken to government agencies and members of law enforcement. On three separate occasions along the way, I have dealt with women in administrative roles who were initially disinclined to help me until they pulled up Holmes’ record and, upon seeing it, became very helpful indeed. On other occasions, I have encountered instances of victim blaming and an inclination to downplay the severity of acquaintance rape, to view it as straddling a line rather than crossing it. I have combed through hundreds, if not thousands, of messages between Holmes and various women spanning at least five years. I have also read hundreds, if not thousands, of messages among the Avengers.

I have emailed the NYPD asking for an interview, only to get back a formulaic response that the department “takes sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously.” I have emailed the detective on Zoë’s case, and the DA’s office in Queens, but have not gotten a response. I have spoken with the arresting officer and confirmed Zoë’s account of that night. I have spoken with the detective on Jane’s case who told me, pointedly, “Some of these cases are unprovable. I wish I could prove them and put him away, but I can’t.” I have come to see how systemic failures are built in, to understand that there is no threshold at which the preponderance of she-saids constitutes proof.

On January 9th, after weeks of trying to contact Holmes, I received an email from him. He wrote, “I implore you to seek the group chat messages that Zoë started the day she had me falsely accused and arrested.” He went on to say that it “contains messages in which Zoë asks women I was intimate with as well as women I had never met to lie, claim I had raped them, and to be sure not to say that she (Zoë) had asked them to make these reports… If they are willing to be transparent and show you the group chats, I’m sure you will understand that I do not feel comfortable speaking further on or answering specifically to these presented false, defamatory and terrible allegations.” When I informed Holmes that I reviewed the chat in what appeared to be its entirety and saw no indication of peer pressure or coercion to blame him for events that didn’t happen — or to share any allegations at all — he wrote back, “I have messages from [Sara] in which she states I’ve never harmed her.” When I asked to see them, or any other evidence he had that might disprove the allegations, he did not respond. He did share a message from Sara stating she’d seen “red flags” in the group and had come to believe the women were “plotting” against him. But, as I told Holmes, I believed the message to be consistent with the conflicted feelings of someone who was harmed by a person they loved. In late December, Sara signed Zoë’s online petition to “prosecute accused serial rapist Johnathan Holmes.”

Let me say, on the record, that I believe these women. I am also well aware of how perception can be manipulated, which is an argument both for and against the women’s accounts, depending on how you look at it. Romantically and otherwise, I would never assume that I am immune to that. None of us are. Not even Johnathan Michael Holmes.

ON NOVEMBER 20TH, 2022, Holmes sent an Instagram follow request to a 21-year-old woman named Carmen, shown in her pictures to have sultry eyes, pouty lips, and cascades of brown waves that fall down to her narrow waist. Her profile labelled her an “artist” and “soul searcher,” and broadcast a sort of effervescent naivety. On November 29th, Carmen reached out to Holmes via DM, starting up a casual conversation that Holmes turned flirty and sexual. Soon, they were talking almost every day. Holmes wanted to meet up, but Carmen wasn’t sure: he’d admitted to being polyamorous, and she doubted she was “mature” enough for that type of arrangement. Still, they kept talking. Finally, on December 9th, he shared enough details that she was able to determine his routine: that he worked at a bakery in Westchester, New York, and lived at a particular address in the Bronx.

That day, not coincidentally, Zoë put on her disguise and grabbed the flyers, along with a summons related to the restraining order Addy was trying to obtain. She and Tom headed to Holmes’ address — which court representatives had been unable to confirm — where she filmed from the car as Tom served Holmes the papers. (“Zoë you are my hero,” texted Addy when Zoë shared the video; “OMGGG,” wrote May.) Afterward, they posted her flyers about Holmes all over his neighbourhood, sending updates to the other Avengers along the way. When she checked Instagram later that night, she learned that Holmes had invited Carmen over. He had no idea that “Carmen” didn’t exist, that the person he was messaging was actually Zoë.

