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bubonickitten · 4 years

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TMA fic: Night Terrors

Summary: At first, Jon assumes his nightmares are just that: bad dreams. But it's only a matter of time before he is forced to acknowledge what it means to be the Archivist.

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

[Spoilers up to MAG 132. CW for canon-typical horror, unsettling dream/nightmare imagery (think MAG 120), some passive suicidal ideation, and some spider mentions here and there.]

Jonathan Sims has had the same nightmare since he was eight years old, with only slight variations.

Sometimes he is the fly in children’s overalls being offered up as a meal. He can feel the anxious buzz of the delicate wings on his back, a foreign and sickening vibration humming its way across his exoskeleton. Four feet rub together nervously in front of him in an uncanny, insectoid pantomime of hand-wringing. The looming form of Mr. Spider is made all the more horrifying by his hundredfold vision and his inability to blink.

Sometimes he is the larger fly, offering up a victim as sacrifice. He can feel his face contorting, features molded into the horror-stricken face of Mr. Horse that still haunts him on sleepless nights. He is forced to watch his offering devoured, slow and excruciating. After, the monster turns its eyes on him.

Most often, though, he is the spider. Or, rather, he watches from the spider’s perspective, a prisoner trapped behind the creature’s many hungry, glinting eyes, as helpless as a fly caught in a web. The dream sequence unravels in slow motion and he is forced to witness the weeping faces of his intended prey for what feels like hours. Enormous block letters bear down on him, announcing the spider’s insatiable hunger, its demand for more, more, more.

Finally, blessedly, he is allowed to close his eyes, but the relief is always fleeting, for when he opens them seconds later, he sees the aftermath of a massacre: smears of reddish-brown blood coating the walls, the floor, the wilting flowers in their vase.

Then, he hears a knock on the door. He sees many – too many – hairy black limbs reach out to open it. He catches a glimpse of a terrified, familiar, but still nameless face through the crack. He always awakens just as the victim opens his mouth and begins to scream.

Jon may have managed to wrench himself away from Mr. Spider, but the fear and the guilt still cling to him years later, like the wispy strands of a broken web. It’s only right that they follow him into his dreams.

~~~

Jon isn’t sleeping well lately.

Well, that isn’t new. But he’s sleeping even worse than usual.

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, Jon tells himself. The new job is stressful.

The Archive is a monument to entropy. A tornado could have swept through and blown things into a more sensible order than the previous Head Archivist left them. The Archives contain nearly two centuries’ worth of case files, and they're scattered about with no discernible system of organization. Material isn’t sorted by format: cassette tapes are thrown haphazardly into the same boxes as loose leaf paper. It isn’t sorted chronologically: case material from the mid-1800s can be found mixed in with recent statements from the 2000s. As far as Jon can tell, it isn’t even sorted thematically; on a cursory perusal, the statements boxed together seem to vary wildly in content, comprehensiveness, and verifiability.

In fact, the conspiratorial part of Jon’s brain can’t shake the feeling that there’s an eerie sense of curation to the disorganization. The more rational part of him knows that Gertrude Robinson was simply elderly, set in her ways, and secure in a position that she had held for decades. Elias isn’t one for hands-on management in the best of cases; there was little to no risk of him actually making his way into the Institute’s basement to observe the way Gertrude ran her Archives, let alone to actually discipline her for lax work ethic.

Either way, though, the result is the same.

The first thing Jon had noticed when he walked into his new office a week previous was a stack of unmarked boxes against the back wall behind the desk. They were partially covering what at first glance appeared to be fingernail scratches on the floorboards, but he told himself that he didn’t have time to dwell on that and deliberately pushed it to the back of his mind. He could deal with it later – or, with any luck, not at all.

The first box he opened contained a handful of unlabeled cassette tapes, a stack of blank index cards in a plastic sandwich bag, an empty manila folder, a nonfunctioning USB thumb drive, and a mess of loose papers with no coherent theme: some fragments of personal correspondence (unsigned and handwritten on yellowed paper in nearly illegible cursive), the scattered typewritten pages of a statement (pages 2 and 7 of 10 missing, presumed lost), and a hand-drawn map of what looked like a labyrinth. The second and third boxes contained more of the same: scattered documents and a yawning void of context. The fourth box was completely empty. The fifth contained only a single matchbook with a faded spider printed on its surface, rattling around the bottom of an otherwise vacant box.

Unmarked boxes, improperly-preserved documents, no rhyme or reason, a layer of dust, and an ignition source. It wasn’t a good start – and, unfortunately, it seemed representative of what the job was going to look like, at least for the first few months.

But beyond that, Elias had been insistent that Jon begin creating audio recordings of statements as soon as possible. Jon had initially chosen to interpret “as soon as possible” to mean “as soon as everything is organized,” and after seeing how big of a task that was, he was careful not to promise a time frame. After the third email from Elias inquiring about Jon’s progress with digitizing the old statements, though, Jon was honest: every day, he found himself adjusting the project timeline as they found more and more statements misfiled or missing.

“I believe it would be best for you to begin recording the statements as you go along,” Elias said. It was obviously an order, but he masked it as a friendly suggestion. Jon hates when he does that; it feels manipulative and condescending, like a parent (or grandparent, in Jon’s case) presenting the illusion of choice to a child and daring them to call it out for what it is.

Jon never was good at keeping his mouth shut, though.

“My first priority is to ensure that everything is cataloged and stored properly. Digitization will go more smoothly if everything is in order before -”

“You have three perfectly competent assistants,” Elias interrupts. Jon bites his tongue before he can make a snide remark about competence. “I’m certain they can handle a bit of filing without your close supervision.”

“But we -”

“I want you to begin making audio recordings, Jon,” Elias interrupted, finally adopting a tone that brooked no argument. “It all has to be done eventually, and it doesn’t matter what order you go in, so you may as well pick a place and start.”

“Some of the documents are incomplete.” Jon couldn’t quite manage to keep his annoyance out of his tone. “I found pages of the same statement scattered across three different rooms -”

“Start with the statements that seem complete, then. If you find more related case material elsewhere later on, you can simply make supplemental recordings.”

And with that, Elias had walked away before Jon could protest further.

So, yes. He’s stressed. The Archives are an unmitigated disaster, Jon only has three assistants to help him put them back into some semblance of order, and Elias wants him to embark on a massive digitization project when they still haven’t even inventoried the contents of most of the unlabeled boxes piled around the place. It’s like standing in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake and being told to start construction on a new building before the damages are assessed or the rubble is cleared. Oh, and he isn’t given any blueprints for direction.

Sleep troubles are to be expected.

~~~

These nightmares are new.

It isn’t that all of Jon’s nightmares involve spiders. He does occasionally have standalone nightmares that are perfectly spider-free: finding himself back in uni and failing a class he’s never attended and doesn’t remember signing up for; being chased by something sinister and tripping over nothing, only to wake up just as its teeth puncture his throat; waking in an unfamiliar place surrounded by things just to the left of human, hiding behind names he knows well and faces he does not recognize.

But this is the first recurring dream he’s ever had where spiders do not feature prominently.

At first, all he can see is the fog, pressing in on all sides. If the dream lent itself more to cartoon logic, it’s the type of fog that could be molded like putty. He doesn’t make the conscious decision to move; the dream simply puppets him forward and he lets it take him. He doesn’t even notice the open grave until one foot is suspended over it, and when the dream loosens its grip on him, he throws his weight backward, swaying off-kilter and nearly stumbling into another pit that has appeared just behind him.

The fog recedes just enough for him to make out the dozens of empty graves now surrounding him.

Then it starts to move back in, tendrils reaching out to him like the myriad limbs of a living, breathing creature, coating his skin and filling his lungs, and all at once he is pummeled with the overwhelming revelation that he is alone. It’s not just that there isn’t anyone around for miles. It’s not even just that he will never again see another living person. No. It’s that he is, for all intents and purposes, an island. No one knows him. No one ever has, and no one ever will. And he has never known anyone else, either, only carefully constructed personas meant to mask the self – if there even is such a thing as the self.

He will die here, and nothing will remain of him, and no one will notice that he disappeared. And that’s… that’s okay. It’s right. It’s exactly as it should be.

Someone is screaming. Actually, he realizes belatedly, someone has been screaming for a while now, but only now does it manage to reach him through the haze.

Once again, the dream forces him to move. It maneuvers him around the vacant graves, drawing him ever closer to the voice. When he is finally brought to a stop, he is wrenched forward and his gaze is forced downward to behold a shivering figure sprawled six feet beneath him in the earth and mud. She looks familiar, but it takes a few moments before he can place her.

Naomi Herne.

She nearly weeps in relief when she sees him, another living, breathing person after so long lost in the mist. She reaches up to him, begs him to help her, but when he tries to kneel and extend a hand, he finds that he cannot move. He cannot speak. He cannot blink.

He can only watch, and so he does.

The seconds stretch into minutes stretch into hours, and the whole time she pleads with him to say something, to say anything. He watches as her fingers dig deep furrows into the walls of her prison and eventually her pleas dissolve into hopeless whimpers.

He wakes up in a cold sweat, feeling as if he never slept at all.

Untangling himself from the sheets, he stumbles into the bathroom, turns on the faucet, and splashes cold water on his face. As he stands and stares at his reflection in the mirror, he notices how pronounced the dark circles under his eyes have become. Naomi Herne’s statement had been unsettling, certainly, but apparently it’s affected him more deeply than he had initially thought.