In the days that followed, with Jane’s case inactive in Manhattan and Sara’s case dismissed in the Bronx, Zoë tried to round up the paperwork to have her case reopened in Queens. But even getting the arrest number proved Byzantine: the 109th Precinct sent her to the 112th, which sent her back to the 109th; no one seemed to think it was their responsibility to provide her with information. Meanwhile, the DA’s office said they had no record of the arrest, which made Zoë wonder if the cops had just made the call that she was lying, voiding the arrest without even talking to the DA. If they had, that seemed like an egregious error, especially in light of the fact that, while Holmes was in custody after Zoë’s 911 call, three detectives had come over from Manhattan to interview him about another case. “I was shocked that a prosecutor never spoke with her,” says Travers. “Rape is a serious enough charge that a lawyer who is going to have to try the case should speak to the victim. At some level, that’s unconscionable.”

Meanwhile, Carmen was staying in contact with Holmes, tracking his whereabouts. As holiday decorations went up around New York, so did the Avengers’ flyers: Holmes’ image affixed to every post for half a mile down Park Avenue, subway stations plastered from Union Square to Times Square, parts of Brooklyn blanketed in black-and-white warnings. There were discussions about how best to affix the flyers (tape, plastic wrap, wheat paste?) and what sort of placement would make them less likely to be immediately removed (the outside of subway cars?). There were meetups to flyer the areas around where Holmes had grown up; one was handed to the doorman of his parents’ building. When Holmes started growing a beard — which showed up in images he sent Carmen — the beard was added to the flyers.

On December 20th, Zoë posted a video to TikTok that showed clips of the Avengers putting up flyers, between shots of Zoë explaining that they were “turning to the public to help us put pressure on the district attorney to prosecute our abuser.” The video was picked up by a popular TikTok account related to social justice issues, as well as by an Instagram influencer. On Christmas Day, 5,799 people visited the website, the most in its history. Zoë added a GoFundMe, to back their efforts to get the word out, and a petition to “Prosecute accused serial rapist, Johnathan Holmes.” Soon, hundreds had signed.

Still, Holmes kept communicating with Carmen, which the Avengers realised might be a way to get him to incriminate himself. On January 3rd, he invited her over for takeout Chinese and a movie at 7pm, and she accepted. At 6:45pm, as the Avengers had discussed, she — i.e., Zoë — sent Holmes a message asking what his last name was. “Is this about the postersss,” he wrote back. She sent him a photo of one taped to a pole outside. Over the next few hours, Holmes attempted to defend himself. He said that the pictures of battered women on the website were all actually just one woman (false) and that she had been doing some sort of makeup challenge on TikTok (also false). He said that a bitter ex had persuaded multiple women to lie about him, that Carmen’s doubts were “exactly what they wanted for me with this nonsense.” He asked if Carmen could call him, which she — or rather, Zoë’s friend — did later that night.

“I really want you to just get this straight with me because I’m, like, really fucking concerned right now,” she said when he picked up. “I don’t even feel like I should be fucking calling you right now. Like, I feel like I should fucking block you. But, like, I have to know. This is really serious shit.” Holmes’ silence was long and palpable. “I’m not out here fucking hurting people,” he finally said. “I don’t do that.” If Carmen were real, who knows if she would have believed him.

JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS, the Avengers met for sushi and a reunion of sorts, gathering over edamame and peanut-avocado rolls as spa-like guitar music wafted from the restaurant’s speakers and bundled-up shoppers bustled outside. Jane was back in town from school. Zoë had started studying to be an esthetician. There was talk of art projects and friends’ engagements and whether I was using a wall of my apartment to map out all of the women and alleged crimes in this story (I said a flowchart sufficed). There was laughter, even lightness, a sense that the women’s lives, and their collective mission, were moving forward.

“It closed me off for a while,” Jane had said of her experiences with Holmes. “I didn’t trust myself or my intuition or anything, anyone. Now I’m trying to get back to this place of, like, I don’t want to lose myself and my ability to love.”

On balance, the group had been instrumental in that regard. On the one hand, it had kept Holmes in their minds, and had let him take up their time and dictate their actions. But it had also given them a way to navigate the moments when he might have done that anyway. There wasn’t just strength in numbers, there was camaraderie and a sense of clarity as well. As Dylan put it, looking around the table, “You guys made me so much braver.”

“That’s why I never gave up,” said Zoë. “There’s got to be a lot more of us out there that we don’t know about.”

In December alone, almost 25,000 people visited www.johnathanmichaelholmes.com. As of this writing, more women are still coming forward: the woman who says she cried as Holmes took her virginity; the woman who tells me, “I don’t know if I like birds anymore,” because, she says, as he assaulted her, she heard them chirping. So far, these allegations are past the statute of limitations, but some of the women have asked to be part of the efforts to bring Holmes to justice — if not for what he did to them, maybe, for what he may yet do.

And so as their numbers grow, the women wait. And they plan. And they hope — and dread — that the case files will grow, that the scales will be tipped, that one day soon, there will be enough perfectly imperfect victims — enough Avengers — that there never have to be any more.

[system-of-a-feather]

So You Fucked Up and Made A Bad Decision

Since we are kind of working through A Situation cause a part Did a Bad to a loved one, as someone's whose navigated this a few times within our system and kinda lowkey professionally navigates these sorts of issues near daily for work, here is a few pointers and rules to handling it in a manner that will recover quicker and minimize long term damage with a person you care for

(This is intentionally made similar to talking to a child as this is partially aimed to help those that have delayed emotional development due to trauma. Thus this is being explained in a way targeted for people whose emotional development is rather immature / limited. If that sort of simple talking is triggering and uncomfortable for you, feel free to continue past this post /genuine)

You Did a Bad, and you noticed you Did a Bad and while that is not 'okay', these things happen and most importantly, it has ALREADY happened. There is no taking back the action that is done and the hard thing is that we now have to live with that in the moment decision whether we like it or not. It is important to internally come to terms with the reality that an Action You Regret was already done and can not be undone.

That is OK though, because now we are in the present and we can make Better Decisions.

We made one Bad Decision, but now and in the future we can make Good Decisions and we now have PLENTY of opportunities to make Good Decisions and not repeat the Bad Decisions we made in the past.

Here are some general Good Decisions we can do now and some Not So Good Decisions we can do.

Good Decision: Giving our loved one space and time to process things. You hurt them, intentionally or not, and they have a right to feel hurt. It might suck to not be able to make things better immediately, but sometimes people need time to work through what they are feeling. It's important that we respect our loved one's wishes for space. This doesn't mean they don't love you and it doesn't mean they hate you. This just means they need time to get into their best place

Not So Good Decision: Insisting on apologizing to them. It is a GOOD idea to apologize to our loved ones when we hurt them and the intent is good, but as Professor Oak says, there is a time and place for everything and now might not be the right time. It is good to put it out there that you are sorry and want to make amends, but if your loved one is not receptive and/or does not want to talk right now, it is important to make the Good Decision and give them space.

Good Decision: Give yourself time and space to process your own feelings. While they were the ones that were hurt, that doesn't mean you also don't have feelings. Even people that hurt others are allowed to have feelings, it's a natural thing and its important that you give yourself the space to feel what you are experiencing as those feelings can be really hard as well. Only when you are in a better place is it easier to figure out how we can best take care of our friends.

Not So Good Decision: Beat yourself up for having done a Bad Decision. The Bad Decision was already made and no amount of hurting yourself will undo the damage that has done. You don't deserve to be beaten up for a mistake in the past, nor does hurting yourself help heal the situation. There is little benefit to beating yourself up over it and a better use of the time and energy would be put towards thinking about how to help your friend and/or learn from this experience.

Good Decision: When both you and your loved one is ready, talk about what had happened, apologize sincerely, and discuss what you both need to move forward from this incident. It's important to openly listen to one another and come to talk on your own terms. It is also important to reflect on what brought us to this situation where a Bad Decision was made so we can learn how to prevent the situation from getting here and redirect it as a team to prevent it from happening again.