It’s not all that surprising, he supposes. There have been a lot of changes in his life recently. The content of the statements he reads is… upsetting. He’s stressed. It would be strange if he didn’t have trouble sleeping.

It’s fine. It’s normal. He’s fine.

~~~

The next night, he dreams of Naomi Herne again.

And the night after that. And the night after that.

Every time, she begs him to say something, to take her hand. She needs to hear another human voice; she needs to feel a human touch; she needs an anchor, anything to chase away the isolation.

At some point, though, she begins to curse him. He is her jailor, her tormenter. She would rather be completely alone, to be left to suffer in dignified privacy, than to have her loneliness amplified by that unwavering stare. Why is he doing this to her? Why won’t he just say something?

As usual, he cannot make a sound, and he cannot look away.

~~~

Jonathan Sims and Melanie King rubbed each other the wrong way from the moment they met eyes, and she is no more pleased to see the Archivist in her dream that night.

They both watch as Sarah Baldwin pleads with an unseen, unforgiving assailant. They look on in revulsion as she staples her skin back together. The scene plays over and over and over again, and eventually Melanie wrenches her gaze away from Sarah and hones in on the Archivist. All of her fear transmutes into anger and she unleashes a torrent of accusations, railing against him for his arrogance, his callousness, his foolish conviction that he knows better than everyone else, that he understands anything at all.

He can’t open his mouth to argue with her, but even if he could, he’s not sure that he could counter her allegations.

Melanie is still shouting at him when he is pulled from the hospital and finds himself in the graveyard again. Naomi Herne is huddled in the corner of her grave tonight, knees hugged tight to her chest. She is utterly silent. He wishes he could look away, but the dream has his head locked in place and his eyes plastered open and he watches her for the rest of the night.

Jon wakes up all too aware of his skin and what lies beneath it.

~~~

The tables in the dissection lab are piled high with pulsating hearts, quivering lungs, and writhing bones.

Hand trembling, scalpel in hand, Dr. Lionel Elliott slices into an apple as if demonstrating how to dissect a human heart. The Archivist catches the glimmer of tooth enamel, the glint of a silver crown on one of the molars, and a shared wave of nausea crashes over both of them. The professor begs the Archivist to take the apple from him, but as always, the Archivist is immobilized. He can feel every ounce of the Elliott’s helpless fear as if it is his own.

The Archivist knows what Elliott is thinking. He wants to run. He wants to curse. He wants to beg. He wants to bury the scalpel in the Archivist’s unblinking eyes. Instead, his blood curdles and his limbs contort and his joints dislocate and he writhes like a live butterfly pinned to a board in front of an uncaring, ceaseless watcher.

The Archivist feels all of it along with him, and neither of them can scream.

It’s only a dream, of course, but Elliott feels so alive that Jon wakes up with a sense of pity all the same.

~~~

The Archivist wants to tell Helen Richardson not to open the door, but his jaw is wired shut with invisible thread.

The Archivist has lost count of how many times he has been forced to watch as the Distortion’s maze devours her, the scene playing recursively in its mirrored hallways.

Of course he dreams of her. She disappeared right in front of him and he could do nothing to stop it. In quiet moments, the scar that the Distortion gave him still twinges, and brings with it the deep ache of guilt. It’s to be expected that it would bleed over into his dreams.

~~~

Letter by letter, Tessa Winters consumes the keyboard. An eerie, cold glow highlights every detail of her pained expression. Although the Archivist’s mouth will not open, he feels one of his molars crack under the crunch of plastic, and as Tessa moves on to the monitor, a shard of glass slices into the roof of his mouth. The blood pools on both of their tongues, trickles down their throats, and they both wish they could gag.

The Archivist's thoughts unravel into acute angles and sharp edges, shredding his consciousness to ribbons. He is a collection of garbled text and rogue characters, of noisy pixels and castoff artifacts, of corrupted extensions and crossed wires.

It’s cold, and it hurts.

IT%’s/ côLd &&;t <<hurts>>.

I̴t̸'̴s̴ ̵c̸o̸l̶d̵, ̵a̵n̶d̴ ̸i̴t̴ ̸h̶u̸r̵t̸s̶.̸

Ï̵̡̻ͅț̴͘'̴̰̙͒̌͠ͅs̶̻̿̎ ̴̞c̵̮̒̾ơ̴̞͕̕͝ļ̴̱̅d̶̥̣͎̈ ̵̨͕̀̿̊a̵̗̪̽̆n̶͕̩̞͆d̵̦̮̳͐̏͗ ̵̢̻̑ȉ̷̪t̸͓̉͒ ̶̮͉̹̇͠h̵̳̻̞͝u̴̢̬̣̒ř̴̠́t̵͍̟͛ṡ̷̨̤͓͒̾.̸̦̭̓

I̶̢͚͓̤̗̹̱̠̱͚̤̾t̶̛̳̏̑͐͗́̍̈̿̄͒͗́̔̈́̈́̈́̚̕͠'̵̡̧̦̖͚͓͙͙͕̜̻̣̙̲͓̑͂͋̾̊̄͌̀̑͒̚ͅͅṣ̶̛̻͚͓̫̜̀̂͌͌̈̈́̃̽̏̐̔̌ ̵̗̫̓̊̾̇͆c̷̨̑̀̈́̇̊̇̑͊́̂̊̇͘̚͘̚̚̚͝ǫ̵̈́̎̿͑̔̔̑͛̀͋̉̋̓̾l̷̙̯͙͍͇̟̭̳͉̹̳̖͎͇̲͖̝̖͈̺̍d̴̡̫̼̗̮̹̎̌̽̏̂̐̑̈̏̀̃͆͗͂̓̚͝ ̴̧̛͈̭̼̭̰͔̥͓̟̲́̒̊̍̉̌͆̇̆̑͗̑̿̉̅̑͒̽̈̿a̵̳̰̽̌͆͂̏͒̌̓̔̈͐̆̿̕͝n̸̨̢̧̧̲̺͙̗̪̻͎̥͉̥͔͇̠͙̫͒̌̅̃͒́̌̈́͐̀̈͘̚͘̕͝͝ͅḋ̵̢̡̧̜͇̜̤̠̺̜̦̲̳͓̼̩̣̼̭̱͐̿̿̍̿̀͌͊̃̿͊̕͠ ̶̭̩̥̲͈͚̟͇̱̹̼̩̪̙̱͒́͑̌͒͐̕͜ỉ̸̲͇̬͓̫̪̞̜̱̪̻̲̎̿́̃̽̕͘͠͝ţ̸̗͙͍͍̫̞͚̞͓̙̼̝͚͕̮̋͋̏̌͂͗̈ ̵̨̟̗͉̯̘̙̫̱̹̱̲̘̪͖̤̱̟̦̘̹̟̎̐̌͗̾̋̿̄͜͠h̴̢̡̨̢̛̫͓̠̤͉̠̩̮͙̞̪̏̇͊̈͂̿̅͋͌͘̚͠ư̵̰͙̯͖̈́̄̊͌͐̾͐̃̈̈͒̑͠ͅr̷̨̛̗͈̣̰̘̲̩̦̙̅̃̽͛͒̈͜͠ͅṯ̶̮͕̺͖̹̺̺̦͈̰̮͚͇̳̘̺̤̹̭͐͊̏̓̅̊̏͌́̒́̚̕͘͘͜͝͝͠͝s̶̺̻͔̹̙̟̭̜̏̆͗͂̔̄̔͋́͆̀̋̈́͌͂̚͝.̶̘͚͚͓͕̝͖̪͔̼̙̲̞͎͉̩̳͍̙̩̋̆̅͒̇̅͌̆͗̉̋͊͒͐̔̅̏̕͜͝͝ͅ

~~~

When Jon finally bolts upright into wakefulness, he knows.

These are not his nightmares.

They are shared dreamscapes.

No, not shared. Invaded.

Just recently he had noted how long it had been since last he was the spider in his nightmare, but maybe that was premature.

At least the others showed up at the Institute to give their statements on their own. Tessa Winters, though, was his fault. He wrote the forum post that drew her to him. She wouldn’t be in his dreams if he hadn’t cast that net. He spun a web and waited for the prey to wander in, all because he needed to know and was willing to lure someone in under false pretenses just to get the answers he craved. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t intend this – the consequences are the same.

And Tessa Winters knows it. She meets his gaze, equally unblinking, baleful and accusing. He is a thing with too many eyes, gorging himself on her suffering, devoid of empathy or humanity. When she looks into his eyes, she sees a ravenous, pitiless voyeur, and even if the Archivist was allowed to speak, he would not dispute her claim. After all, the Beholding is the feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer, just so it can watch, and the Archivist is its pawn and its representative and its instrument. Tessa's eyes pin him in place just as effectively as the ever-present Eye in the sky.

He is becoming – has become? – that which he fears, and he cannot look away.

It really isn’t all that different from the spider dreams after all, except this time there are witnesses to his sins.

~~~

The words on the paper are blurry and his head feels full of cobwebs. His eyes itch and sting in equal measure, making it ever more difficult to keep his heavy eyelids from drifting shut. He keeps nodding off, leaning forward and jerking upright as soon as the sensation of falling grips him.

“-n? Jon!”

“Wha-” Jon startles as Martin’s voice finally reaches him through the fog. “I – what?”

Martin has a concerned look on his face. That seems to be his default state these days, Jon thinks distantly.

“I kept saying your name but you were just… you weren’t answering.”

“Oh.”

Martin worries his bottom lip between his teeth. Jon can tell that he wants to say something, but he just stands there waffling, and –

“What?” Jon snaps, and then he and Martin wince at the same time. “I’m… I’m sorry, Martin. I – I’m just tired.” He rubs his eyes furiously, trying to chase away the haze. “I’m sorry. Did you need something?”

“I… Jon, when’s the last time you slept?”

Silence.

“Maybe you should have a lie down? I made up the cot in the storage room, and –”

“I’m fine,” Jon replies through gritted teeth.

“You’re falling asleep at your desk. Actually, um,” – a small, cautious grin crosses Martin’s face – “I don’t know what paperwork you used as a pillow, but you have ink on your face.”

Jon groans and scrubs at his face with both hands.

“You really do need to sleep, though,” Martin ventures again, gentle but firm.

“I… I don’t want to,” Jon says stiffly. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he curses himself for the honesty – Martin is going to want to talk about that now, and –

“Why?”

Jon is silent, steadfastly refusing to look Martin in the eye.

“Fine,” Martin sighs, exasperated. “But you can’t go forever without sleep, I don’t care how stubborn you are.”

He’s right, Jon knows.

Jon did manage a full 70 hours awake before he started nodding off in spite of himself. For the past few days, he’s been allowing himself short naps, setting his phone alarm at hour intervals to wake him long before he can enter REM sleep.

It isn’t sustainable, but the alternative is haunting people’s nightmares, looking into their eyes and Beholding what they see when they look at him: Cold, calculating predator. Unblinking voyeur. Too many hungry, prying eyes, feeding on their terror, stripping them of their dignity, soaking in their trauma with cruel fascination –

“Jon.”

“Fine,” Jon grumbles. “Sixty minutes.”

~~~

Whenever he slips into the dreamscape, Daisy promises to hunt him down. Finish what she started. Bury him in a shallow grave and leave him to become yet another mystery.

The Archivist wonders if being killed in the dream would wake him up, spare the other dreamers from his scrutiny for just one night.

He wonders how Daisy would react if he was able to tell her that he resents the absence of her knife at his throat just as much as she does.

~~~

Six months.

For six months, he wanders, an uninvited, hated guest in those familiar dreamscapes.

The Archivist wants nothing more than to throw himself into an empty grave, to turn the damp earth into a prison with six-foot-high walls, to break his legs in the fall so that even when his resolve crumbles and he tries to clamber out of the hole, he will be unable to do so. The other dreamers would be safe from him, then. There would be nothing for him to watch but unyielding soil and the chill, impenetrable fog above.

He Knows that the Eye is still there behind the veil of fog; he can feel its unceasing gaze, but at least in the lonely cemetery, he cannot see it.

There is an open grave in front of him, its waiting maw calling him forward, promising to shackle him, to hobble him with blindness and paralysis. He stands at the edge, knees locked and eyes peeled, staring down into a plot that he desperately wishes belonged to him, and him alone. The dream keeps him there for what seems like hours, taunting him, holding relief just out of reach.

Then, the dream turns him around and pulls him inexorably toward his true objective. Once again he is forced to watch as Naomi’s freezing, bloodied fingers scrabble uselessly on the walls of her prison. Her tears have left trails in the mud on her face, and when she looks up at him, she asks the same question she does every single time: Why are you doing this to me?

Eventually – after far too long standing statue-still, eyes locked on Naomi’s pained, desperate face – the Archivist is yanked onward toward the waiting carnage of the dissection lab, the mournful singing of the coffin, the undulating mass of ants.

When Jane Prentiss shambles toward him, he can feel the worms burrow into his skin all over again. He wants to scream, to scratch, to grab a corkscrew and start digging – Dig, comes the intrusive thought, blinking in his mind like a marquee: Dig. Dig. Dig. – but his mouth and his hands are not his own, and his eyes – so many eyes, so reminiscent of the spider – are fixed on Jane. Her otherworldly screams pierce the night as she burns, and the Archivist desperately wishes he could clamp his hands over his ears to block out her death knell.

Being brought before Georgie Barker is almost worse than confronting Jane Prentiss. If she could still feel fear, the Archivist is certain she would wear the same expression as the others. Instead, there is only a mix of pity and resignation. Over and over again, Jonathan Sims has walked into burning buildings for even the slightest chance of having a question answered. She wishes she was more surprised to see what he has become, but she is so intimately familiar with his pattern of self-destruction and stubborn curiosity, and she has long since recognized it for what it is: a fatal flaw, coaxing him toward tragedy like a moth to the flame.

The exterminator makes no distinction between the Archivist and the Flesh Hive, and Georgie Barker likely wouldn’t, either. As always, the Archivist cannot find it in himself to argue.

When at last he finally awakens, he is not surprised that she leaves with such finality, her parting words condemning him as a lost cause. He pushed on past the point of no return, just like she always feared he would, and she has no desire to watch him burn.

~~~

Jon may not have been allowed to toss himself into a lonely grave, but the coffin welcomes him with an eager appetite, and imprisons him in much the same way. He may be unable to move, but at least his body is his own, unlike in his dreams; he may not be able to escape, but at least he can speak.

“After the mission. I was planning to kill you,” Daisy tells him, matter-of-fact. He knows why the moment she starts talking about her dreams. “Realized you weren’t human. Needed to die, as soon as it was safe. Never mind Elias and his… insurance.”

“And now?”

“Don’t know. I – I miss dreaming. You don’t sleep, down here.”

Jon finds the prospect of eternal wakefulness in this place downright horrifying – the endless boredom alone sounds like torture – but... no sleep means no nightmares.

“Daisy, you should know, I – I’m… if I wasn’t human before, I’m, uh – I’m even less now.”

The distant rumbling of the shifting earth picks up in volume until he can feel it in his teeth.

“Yeah.” Daisy doesn’t sound surprised. “Well, at the moment, I don’t care.”

“And if we get out?”

“But we can’t get out.”

“No.”

The noise grows in volume, drowning out his voice.

I really should have known better, he thinks to himself. Of course his rib wasn’t a strong enough anchor. He’s so alienated from his own body at this point, so far from human that he couldn’t even die properly. How many times has he found himself thinking, What’s another scar? In a way, he feels just as detached from his body when he’s awake as he does in his nightmares. The idea that a part of his body would call to him from outside the coffin… it’s just as ridiculous as his rushed, irresponsible deductions about the NotThem’s table.

“I’m s – I’m sorry,” Daisy stammers, snapping Jon out of his reverie. “I’m sorry, Jon.”

“So am I,” Jon replies. For everything, he does not say.

The rumbling fades, and silence descends on them in a rush.

“You know,” Jon begins after a minute, choosing his words carefully, “I… I didn’t know, at first. That the nightmares were real.”

Daisy says nothing, and Jon interprets it as permission to go on.

“I – I thought that they were just my nightmares. That the first statements I took hit me harder than I’d expected. I was so dismissive to the first few people who came in to give their statements in person, and I assumed that my – my guilt over how I treated them was manifesting as nightmares, since I refused to process it in real life. That I was just…” He lets out a bitter laugh. “That I was just stressed about the new job.”

“When did you figure it out?” Daisy asks levelly.

“I… I think I suspected after a few months? But I just – I told myself that I was being ridiculous. I went through a bit of a – a paranoid phase, and I thought that I was just… overthinking things. I tend to do that, to just – obsess, and let my imagination run wild –”

Daisy snorts. “Yeah, I gathered that.”

“I – I've had a lot of practice with denial, I suppose,” Jon says, sheepish. “Or feigning denial, at least. Playing the skeptic was… safer. Admitting out loud that I believed in – in monsters felt like it would… draw unwanted attention, I suppose. That it would somehow provoke the thing watching me to strike. I convinced myself that pretending to be ignorant would keep the monsters at bay.”

“That’s…”

“Stupid, I know.”

Daisy gives a dry chuckle.

“I had to give up the act after – after Prentiss attacked the Archives,” Jon continues. “Even after that, though, I still wanted to believe that the nightmares weren’t real. But then one day I woke up and – and I just knew –”

The dirt around them begins to press in again, forcing the air from his lungs. Jon feels Daisy’s fingers brush his wrist and he takes her hand. Not alone. Not alone. Not alone.

Then the pressure lets up all at once and they are both left gasping in its wake.

“Keep talking?” Daisy’s voice has that desperate, pleading edge to it again. It’s so at odds with the Hunter that Jon knows, more like prey than predator. “I – I need – I don’t want to be alone.”

“Not alone,” Jon murmurs, as much for himself as for Daisy. “The dream that made me realize – her name was Tessa Winters. I took her statement, and that night she was in my dreams. The way she looked at me, I just… I knew. She was really there. Her eyes were so – so accusing, like she knew that it was my fault that she was there. And – and it was. The other statement givers came to me on their own, but she likely would have never come to the Institute if it wasn’t for me.”

“Oh?”

“I – I posted on a message board, soliciting supernatural experiences related to technology.”

“You can use a computer, then,” Daisy teases, a smirk in her voice.

Jon smiles too, and for the briefest moment he forgets where they are. “I just turned 30 this year, Daisy,” he says, rolling his eyes, and she snorts.