[supersecretnerd]

Post Wendell & Wild Screening Thoughts; Going to Contain a lot of Spoilers, of Course. So uh- if you want to see the film spoiler free do not look at this.

I absolutely adored Kat's character in the film. She's a traumatized kid who had to become strong in order to survive the circumstances she was put in after her parents death (such as being put into an exploitive foster system, being physically bullied by her peers, and being beaten while in the juve system). Along with that, she also blames herself for her parents death and developed a deep hatred for herself. Due to all this unprocessed trauma, she pushes people away and refuses to let others take care of her (due to both thinking they'd only want to help her for their own selfish reasons and not because they care about her and that anyone who gets too close to her will suffer from it). But under her tough exterior, she's still just a scared kid who wants to just be with her parents again.

I also think it's interesting that once she gets her parents back, she doesn't rely on them to keep her safe. Instead, she forces them to stay put in their old run-down home and takes care of matters by herself. It makes sense though; she just got her parents back and she doesn't want to risk losing them again. Also oh my God it hurt me so much when Kat's mom mentioned how she seemed so much tougher than before-

I loved how Kat has to face off with the shadow representation of her trauma and personal demons, she isn't able to defeat it by attacking it like she initially does but instead by comforting it with a hug and accepting it as a part of her. I also loved how it looked like a massive monstrous creature at first, but after being torn apart by it starts to look like a small, sad, and scared child.

Wendell and Wild were absolutely hilarious and fun characters in the film, but that's to be expected with who their voice actors are. I loved their dynamic with each other and with other characters in the film.

Wendell and Wild are both excitable, naive demons with big dreams. Wendell is more of the straight man of the duo that often has to bring Wild back to reality. Wild is the more childish and dumber one of the two. The two are sorta morally grey; like their dreams of their own fair in of itself is a morally good goal that would help end the suffering of the souls of the danged, but they are willing to do questionable actions to get the funding for their goals (such as threatening to kill Father Bests again after he informs them he cannot pay them for bringing him back and willing rigging a vote for the Klaxxons in promise of being paid for it). Writing this out, I realize the two are paralleled with Father Bests in terms of character motivates (only difference is that Bests is doing this to fund his school).

Also I think they were really cute when they were Wild counting down when the hair cream high would hit them and Wendell was excitedly moving his body to the countdown. I hope someone makes that into a gif.

I will say, at the beginning of the film when they are stuck working for their father, Buffalo Belzer, there is tension between the two characters. The reason their dad found out about their dream fair is because Wild had told the wrong demons about it (which implies there are more demons in this realm that we don't get to see; maybe even a demon society?) and Wendell still is angry at Wild for this. It broke my heart when I saw the sad look on Wild's face when Wendell said that he (Wild) hadn't begone to get what he deserved. However, even with this tension, the two still clearly care for each other. Plus, when they find out that Hellmaidens are real and that theirs will summon them, the previous tension evaporates.

Speaking of Buffalo Belzer, the reviews were not wrong about there being gross-out humor- In the initial scene of the Scream Fair, Belzer swallows some souls and we see them out through his digestion and out of his anus. Yes, you read that right, you get to see Blezer's butthole and his cheeks. The boys also use his boogers to create a booger substitute of themselves so he won't notice they're gone; these substitutes get on his hand and he realizes it isn't them when he checks on them, smearing his boogers all over his hand.

Other gross out humor not involving Blezer includes: Father Bests immediately puking out all the water in his body after Wendell and Wild bring him back, Wendell and Wild excitedly spinning each other around while being directly water-voimted on (they shake the water off like puppies), the bird demon creature that pops a gacha ball thing out of it's lower body (basically giving birth) filled with pink goop that Bearzebub uses to communicate to with the brothers, the goop Bearzebub popping after it's done talking to the two (getting pink goop all over Wendell's and Wild's faces), Wild sneezing on his booger substitute (which actually helps it look more like Wild), and bugs coming out of a corpse (said corpse is more skeleton like than meaty like).