“Still, I can’t picture you making forum posts.”

“I had an ulterior motive,” he admits, his smile fading as the old guilt bubbles up. “I had found Gertrude’s laptop, and I needed help breaking into it, so I – I figured maybe I could lure in someone who knew computers, take their statement, find a way to casually ask them to have a look at the laptop for me. It worked, but then she appeared in my nightmares, and – if I hadn’t drawn her to me, she wouldn’t be there.”

Daisy makes a noncommittal sound. Jon shuts his eyes tight and takes a deep, faltering breath.

“And then – after the Unknowing, I – I should have died. I was dead, technically. My brain was still firing – dreaming,” he says with distaste, “but I had no pulse, no respiration, no… no other signs of life.” He feels the pressure of tears in his eyes and he fights to keep his voice steady. “You should have seen the way the doctors and nurses looked at me as they were explaining it. A – a medical mystery – a marvel, really – the sort of thing that most professionals would kill for a chance to study – but they couldn’t wait to get away from me, to hurry me out the door.” He pauses to take a deep breath, but between the crushing earth and his own grief, he can’t fill his lungs. His exhale comes out shallow and shaky. “And – and Georgie, and Basira, and Melanie, and –”

Daisy tightens her grip on his hand. It’s so surreal that Jon almost laughs. This is Daisy. Daisy, who seized him by the throat, who tried to kill him, who enjoyed seeing him terrified and begging for his life, who took such pride in the scar she left him with – and now she’s comforting him. He isn’t sure how to process that turnaround, so instead gives her hand a squeeze in return, clears his throat, and continues.

“So – so for six months, I was in a coma. If you can call it that. But the whole time, I was dreaming. For six months, I walked through the same nightmares, over and over and over again. There was no waking up to escape it, and – and it meant that the other dreamers couldn’t escape me, either. Up until then, if I was awake while they were asleep, they could get away from me, but – but I was in the dream every hour of every day, so I was there every night they slept. And the way they look at me – like I’m a monster – it just… they’re not wrong, but I just wish – I wish I could tell them that I’m sorry, that I don’t want this either, that I don’t want to watch. The Eye doesn’t let me speak, though – or move, or – or blink. I am an observer, and an observer does not interfere.” He laughs then, a little hysterically. “It – honestly, it felt like longer than six months. I lived through the same scenes so many times that I started to feel so numb to it all.”

“What about my part of the dream?” Daisy asks quietly.

“I – ever since the Unknowing, whenever I get to your segment, there's nothing but the coffin. I always enter it, but it never brings me to you. Until now, I suppose,” he says with a humorless chuckle. “Oddly enough, though, I always found myself wishing you were there.”

“Really.”

“Yes, I – it’s hard to explain.” He hesitates for a moment before settling on honesty. “You always looked at me like I was prey, instead of predator. Or – or maybe like I was a predator, but a – a weaker predator, something that could be killed. A monster that could be vanquished. I… I wanted you to catch me. I suppose I thought that maybe – maybe if I died in the dream, it would end the cycle, and release the other dreamers from the Eye.”

“Might have killed you in real life, though,” Daisy points out. “If the dreaming was the only part of you that was alive.”

“It may have,” Jon agrees.

Daisy lets that linger for a minute, heavy and revealing.

“I… I don’t think I want to die,” Jon eventually continues, “but I can't stop thinking that maybe it would be… better, if I did? All that would happen is that the world would lose another monster, and – and that would be fine. It would be right. But I still…” He chokes on his words, something between a laugh and a sob. “God, when did not wanting to die start to feel selfish of me?”

The dirt around them shifts, sibilant and imposing. They hold their breath, as if speaking might provoke it. Daisy waits for the rustling to settle again before she speaks.

“Why did you come here, Jon?”

“To – to find you, to get you out –”

“Yeah, but why? I nearly killed you. Would have tried again. Would have liked it.” She huffs. “I know you didn’t come here out of any loyalty to me. So, why?”

“I…”

“To get yourself killed?”

“No, I – I really did want to get you out of here.”

“Why did you come for me, then? Out of guilt? To justify not dying?”

“I…” Jon sighs heavily. “Yes, I – I suppose. And - and Tim was dead. Sasha is dead, and Martin is... gone, and when we found out you were still alive, I just - I didn't want to lose anyone else. I couldn't just leave you here, not if there was a chance I could bring you back.”

Daisy is silent. Jon knows that she wants him to say more, and he takes a deep breath.

“The others don’t trust me – not that I blame them, I don’t trust me, either. Martin is… he has his own plans. Georgie wants nothing to do with me. Melanie hates me for not having the decency to die, blames me for everything that’s happened. Doesn’t even think I’m me anymore, just – just some monster wearing a familiar skin, and – well,” he laughs uncomfortably, “I have a hard time arguing with her assessment.” He takes a deep breath. “And – and Basira, she… she doesn’t put much stock in my humanity, either. Sometimes she sees me as an asset to be used, but…”

He trails off, feeling faintly guilty for his mixed feelings on Basira. She encourages him to use his powers when it will help further their goals. She doesn’t go so far as to claim that the ends justify the means, but she does frequently remind him that they need to be pragmatic, like Gertrude. The rest of the time, though… she looks at Jon like he’s a dangerous animal, unpredictable and poised to strike. He knows that she’s fully prepared to put him down if it starts looking like he’s too dangerous to be allowed to live, and although that hurts, he’s also glad that there’s someone who he can trust to put an end to him if he loses himself.

Nonetheless, it’s frustrating to be hated and feared for what he can do – to hate and fear himself so thoroughly – while still being expected to embrace those powers whenever it’s deemed useful. He’s more of an instrument than a person now, a tool to be used and then locked safely away once he’s fulfilled his purpose. At the same time, though, it at least offers him some semblance of control. He may be a vehicle for the Eye’s machinations, but perhaps he can balance it by giving their side an advantage in whatever way he can, principles be damned.

And he did give Basira explicit permission to use him.

Sometimes he wishes he had Gertrude’s certainty, or Basira’s resolve, or any sort of confidence in his own convictions. Most of the time, though, he fears what he could become if he was more decisive. He doesn’t trust himself to live without doubt.

He doesn’t know how to explain all of that to Daisy, though.

“I don’t – I don’t expect them to trust me,” he says instead. “Or like me. It seems dangerous to be near me at all, and I’m not exactly” – he huffs out a short, bitter laugh – “I’m not good enough company to risk it. It hurts, and it’s lonely, but I – I do understand. But I can at least make myself useful –”

Without warning, the Buried constricts itself around them in a rush, strangling his words and stealing the air from his lungs. This time, it feels like hours pass before it finally relaxes its chokehold. The only conversation that passes between them for a long time is synchronized, frenzied gasping for what little chill, stagnant air the Buried deigns to permit them.

“We’re the same, you know,” Daisy says eventually, forcing the words out even as she struggles to catch her breath. “I'm afraid of what I am, or - or was, or could be again. I needed the Hunt. Liked it, even – I enjoyed the thrill of the chase, the kill. But now I – I look back and I’m disgusted. I hurt people who didn’t deserve it. Even the actual monsters were… I wasn’t killing them because I cared about justice, or protecting others, not really. I was feeding on the fear of the prey. It made me feel alive –”

An abrupt coughing fit interrupts her then, and several minutes pass before she’s able to continue speaking through the grit coating her tongue.

“All I’ve felt since I came down here is fear and pain and guilt. I accept that – I should feel guilty, and I – I probably deserve more punishment than this. But still, I… I want to see the sun again, to breathe fresh air, to –” Her breath hitches. “I – I want to see Basira again.”

Jon can just barely hear her sniffling, but knows better than to draw attention to it.

“But – but if I leave here, I – I know I’ll hear the blood again. I don’t know who I am without the Hunt, but I – I still don’t want to go back to it. I deserve to be here – but I also want to leave – and that feels selfish. But I suppose it really doesn’t matter, does it?” When she laughs, it almost sounds like a bark, hollow and brittle. “There’s no way out.”

“No way out,” Jon repeats. “But maybe… maybe the world is safer without me in it – without… without either of us, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” Daisy chokes out, her voice hovering between a laugh and a sob. “That’s – that’s pretty messed up, isn’t it?”

Jon lets out his own tearful chuckle. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” He pauses. “You said that – that you don’t sleep down here, that you don’t dream?”

“Yeah.”

“That's probably for the best,” he sighs. “At least this way, the Eye can’t reach the dreamers anymore.”

“And at least we’re – we’re not alone?”

“No. Not alone.”

“I’m glad that you’re here, Jon,” Daisy blurts out in a rush. “I know that’s horrible of me, but – but it’s the truth.” She takes a shaky breath. “I don’t want to be alone. I’m… I’m glad I’m not alone.”

“I’m… I think I’m glad, too,” Jon admits.

He wasted so much time pushing people away, refusing to trust, rebuffing any offer of help. Georgie told him that he needed human connection to help him stay human, and she was right, but when he finally admitted that – by the time he finally resolved to trust the others, regardless of his doubts – it was too late. When he woke up in the hospital, there was no one left to offer their hand when he reached out for help. Even worse, he can’t exactly deny that it’s his own fault.

But now, trapped here in the cold and the damp and the cramped, suffocating dark, Daisy holds his hand. The firm pressure of her grip is comforting, despite the clamminess of their skin. He can’t remember the last time he was touched with anything less than malice.

“I’ve been alone since I woke up,” he continues, “and – and afraid of what I’m becoming. It’s nice to have someone who – who understands what it’s like. I think this is the most companionship I’ve had in… in a long while. It’s nice to be the one seen for once – by something other than a monster.”

Daisy tightens her grip further, and Jon marvels at how such a simple gesture is so much louder than words.

A silence falls on them then – a bizarrely companionable one, so incongruous with their current predicament. They clutch each other in the dark, focusing on one another’s breathing to coax them through the irregular ebb and flow of the earth pressing down on them, peppering the gloom with quiet conversation whenever the Buried gives them an inch to breathe.

Daisy talks about her childhood dog, and The Archers, and how people are always surprised to learn that she has a sweet tooth. She tells Jon about the first time she and Basira went camping: They had stretched out beneath the night sky and Basira taught Daisy the constellations, the origins of their names and the legends they represented. Affection welled up in her as she listened to Basira muse about how even though the constellations vary across time and culture, humans have always shared this collective impulse to look up at the sky and make meaning out of randomness.

For the first time in a long time, Daisy had been truly present in the moment; for once, she wasn’t gnashing her teeth, impatiently anticipating the next hunt. Basira’s voice anchored her in the present, and the call of the blood was drowned out by a flood of warmth and devotion.

Jon talks about the Admiral, and his brief foray into AmDram at uni, and how he's always hated poetry, but then he read some of Martin's, and, well... some of them were quite good, actually. Jon confesses that he too has an unexpected sweet tooth. Martin somehow guessed; whenever Jon was having a particularly rough day, Martin would make his tea sweeter than usual. Martin never drew attention to it, and Jon never commented on it, but it was... touching, if he's honest with himself. He wishes that he had told Martin then that he noticed, that he appreciated the gesture - that it made him feel seen in a good way for once.

Jon misses Martin desperately, worries for him fiercely. Worse, he knows with a certainty that Martin will never know just how much he is missed. He spent far too long underestimating Martin, taking him for granted. Sure, Martin had stumbled a lot in the early days, but when Jon learned that Martin had lied on his CV, he was actually impressed. It's remarkable how competent Martin managed to be with no prior experience or qualifications to speak of. Daisy listens as Jon rambles on about how Martin is so much braver and cleverer than Jon or anyone else ever gave him credit for, and how much he wishes he could tell him that now.

They go back and forth like that, confiding in each other about their regrets, and the apologies they will never get to make, and all the things they miss. They talk about fears, and monsters, and what it means to be human. They talk about choices.

Jon does not dream. Daisy does not hear the blood. Together, they listen to the quiet.

#the magnus archives #tma #tma fic #jonathan sims #daisy tonner #just gonna tag those two since they're the main ones i focused on #anyway i didn't mean for this to get so long but i have a lot of feelings about jon and daisy's friendship sooooo #have 3400+ words of them comforting each other in the buried i GUESS #tma spoilers #up to MAG 132

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forasecondtherewedwon · 6 years

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Can i get a choni one? 11, 39 and 78 all together. And something to do with kids, please. Love ya💞💞💞

Thanks for the prompt! This immediately became a Halloween story because–JUST KIDDING! I HAVE NO REASON! HALLOWEEN IS THE BEST!

11. “What’s with the box?”

AND

39. “How long have you been standing there?”

AND

78. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“The door,” Toni said, tapping Cheryl on the shoulder to interrupt herfocused swaying to ‘Love Potion No. 9.’

Cheryl opened her eyes and stared hard at her.

“WHAT?” she shouted, though their heads were no more than a foot apart.

“THE DOOR!” Toni screamed back.

She’d have gotten it herself, but her arms were full of soda cans, carriedup from the basement of Thistle House to top up the ice-filled bucket in thekitchen. Toni wouldn’t have gone into the living room at all, since it meantnavigating the rocking, jumping, and gyrating bodies of 50 of their closestfriends, except that, away from the blasting music, she’d distantly heard theeerie chime of the doorbell―something Cheryl had promised more than once tochange and had yet to get around to. It wasn’t like they’d been living in thehouse for a decade or anything…

As quickly as she could, Toni made her way through the room. Halfway to thekitchen, she gave up and dumped the cans into the arms of Jughead, who wassitting this song out on a high-backed chair in the corner, Zorro mask pushedup on his forehead.

“SORRY,” she yelled at her friend as he struggled not to drop anything. “IHAVE TO STOP CHERYL FROM TERRORIZING ANOTHER CHILD!”

Jughead nodded in understanding, not bothering with a response she’d neverhear, and Toni hurried back the way she’d come. Why, oh why had they decided tohost their Halloween party on the night of Halloween? It meant two sets ofvisitors, two sets of treats, and half the time available to spend on any onething. She slid into the front hall, RiskyBusiness-style, and straightened her costume glasses. Dressing as journalistClark Kent let her use her camera as a prop, making it easier to snap photos oftheir friends all evening long. Another plus was seeing her wife in a Supermangetup, her alter ego and perfect other half.

Right now, that other half was checking out her tights-clad back half in thefull length hall mirror.

“Cheryl!” Toni urged. “Get the fucking door!”

But her wife had already been reaching for it and the door swung open toreveal the comically round eyes of five or six kids to whom Toni had justintroduced the F word. She grit her teeth, snatched up their well-stocked candybin, and approached the children with a smile.

“Hey, guys. You weren’t supposed to hear that.” She dug the largest chocolatebars from the bottom of the container, not above winning their visitors overwith a sugary bribe.

“Um, trick or treat!” one of them belatedly piped up and the whole miniatureposse hoisted their goody bags at once.

Toni gave Cheryl’s hair a surreptitious tug to encourage her to helpdistribute the loot and was rewarded with an annoyed look. For being both oftheir favourite holiday, this one hadn’t been the smoothest between the two ofthem. With a sigh, Cheryl straightened up from where she’d been leaning againstthe open door.

“Sorry we didn’t come to the door right away,” Toni offered in the softsingsong she’d recently developed for use on people under the age of 10,feeling guilty towards more than just the assortment of ghosts and Avengers ontheir front step, but too stubborn to apologize directly to Cheryl. “How longhave you been standing there?”

“Ages,” a little one answered with innocent bluntness, pushing to the frontof the group inside the trappings of a bulky cardboard costume. Toni dippedinto the supply to pass out a second round of sweets.

Her wife didn’t take the guileless criticism quite so well.

“What’s with the box?” she inquired with a jerk of her chin.

“I’m a robot!” he cheerily replied.

“I’m not convin―” Cheryl began, but Toni cut her off.

“Ok! Thanks for stopping by, everybody! Happy Halloween!”

With a frantic wave, she swung the door shut. As ‘Clap for the Wolfman’started to play in the other room, Clark Kent and Superman petrified into astandoff.

“It was a poorly executed costume,” Cheryl finally said. “I mean, what arehis parents watching? The Jetsons?Aren’t they aware of the technological advancements in AI? If that kid had comedressed totally normal and said he was an android, that would’ve been an impressive costume.”

“Oh my god,” Toni whined. “Are youserious? He was like five years old!”

“We’re living in a post-Steve Jobs world! That kid should be able to code,give a TED talk, and design environmentally-friendly energy solutions to rivalthe creations of Elon Musk!”

“That’s not the point!”

“Then what’s the point?” Cheryl shot back, crossing her arms. Toni waspissed and the fact that the stupid Superman logo kept drawing her eyes to herwife’s chest wasn’t helping.

“That you need to learn how to talk to children!”

“Why?”

“Because I’m having one!”

That shut Cheryl up as Toni had never seen her shut up before. A secondlater, Superman was wrapped around Clark Kent like she was trying to merge thetwo halves back into one body and snack-sized chocolate bars were scatteredacross the floor.

“Let’s go back to the party,” Toni suggested quietly, stepping away beforeher wife could plant another kiss on her cheek. “I think I’ll be able to enjoy it now. We should celebrate.”

“We are,” Cheryl assured her, “We’re going to have a toast.” She bent downquickly then stood, presenting Toni with a chocolate bar in each hand. “Do you preferSnickers or Kit Kat?”

With a grin, Toni motioned for the Kit Kat. There was no delicate, refinedclink of champagne flutes, but to the Halloween-loving moms-to-be, the crinkleof candy wrappers sounded so much sweeter.

Writing prompts can be found here if you’d like to make a request!

#my writing #drabble #riverdale drabble #choni drabble #riverdale #riverdale fanfiction #choni #cheryl blossom #toni topaz

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perfectackeracy · 6 years

Text

Shingeki no Kyojin chapter 99 review (+ theories)

This is it: the beginning of the end.

This chapter kickstarts the current objectives of the warriors through Zeke’s plan and Eren’s intrusion at the festival. Throughout the chapter, there was a current feeling of uneasiness running through my spine. I knew this chapter wasn’t going to be pleasant, but I really fear someone is going to die next chapter. Be it Falco who lived his usefulness to Eren, Pieck or Porco who fell into a trap by some sort of mysterious enemy, or anybody in the crowd.

Why yes, I feel that at the end of chapter 100, several people are going to pull out their titan form. Welcome to the Eldian wars 2.0!

Content-wise, it was rich: the true History of the world came to light, so did Eren’s identity. The situation of the deceased or dying warriors’ parents was revealed, Pieck’s unit has a fanclub, some mysterious soldier has been spotted and the warriors are currently being targeted.