Personality wise, Buffalo Belzer is interesting. Initially, he is shown as a sadistic demon who enjoys torturing his souls and having them scream his name. He is also quite verbally mean to his sons, constantly forces them to work on his scalp, and doesn't let them ever leave his body they live on (all of this as punishment for wanting to change his Scream Fair). However, there is a twist at the end that he had other children before the two that went off to be on their own and never came back (which is revealed that the reason they never came back was because they were all caught by Manberg). He gets all his children back (though in the film we never see them out of their jars) and he becomes much nicer and, after destroying his Scream Fair trying to get to his sons, finally accepts his sons plans for their Dream Fair. Also he seems to be very sensitive, as Raul's artwork of a mother protecting her infant child instantly broke his anger at his sons and made him think about his own children and how he failed to protect them.

Speaking of Manberg, him and is relationship with Sister Helley is interesting. Turns out that when Sister Helley was 12 and found out she was a Hellmaiden, Manberg began to use her powers to summon demons and capture them into jars. Manberg believed it to be justice, but Helley thought of it as cruel and she broke ties with him, refusing to help him out anymore (a conflict that seems to parallel the films criticisms of the American prison-industry). Sister Helley also steals Bearzebub from Manberg so that he won't be able to find any more Hellmaidens to help him (which then Kat steals to bring back her parents) and puts a pin inside of the bear so it won't be able to communicate.

However, even with their hatred towards each other, Sister Helley still goes to Manberg to help Kat when her hand won't stop glowing and forcing her to do whatever Wendell & Wild tetll her to do. This cause out of everyone, Manberg has the most knowledge and expertise when it comes to demons and Hellmaidens.

Also the reason Manberg gave Blezer's his children back was because 1: he used it as a trade to get Kat, Helley, and Kat's parents and 2: because he doesn't believe in tearing apart families, even if the family are all demons.

Also the film never tells us what happens to Siobhan when her parents get arrested and I want to know- like does she go into the same foster system that failed Kat, does she live with other relatives, or does she get to live at Rust Bank Catholic school like Kat (even if know she has no one to pay her tuition). And if she lives at the school, could she and Kat become bunk buddies?

Also I just want to say- I think it's very cool that Siobhan turned on her parents when she found out how cruel private prisons are. Especially with the fact that during the golfing scene, her mom had said that Siobhan had told her everything about Kat. Like, it seems like before hand Siobhan had a pretty great relationship with her parents. To be able to break away from their love after learning about how horrible they are is honestly pretty badass, especially for a 13 year old.

Oh and speaking of Siobhan, Raúl used to be a part of her friend group before his transition. However, it doesn't seem like the friendship ended because of his transition. Instead, it ended because Siobhan has a habit of making her friends just like her and not wanting to hang out with someone that doesn't fit in (most likely a trait that she learned from her parents). With this in mind, it makes me curious about her friendship with Sweetie and Sloane, and how it could change after Siobhan broke away from her parents influence.

I will say I wished they had worked more on transitioning from one scene to another. They mainly used a fade to black or a blur effect to transition and honestly it was really jarring and made the film slightly less enjoyable. Still loved the film though, just this aspect could've been handled waaay better.

Definitely will be looking forward to that book for Wendell & Wild (if it ever gets published that is). I feel like a novel would help put all of the pieces the film was trying to put together much better- Plus, we could get more lore from a book 👀

[gender-collecting-forest-goblins]

I never realised how hard it is to exist with plurality when our trauma isn't really defined as trauma.

TW:Death, mental health issues, physical issues, self harm, body dysphoria, suicide/suicidality, medical trauma.

So like, nan died when we were five, I don't have many childhood memories, but seb was the first to "exist" other than me. Then there's the bullying and masking of autism, ADHD, and the trauma of having a post alcoholic parent trying to be a parent again. All with the struggle of things a kid shouldn't have to deal with that mom didn't know how to keep away from us, such as money stuff and food issues. We lose marmalade, a beloved family cat. Then we lose Monty her daughter not long after. The memory of her being cradled in my brothers arms as she has a seizure from the stroke and falling down the stairs, forever imprinted on my mind. Skip to a few years later, it's gotten to the point where we don't know how many we are, because our mental health has already reached the point of passive suicidality and everything that goes with it. Age eleven, deciding whether or not to jump into traffic before school. We form a protector with no name, a shadow figure. He later becomes void. The trauma of not knowing if I'm autistic was way more present around that time. It got way worse and then of course, we didn't know that autism was something to consider, we just thought we were broken. Never mind the trans trauma of being plural and a traumatized child with trust issues, seeing people that aren't there and being terrified of losing my "friends in my head". The bullying gets really bad. We realise we're trans. We're in denial. We think "Oh what if we just come out as non-binary?" It doesn't go well. We are severely suicidal at age 13, finally diagnosed with autism and ADHD. Hospitalised multiple times from then on. Everything is blurry. There are times where I can recall the trauma timeline perfectly, but today is not one of them. This is all quite vague but I think the protectors are ok with that. I needed to get this off my chest. Many have come and gone. I still don't know everyone and everything about the system. I don't know if we'll ever be diagnosed as a system. For now, I just want my life to get easier. We are in constant physical pain. We have hypermobile joint spectrum disorder, recently confirmed. Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome is also suspected. We use a walking stick just to get around the house. We can't stand for more than five minutes. We're still masking our system from our family and friends. Mom thinks we have a dissociative disorder of some sort. The trauma is too complicated even for us, to explain to her how "broken" we feel. Being plural with trauma that is probably nowhere near what people would consider enough to form a system is exhausting. It feels invalidating. Like we shouldn't be this way because we weren't sexually abused or groomed or beaten or tortured or something. We have trauma, it should be enough. So this is me, getting this off my chest. I needed to vent. It hurts so goddamn much. I'm always fronting. I never switch out unless something major happens, like if seb triggers a switch for our safety or if Kai is triggered in due to talking about a memory I'm not supposed to know about to keep me safe. I'm always co-fronting with somebody. I barely know who I am, let alone the fact of being plural making it even harder. What I do know is that, my plurality has saved me. Even if I wish sometimes I wasn't plural. Even if sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I could remember all of the school trauma and the hospital trips and the self harming and the surgery from when I was a kid to fix my eye that I only sort of know about from void. I'm just tired. The body is always hurt or ill or in pain. We never get a break. We mask constantly. We can't even call ourselves we. It's I or me or single anything. We aren't diagnosed with anything system based or plural based. The only reason I have some knowledge of how our system might work is because of the helpful information from other sysblogs on here. Like the info about p-did and median systems and autism based system stuff. Hopefully, we'll get to a good place mentally. For now, we'll just have to take each day as it comes.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I know it probably doesn't read very well or make much sense. I might redo our system intro at some point. Its kind of outdated now. I hope you have a wonderful day/night!

[anthonysfuneral]

In “Defense” of Billy Hargrove

TW: ABUSE

So, like. Probably a bad time for me to scream into the void when everyone already hates Billy Hargrove? And I'm not saying they're not justified. Billy, as he was portrayed in Stranger Things, is plain and simply a racist, bigoted, piece of shit.

But a lot of people seem to forget he was also a victim. And a lot more people seem to forget the Duffer brothers portrayed him horribly.

I find it just. Odd. The Duffers used Billy, an abuse victim, as their villain. Because that's just already contributing to the vilification of abuse victims: especially abuse victims where their reaction to their trauma isn't digestible. We see it with Spinel in Steven Universe, too: if you're not a docile little abuse victim, you're a violent, toxic villain— and in the case of Spinel, she just had to? Forget the fact she was abandoned and traumatized to become good again.

"Forgive and forget your abuse. It will make you the hero."

But that's an entirely different topic.