Eren and Reiner’s meeting

Before the play

During the speech

The History of the World

Summary

Follow me under the cut!

Not doing any WTF CR because we all know there’s a grammatical fuckup elsewhere that gets fixed in the Kodansha version.

Eren and Reiner’s meeting

Eren rubbing salt in Reiner’s wounds - Ch. 99

That was my worst fear from last month and it turned out to be more awful than I thought: what Eren is doing is not only preventing Reiner to pull out his titan: he’s holding the Marleans in the building as hostages and making Reiner listen to the whole story, just to give him a taste of his own medicine.

The chapter doesn’t start immediately on their dialogue. As unexpected as it was, we’ve got a flashback continuing from Bertolt’s theory about that hanged man. It ended on Bertolt’s gut telling the hanged man wanted some judgement on his actions, right when we’re cutting back to the present time. That still doesn’t confirm whether Reiner or Annie killed the hanged man, but it nails us on Bertolt’s interpretation being correct and Reiner becoming this man for a short moment. Before being found dead, he told the warrior trio his sin: running away and leaving up three kids. This is what Reiner did on a bigger scale: he left his three companions on Paradis, and he’s constantly fearing someone might come at him for that. That’s why Reiner kept torturing himself over unconsciously helping Eren up. That’s why he tried to kill himself two chapters ago. And now that Eren is right in front of him, he’s having a mental breakdown, trembling and shaking.

Reiner losing control - Ch. 99

Eren, well, as I suspected, didn’t let his rage go. I’m very pleased with what Isayama is doing with him as an antagonist. First of all, he doesn’t let suspicions up and is exploiting Falco’s naivety, so he can become his aide. Then, upset at his grandpa because he asked Eren to leave Falco alone, he brought up his regrets, as a jab against him. Lastly, in this chapter, he’s parroting Reiner’s previous wishes (making it home) and words (“We were only children, we didn’t know anything”) as a twist of the knife in the wound, while holding him and Falco hostages and implying the reason as to why he came here (wiping all his enemies out).

Such hatred in his eyes – Ch. 99

He doesn’t let out a single sweat drop, not even after Willy’s extra lines. He’s pretty much determined. I couldn’t help but think he was pissed to be ratted out like that, but that just means he’s going to unleash the rage of his titan very soon. Of course, the whole history doesn’t come at any surprise to him: he got it from Grisha’s memories and Kruger’s. The history, the Great War, the king fleeing to Paradis, the reason why Marley sent warriors on Paradis… the extra segment however was supported by two sources: Dina’s testimony about her line disagreeing with Karl Fritz’s and… this.

“How dare she tell me to bow down like that?“ - Ch. 90

Now we’ve got an explanation for Eren’s reaction in chapter 90. The words said on stage were Karl Fritz’ vow, heard four years ago from Frieda’s mouth. Frieda was basically telling Grisha to accept their fate, because no one can atone enough for the sins Paradis went through. Grisha and Eren, whose mindset was incompatible with the King’s got pissed and swore revenge on the ones humiliating them: be it the King, Marley or the whole world. That’s how they intend to regain their dignity but doing so would wake the Eldian Empire up. No matter how advances technology is now, the threat of wall titans steamrolling the world is real.

My only wish for Eren at this point is to become… fucking brutal. Throughout his journey on Paradis, he was mostly kidnapped and was often assisted in his battles. Now that he awoken the Coordinate, I’m pretty much expecting him to steamroll a whole crowd with his titan limbs alone. I want his threat in chapter 90 to have weight or else he’s going to be just a joke instead of a lethal joke who should’ve never been granted divine powers.

Before the play

The actors’ lodge - Ch. 99

Willy’s personality gets even more fleshed as, not only a charismatic man, but a nervous one. To be frank, in his situation, anybody would be: he was about to reveal the truth to the whole world, with a high chance of failure if he wasn’t convincing enough. That and adding the truth according to the memories inherited by the Tybur family puts on more weight.

Kiyomi cheering for Willy - Ch. 99

It was nice to see that the Asian lady, Kiyomi Azumabito, came to encourage him. I didn’t expect her to gain any more relevance after her incident with Udo, but it turns out that yes. And while she remains polite she doesn’t seem to support Marley fully, aware that the contents of the play are made to restore the Eldians’ dignity. She knows they’re treated like dirt. She doesn’t need to hear more: her visit is over.

Another surprise from the side of the privileged guests:

This man - Ch. 99

Seriously, it’s been years we were waiting for him and he’s finally appearing in the flesh. Annie’s father. The main reason why she wanted to come back. And the only resemblance they share is the size (he’s smaller than Karina) and the eye shape. He’s walking with a cane which is pretty like Annie’s story in her VN. I guess it’s considered as canon evidence, then? He’s living up to his prestige, but still pretty much in denial about his daughter not coming back. I guess that solidifies the possibility that Annie’s crystal is a death seal, then.

Also, can Bertolt’s family get any more depressing? We’ve got indications of his family and one of his parents (referred as male in the CR translation) was bedridden and passed away. The popular theory is Bertolt becoming an honorary Marlean to help his sick parent at first. That would imply he was a Gabi-type of prodigy: the ones you don’t see for decades. It’s likely they passed away, giving up any hopes their son would show up again. I’d still love to have a picture though. Maybe in a future flashback, because the families met for Reiner’s return from Paradis, alone.

I gotta add: the Hoovers and the Leonharts are the perfect representations of their fanbase. Papa Leonhart deeply believes Annie is alive and is desperate for her return with every day passing, while Hoover-san was proud of his caring son and ended up dying (inside and out).

The warriors’ on their seats - Ch. 99

We also have a look at the general assembly. The army, the politicians, the diplomats… everybody assisted at Willy’s public declaration. With many people of importance, the security must be airtight. Indeed, it’s the perfect opportunity to launch an attack and make a maximum of damages.

And then the curtain rises, things are already off…

During the speech

The end of the original speech - Ch. 99

Just as the curtain rose, the cadets noticed Reiner and Falco’s absence. And shortly after that, some mysterious soldier appears to separate the warriors from the main scene. Clearly, this can’t be a coincidence: Eren wanted Reiner to listen to the speech in a basement full of people, this soldier appears as the trumpets were blown to separate Zeke, Pieck and Porco from the cadets. The latter is a signal. It’s a coup planned. By who is an excellent question.

Magath ordered reports from the most insignificant anomaly because his suspicions were high as soon as Zeke warned him about Eren. And not just Eren: the same “mice” from his colony. General Calvi was quickly alerted at the end of Willy’s speech.

Then, this fake soldier called Zeke “Yeager” and ordered him to go at the front gate. Pieck recognizing him and Zeke being called that way already ticked these two off. Something is up.

Pieck’s panzer unit - Ch. 99

And because something is up, Pieck let a warning sign to her dear panzer unit. Best girl has a fanclub even in this dark, dark world. That’s lovely. What I noticed is this soldier trapping Porco and Pieck right before Willy begins his second and unexpected segment. The one ratting Eren publicly and explicitly.

My question is: who is Eren’s ally? Someone from Paradis or someone from Kruger’s old network of restorationists?

I still have trouble believing it’s someone from Paradis. Namely someone from the SC. Many people argued about him being Connie, but considering how people grow in this manga, you can’t expect him to be suddenly 20 cm taller in four years, when the growth spurt goes at 4 cm at best. Besides, it’s not the correct eye color. Connie has lighter eyes; this guy has darker eyes. Plus joining Eren at this point implies he would’ve gotten some edge during the timeskip and that guard feels very OOC for him.

It’s hard to think it can be someone from Paradis at all: until the whole colonization of Paradis took place, their inhabitants had no contact with the outside world. And even then, the island is isolated. You can’t just enter the country and organize a plan with tight surveillance around when you barely know how the underground networks in Marley function. Even the warriors needed some time before acting. The SC? They’re a mess: it’s going to be hard for Eren to find people in there who agree with him. The only exception I can see is Levi because it gives him an excuse to die. Otherwise, with Hange at command, fat chances.

The best bet is someone from Kruger’s old network. I doubt the restorationist movement died with how Marley treats Eldians, currently. The last purge with Grisha made it more quiet, but some people just wait for the messiah to come back to deliver them and make Eldia great again. What if this person was the one piloting one of the missing ships and simply took Eren with him? He doesn’t even have to report his arrival. Just sail somewhere where he can’t be found. The only hints I have of him belonging to the restorationists are A) calling Zeke “Yeager” because Zeke is well-known for destroying their movement 20 years ago, on top of being their former leader’s son and B) Him having no interest to chat with the Eldians, as a reflection of Marley’s mentality on Eldians in the restorationists’ point of view.

I’m willing to buy the hypothesis Eren found his own fanclub, thirsting on freedom and restoring Eldia’s pride. Would be an interesting turn of events to see Eren becoming the leader of his own party.

Lastly, I want to talk about the contents of Willy’s piece itself.

The History of the World

King Karl Fritz CXLV - Ch. 99

From Zeke’s plan, Willy originally had to mention about how much of a threat the island of Paradis was, so the reputation of Eldians would be preserved. However, there was one pebble slipping in Zeke’s plan while he was making an announcement: Eren. Hence why Zeke modified the plan with Magath’s help, to target his younger brother, specifically.