Back to what I was saying— they had to use the abuse victim as the villain and perpetuate the stereotype that abused people always become the abusers? There were so many other potential villains. Tommy Hagan was right fucking there.

For Billy, let's start from the beginning.

Billy was groomed into being the way he was. He was abandoned by the one positive influence in his life, and left with the most nasty, piece of shit father with absolutely no support system.

Then, come Hawkins.

Susan didn't help him. Max couldn't do anything. Once again: no support system. And let me pull from my own abuse experience— back when I had no support system, back when nobody heard me crying for help, the only way I could lash out was with anger. The same way Billy did with Max. Did with Lucas. Did with everyone.

This doesn't excuse his behavior with Max. This doesn't excuse his behavior with Lucas. But it does give it a reason. People like to say Billy was just evil.

But Billy was an abused child with nobody there.

When it comes to Max, he had to control her. Or else he got beaten black and fucking blue.

His altercation with Steve? Some teenage boy, macho bullshit.

As for his behavior toward Lucas: I will never excuse racism. I am a POC myself, if mixed. But most teenage boys of the time Stranger Things is set in were, regrettably, prejudiced towards other races. Everyone acts like Billy was the pinnacle of prejudice. But in the 80s? That’s just how it was.

And in the end, he gets used as a puppet due to his trauma. And at one touch of fucking affection, he crumbles.

And what do the Duffers do when they finally give Billy a crumb of development beyond a hurtful stereotype of abuse victims?

They fucking kill him. They give him no chance to grow.

And in the end, they have the gall to portray Neil as a sympathetic party who couldn't handle his son's death? His son, who he beat black and blue on multiple occasions?

And then they imply Billy deserved it. And oh my fucking God, don't even get me started on how awful it is that they imply an abuse victim had what was coming, regardless of if the notion was related to the abuse or not.

But those are my issues with his portrayal laid out within the show.

My secondary problem lies within the fandom.

I'm not saying you can't hate Billy. If you hate Billy, it is completely justified. There are multiple valid reasons to hate him. But I would say hate the sin, not the sinner?

Hate the Duffer Brothers who wrote an abuse victim this badly. Don't hate Billy, who was abused for most of his life. Who acted the way he did due to circumstance. This isn’t me saying you shouldn’t hold him accountable: this is me just saying there is more to Billy than pure evil.

Most people in this fandom don't even acknowledge giving him a chance at development, a privilege Steve was given. And if I recall, wasn't Steve implied to be homophobic at the beginning of the show? Just like Billy was implied to be racist? But lay your double standards out, ig.

TL;DR: The Duffers can't write abuse victims. That is on them. Not the character the fandom attacks anyone for having an inkling of admiration for.

(P.S.: I swear, you all have never been in a fandom before. The fans love their antagonists no matter their actions. Welcome to Hell.)

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[teasinterests]

Ok yk what Tatsumi rambles lets go.. this is gonna be a long one so buckle up & enjoy the ride..

‼️ CW: Mentions of abuse, religious trauma, physical violence, mentions of physical disability & eating disorders ‼️

Anyways Tatsumi??? Slaps this guys head.. this bad boy can fit so much trauma ❤️ can we just start off with the random fact that his parents kept him in a bedroom with blood stains all over it?? And that he considers sleeping outside better than his own room??? 😭 I also just wanna remind everyone that Eichi compares Tatsumi’s family as a “force to not be reckoned with” these mfs are batshit insane…

BUT ANYWAY!! I love Tatsumi’s development after what happened during Reimei. His parents fucking sent him there to spread the word of Jesus & Religion but Tatsumi doesnt want that, he was raised to fear people, he was raised to stay confined and brainwashed by religious shit and be worshipped by their following. Tatsumi literally wants nothing more than to be loved. It’s his whole motivation, he would do anything for love, he would do anything for the people that he loves himself. He still says shit like this in the current story, where as he says he’ll sacrifice himself, or makes comparisons to dying in order to protect everyone in Alkaloid. Lets not fucking forget that one time he threw himself at Hiiros phone bc he thought it was a bomb??? LMAOO?? 😭 Tatsumi’s whole thing at Reimei was because he wanted to do something good, he wanted a legacy to be left behind, and for people to “love” him for who he is and the things he’s done for others. He worked himself constantly, and even mentions how he hardly ate. Tatsumi still struggles with natural eating habits because of this. There were people at Reimei who would get mad at Tatsumi if something didnt go their way, and Tatsumi wanted to help everyone. His life was constantly being threatened, and yet he still trusted everyone so blindly. It genuinely makes me so fucking sad bc he’s such a sweetheart and was torn to shreds because of it, which Himeru comments on in the main story. Fucking kudos to him btw for acknowledging that.

Why is this gap so fucking big Tumblr layout..??

Anyways.. Tatsumi ended up being hospitalized due to his mentality, and physical condition. He wasn’t sleeping, nor eating, honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t showering..? Though I feel like thats a heavy stretch. Nonetheless Tatsumi pushed past his breaking point and ended up collapsing. He would have done so on his own most likely, but Ibara helped speed up the process to get Tatsumi out of the school system. Unfortunately for Ibara, Tatsumi ended up returning, and because of Kaname claiming all of Tatsumi’s work and regaining his power, he was able to bring Tatsumi back into the spotlight instantly. Though for their unit Kaname claims that “Tatsumi needs someone to take care of him” which I absolutely adore btw. Tatsumi was concerned for by others, but Kaname was the only one that truly pushed it. Not to mention that Kaname was Tatsumi’s very first real friend.

Now check this.. Kaname being hospitalized in a coma for getting attacked by the schools students. Tatsumi tried to save Kaname, and was pushed off stage, and beaten on the ground by a second group. Tatsumi stated whilst he was hospitalized this second round that he cried, and practically begged God asking why this would happen? He did nothing wrong, Kaname did nothing wrong? And yet they were broken beyond repair for wanting a better life, a better school system.

Tatsumi believes “HiMERU or Oremeru” to be Kaname.. Tatsumi adores Himeru, and his feelings for Himeru/Kaname has not left despite the way Himeru treats him. Tatsumi says he deserves to be treated the way he does for what he did to cause Kaname/Himeru so much pain. Tatsumi, who used to be hella agile and swift, can hardly stand for so long, and struggles running around because of his disability. Although his chronic leg pain IS a mental condition. It’s a form of PTSD actually if I recall correctly… though as a disabled person myself, I actually prefer to headcanon that during his depressive state, Tatsumi simply just gave up. His spirit & faith were broken, and life just didn’t turn out the way he wanted it to be. He became a martyr. The very thing he feared the most in life. Without attending his proper therapy, his leg simply just didn’t heal correctly as it should have, and he recognizes this as punishment for what happened during his time at Reimei. He tells Himeru that hes happy for him, and that seeing Himeru on stage is absolutely the best feeling to him. Tatsumi fucking loves Himeru, and that wont change. Because he THINKS Himeru is Kaname. But, Kaname is still in the hospital, unbeknownst to Tatsumi.

As for Tatsumis development.. he exercises, he takes care of himself, he’s able to work solo, and has a unit that looks after him, and notices the self destructive signs that he frequently shows. I fucking love Alkaloid as a whole, but holy hell, does Tatsumi absolutely deserve them as a unit. He even acknowledges harmful things that he USED to do but doesn’t anymore, such as pushing himself past his limit, or being overly trusting of other people. Though he still has this tendency.. Tatsumi is genuinely just a very loving person, he’s silly, and touchy, and kinda lacks common sense at times which is so goofy? I absolutely love the times where you can tell that he’s behaving childishly because he never did that when he was younger. Tatsumi is truly living a happier life, and is even repeating the year of schooling that he missed after such a long hiatus.. I absolutely adore him, pls love Tatsumi Kazehaya. 😭 …pic at the end cus this mf is gay & HIMERUS REACTION KILLS ME 😭 😭