The play goes exactly as the books say: the Eldian Empire rose from Ymir Fritz’s ascension to power and escalated to the Great War after subjecting the world and inflict damages upon damages, with an extremely high body count from two thousand years ago: three times the current human population. Then, the houses holding each titan power began to fight each other for dominance.

What the books didn’t mention is how the civil war began. The first part of the play told us the legend of Helos: the Marlean hero who trampled the houses and made them destroy each other. He joined himself to the Tybur family and exiled Karl Fritz on Paradis. You have some symbolism between the legend and the reality: the reality features Magath, the new Helos, and Willy, the Tybur, fighting hand to hand to change Marley’s future and improve Eldians’ lives, through interior renovations. Add Zeke Fritz Yeager -who didn’t need to be tamed, he joined hands with these two- to the mix and you have the Peace trio (ZMW).

As the story goes, King Fritz took as many Eldians as he could and retreated to Paradis, where he forged the present society of the walls with his giant titans. Willy’s concluding his speech on a flashforward to the present. He omitted the part where the restorationists tried to crush Marley.

Willy taking a break - Ch. 99

Of course, he’s saving it for the second part.

The second part, the truth, is revealed to the world. The one saying King Karl Fritz CXLV gave up on the Eldian Empire. He took pity of the oppressed, conspired with the Tyburs and gave up on his functions, to live a life with his people on Paradis, to atone for his sins, and enjoy his peace with people who knew nothing of the world, enclosed in these walls till either his power gets taken away or the people inside the walls die.

“Along with the liberation of Marley from its many years of persecution. If Marley grows strong and attempts to take the lives of the royal family or its Founding Titan… I will accept it. If Marley wishes to exterminate all Eldians… I will accept it. That is how the Eldians’ crimes were. They could never be atoned for. Eldians… Titans… They never should have existed in the first place. I will accept the responsibility of righting this wrong. But. Until the day that this retribution comes, I want to live inside the walls… I want to enjoy this brief paradise, this world without conflict. Please, I ask that you only grant me this.”

He’s kinda like a saint. Except he’s condemning now ignorant people to death, these “fools” unaware of their past sins. And this is where he clashes with the beliefs of the Attack Titan, who would never accept such a thing: Kruger didn’t consider him as a true king because he abandoned his people, Grisha neither and he ended up eating Frieda and killing the whole Reiss family, Eren even less and that’s why he’s here.

The other people have trouble swallowing this. Reiner is aware of this because of the Tybur’s information and Annie’s infiltration job. Gabi and the others are quite shocked by that, so is Karina. Calvi is staring at the scene without frowning his eyebrows while other diplomats like Ogweno are perturbed. The chapter ends on Willy pointing out the real threat: the current holder of the Attack and Founding titans, Eren Yeager. He’s now framed as the world’s public enemy and can no longer hide in safety. Zeke cornered him all along.

The reason why Willy revealed Karl Fritz’s agenda is to paint him in a positive light, because his goals align with the world’s and the Mainland Eldians’ for atoning for their sins in war. However, it was only a matter of time before a bunch of people become so dissatisfied with his choice, they’re choosing to face the world, to stand up against it.

Summary

I find this clash of ideologies interesting. The King had initially good intentions, but the population would meet the enemy with utter incomprehension and clash with it. Zeke commented the King unfortunately played his people like a fiddle. Kruger, Grisha and Dina found the King shameful for abandoning its people outside and keeping them ignorant inside. Meanwhile, you have Marley who grew power-hungry and built its empire on the remnant of their Eldian soldiers and titan powers at disposition. While 6 -7 with the Attack- of the 9 houses were no more, it was their main weapon to crush their enemies. It even came to the point where they need to crush Paradis to gain resources. The Mainland Eldians accept their fate as a way of atonement and some are happy with it, despite Marley turning into the oppressor. Of course, Magath isn’t happy with it and wishes to reform the army. Willy also wishes to advance things and try to improve the Mainland Eldians’ lives. Zeke, the warchief, helps them. The third party is the restorationists, sick of being treated like martyrs and having to bow like dogs in front of their masters, so they conspire to overthrow the authority and honor their freedom, completely ignoring why they are in this situation. Of course, Zeke denounced them before they even tempted anything, but Paradis had to pay for it instead. And now Marley is under threat.

Considering what might happen… a Clash of Titans 2.0? Eren has now a couple of witnesses who spotted him and Falco became more than inconvenient. Wouldn’t surprise me if he tried to kill him. Him positioning just in the backstage is of no coincidence, especially when the warriors are separated. If anything, I think Eren is trying to kill/eat Willy. That’s the most reasonable conclusion I can make. He knows Reiner isn’t going to attempt anything because of the innocent civilians above their heads.

Listed the key points here.

Can you feel the death toll rising for next chapter? I sure can.

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inadarkdarkroom · 7 years

Text

Then Why Were You Screaming?

When I was 18, I lived with my (now ex) boyfriend in a basement apartment in a town in Wyoming. It was not a happy time in my life for various reasons (boyfriend was abusive, I was pregnant with his child) but it also didn’t help that the apartment was creepy as shit. Even for a basement apartment, it was unusually dark and cold all the time.

As soon as we moved in, weird shit started happening. Scratching noises would seem to be coming from inside the walls. I attributed this to mice, but not a single trap that was set ever caught one. I would be doing dishes in the kitchen and I would hear an enormous crash from the living room. It would sound so much like the TV had fallen over, taking my boyfriend’s shelf of Star Wars memorabilia with it, that I would rush into the living room expecting to find a complete mess and not a thing would be out of place. Sometimes I would be coming down the dark, narrow hallway that connected the living room to the rest of the apartment and I would swear that I heard whispering coming from the bathroom at the end of the hall. I would often wake up in the middle of the night after hearing something like a camera shutter clicking right in my ear. As unsettling as these things were, they didn’t really disturb or frighten me so much as annoy and puzzle me. When I started finding out the history of the apartment from the locals and I had some context to put them in, that’s when it got scary.

A few months after we had moved in, a guy from my hometown came to visit me. He was living in the same city at the time, attending the same college that my boyfriend was. He brought a friend with him who was local. I greeted the two of them outside the apartment, and the friend introduced himself and said that he used to know a guy who lived in these apartments. When I invited them inside and we went down to the basement apartment, the friend got a really weird look on his face.

“This is the apartment that guy I knew lived in,” he said. “Have you had any problems here?”

I asked him what he meant, and he told me that the guy he knew who had lived here had been a meth dealer and self-proclaimed Satanist who used to host weird group sex parties in the name of the dark lord or some shit. (In any other town, this would seem far-fetched, but this town was/is a very strange place.) The friend said that the guy was now in prison for beating his girlfriend almost to death and pushing a TV over on top of her.

Well, that spooked me. I told my boyfriend (who hadn’t taken me seriously up to that point) and he, being a non-practicing Catholic, decided that calling a Catholic priest over to come bless the place was the best solution. I was/am not religious in the slightest, but I didn’t have any better ideas, so we called the local parish and they sent an old priest over. He sprinkled some holy water around, said a few prayers in Latin, and was gone.

Later that night, we were invited to a small gathering at our neighbor’s apartment. He lived in the apartment directly above us, and we had told him earlier in the day about the priest coming over to bless the place because of the spooky shit that was going on. When we arrived at his apartment that evening, he asked us how it went. We shrugged and said fine.

“Then why were you screaming?” he asked me. “Were you having devils cast out or something?”

My boyfriend and I exchanged puzzled looks. I told him I hadn’t been screaming. Nobody had. The whole thing had been pretty uneventful. The neighbor swore up and down that he had heard a woman screaming coming from our apartment while the priest was there. He had thought it was me being “exorcised” or something. WTF.

I had hoped that was the end of it, but it wasn’t. Things actually started to get worse over the next few months. The weird noises came more frequently. The camera-shutter sound woke me up every night instead of just once in a while. My boyfriend began experiencing the phenomena as well. Around this time, the fights we were having started to escalate and my boyfriend became very violent. He had never been a nice guy, exactly, but I had never thought he would actually hit me with closed fists, but he did, and quite often. It was a very bad time.

Early one morning, I woke up suddenly and saw that my boyfriend was still asleep in the bed next to me. I looked away to check the clock, and when I looked back, he was staring at the ceiling with his eyes wide open. It startled me because I had never seen him wake up so suddenly. I said good morning and asked if he was okay.

“I spoke to it,” he said. “The thing that lives here. It told me I can’t leave. It said it owns me now.”

I started to ask him what the hell he was talking about, but he immediately closed his eyes and went back to sleep. Somewhere deep down, I thought I knew what he was talking about, and that freaked me out even more.

One night a few weeks later, I was alone in the apartment. Boyfriend was out drinking with friends. I was watching Ace Ventura: Pet Detective on the TV in the living room. I decided to go to the kitchen to get a drink. As I was walking down the long, dark hallway to the kitchen, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had heard something growl. At first, I thought it must have been the TV, but as I strained to hear, the noise coming from the TV in the living room was Jim Carey doing one of his voices. The growl came again, and it was coming from somewhere much closer, and off to my right. I turned and saw a dark shape crouching in the hallway. I had just enough time to wonder if a stray dog had somehow gotten in when the thing stood up and rushed at me, snarling. I fucking freaked. Bolted down the hallway, up the stairs and out the front door.

The neighbor who lived above us wasn’t at home, so I went up another flight of stairs and knocked on a different neighbor’s door. The lady named Dawn who lived in the apartment on the top floor came to the door. I had not met her before this, but I immediately started babbling about the shadow thing in my apartment and begged her to come take a look. She and her SO, who lived there with her, accompanied me downstairs. There was nothing to see and nothing out of place, but the hallway was ice cold. I felt stupid and crazy and embarrassed, but Dawn told me she believed me.

“You know, this apartment is messed up,” she said. “Lots of crazy shit has gone on down here.”

I told her I had already heard about the Satanist dude who tried to murder his girlfriend. She laughed and said that was only one of the people that had lived there. Before that guy, a Mexican lady had lived there. She was a devout Catholic who did not speak a lot of English and had a life-size crucifix on the wall. Dawn had never seen anything like it outside of a church, and when she asked about it, the Mexican lady crossed herself and said that it was to “keep the evil in the apartment at bay”. Before that lady, the apartment had been rented by a photographer who used it as his darkroom. He was busted for kiddie porn. My blood froze as I remembered the weird camera-shutter noises that would wake me up. Dawn told me more about the history of the apartment and the people who had lived there, but I can’t recall any of the other details- just that each person had either been terrified of the place, been a terrible person, or met a terrible end.

I moved out of the apartment and back in with my parents a few weeks later. I might have stayed longer if not for the fact that my boyfriend had become so violent during one of our fights that he threatened to kill me and then himself. Whether it was him finally showing his true colors or “the evil in the apartment” working on him, I’ll probably never know- but I knew that my life and the life of my unborn child was in danger, so I got the fuck out of there and out of that relationship.

Unborn child is 12 now. Abusive boyfriend is out of the picture and has been for over a decade. I am still very good friends with Dawn. Sometimes I still have dreams about that place, though. The dreams are always terrifying, and sometimes I wake up in the dark, totally convinced for a few moments that I am back in that apartment.

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skinks · 6 years

Photo

New York Times: The Best Albums of 2017

1. An indicator of walls soon to fall: Joe Mulherin, who records as nothing,nowhere., finds common ground between the charred screams of second- and third-wave emo and the easy swagger of contemporary hip-hop, using both in the service of stark emotional vulnerability. [Read the interview]

nothing,nowhere. Blends Hip-Hop and Emo to Make Tomorrow’s Pop

Joe Mulherin is part of an emerging group of artists that is bridging the chasm between rap and rock. His debut is one of the most promising albums of the year.

By JON CARAMANICA OCT. 20, 2017

HYDE PARK, Vt. — At Green River Reservoir State Park here earlier this month, the water was placid and clear, and the leaves on the surrounding trees were a dozen shades of green, lustrous red, pumpkin and taupe. Every now and then, a loon floated by, incurious.

It was a Friday evening, and Joe Mulherin — who records scathingly beautiful hip-hop-influenced emo music as nothing,nowhere. — was building a fire for the night.

“I feel the most calm when I’m here doing this and I’m away from it all,” he said of camping out. He unsheathed a small ax and found a skinny, dead tree to chop down, then used a bow saw to cut its trunk into campfire-size pieces, which, over the course of the night, were reduced to silvery ash.

Vermont’s outdoors is a salve and a muse for Mr. Mulherin, 25: His right arm is covered in tattoos of the state flower, the state fish, the state seal, the loon from the reservoir (“They don’t know how hard I ride for them,” he said, referring to the loons).

But just as often he’s indoors. In the basement of his parents’ house, not far from this park, he has spent the last few years refining his music, one post at a time on the streaming service SoundCloud.

On Friday, nothing,nowhere. will release “Reaper,” an outstanding album that synthesizes the second-wave emo of the early to mid-2000s with the rattling hip-hop low end of the last few years. It is one of the most promising pop albums of the year; the logical, and perhaps inevitable, endpoint of hip-hop’s broad diffusion into every corner of American musical life; and also the most viable current direction for guitar-driven music in the mainstream.

The lyrical rawness of “Reaper” — Mr. Mulherin’s proper full-length debut album, and his first on a record label — can be searing. “There’s a lot of instances on this record where I probably should have just taken a nap,” Mr. Mulherin said while finishing off a fireside pad thai, cooked with water boiled over a modified seltzer can filled with isopropyl alcohol.

“I haven’t spoke to you since 17/Just thought I’d let you know you’re dead to me,” he lovingly sings on the spooky, abraded “Clarity in Kerosene,” one of the album’s most anguished songs. At the chorus, Mr. Mulherin toggles back and forth between shrieking and soothing, and in the verses, he alternates between a kind of whispered, conspiratorial singing and nimble rapping.

The music is similarly piercing and caressing. Mr. Mulherin often plays with an arid electric guitar tone redolent of lonely folk music. “I’m really into open tunings,” he said. “There’s something about that tone that’s chilly, that’s kind of cold and removed.” His beats are urgent and dark. (He produced the album with the punk producer Erik Ron and JayVee, a SoundCloud collaborator.)

The music of nothing,nowhere. is an intriguing turn for emo, which has been through at least four waves, and has been celebrating a revival by classicist-minded new bands in recent years. Mr. Mulherin is a devotee of the genre’s older standard-bearers — “I never stopped listening to these bands,” he said of groups like Mineral and the Promise Ring. But he’s part of a young, still relatively fringe group of artists, largely gathered on SoundCloud, that is melding vintage emo with contemporary hip-hop production, finding unlikely kinship.

In the way that the rise of Drake portended the final obliteration of the wall between hip-hop and R&B, the music of nothing,nowhere. — along with other SoundCloud-first artists including Lil Peep — helps bridge the chasm between rock and hip-hop. Unlike the rap-rock of a decade and a half ago, which was often clunky, expressed via brute force and a constant reminder of its forebears, Mr. Mulherin’s blend is seamless and intuitive.

That’s clearest on the ethereal and sinewy “Hopes Up,” which features a guest appearance by the emo godfather Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional.

Mr. Carrabba likened nothing,nowhere.’s embrace of hip-hop to his own generation’s engagement with hardcore: “Some of the trappings are similar: posturing, hypermasculine, not necessarily inclusive, cocky and braggadocious,” he said in a phone interview. “Joe seems to have embraced the best pieces of that and laid the tropes aside. That’s where I see a connection to our generation.”

Mr. Mulherin still has the voice mail saved on his phone of Mr. Carrabba agreeing to sing on the track and asking “to hear more of your music just because I’m kind of obsessed with this song.” He said hearing that kind of praise from someone he looked up to “really puts wind in my sails, because I’m not the most confident person.”

Mr. Mulherin was raised in Foxborough, Mass. but spent summers in this part of Vermont. By the time he began taking guitar lessons at 12, he was already immersed in the bruising rap-rock of the era, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park (“my first vulnerable band”), and also emo and post-hardcore bands like Taking Back Sunday, Thursday and Senses Fail.

He was shy, preferring listening to music in his room to doing homework. Soon he was posting emo covers of rap songs like 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop” and Jim Jones’ “We Fly High” on his Myspace page.

After high school, he went to the only college that accepted him, the hippie-leaning Burlington College: “It wasn’t unusual to walk into class and no one would be wearing shoes, or deodorant, for that matter.” He fell hard for the beauty of Vermont. Already straight edge, in his freshman year, he went vegan. He’d been making videos with his friends since high school, and got a job editing videos for a local business. In 2013, he won a short-film competition as part of a young-filmmaker internship that brought his work to the Cannes Film Festival.

Still, he was dissatisfied, and after saving up a few thousand dollars, he left college after earning an associate’s degree and started nothing,nowhere. He posted his first song in his current style on SoundCloud in 2015 and, after getting a positive reception, made several more songs quickly. Online interest grew, and eventually led to offers from touring agents, managers and record labels. Last year, at dinner before his first label showcase, “I was shaking,” he recalled. “I couldn’t even drink my water.” (nothing,nowhere. is signed to DCD2, the imprint founded by Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy.)

A sensitive child who refused to kill insects, Mr. Mulherin had a panic attack in second grade, and has been grappling with anxiety ever since.

“I’d be a lot worse if I didn’t make music,” he said. “With my worst moments, I just put it into a song so I don’t have to feel it elsewhere, and sometimes that works.”

It’s that emotional immediacy that radiates most powerfully from his songs, and has resonated. Since he first began getting attention online, Mr. Mulherin said has been receiving emails and messages from fans, like “I got this tattoo on my neck of your logo cause I was gonna kill myself and then I heard ‘Deadbeat Valentine.’”

“I know my message and what I bring to the table is positive,” he said. “I’m acting upon my empathy. I have nothing but good intentions.”

With that, he headed off into the trees to gather more wood, making sure the fire would keep burning.

#long post #nothingnowhere #nothing nowhere #MY BOYYYYYYYYY #i'm so proud #stan talent #the line about needing to take a nap is hilarious #that last bolded paragraph hit me hard because tbh that was me

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atomic-r0x · 7 years

Text

Lola’s first Challenge

It must have been well past nine o’clock in the morning when the front doors of The Ritz-Carlton hotel in Los Angeles slid open, her silhouette making its way towards the elevators effortlessly. Save for the slightly smudged eyeliner and her foundation which had lost some of its full coverage over the night, she looked remarkably beautiful and prepped up, ready to take on the day. And the glow – my God, there was something about her body and the way she carried it around the lobby, the way she raised her finger to press the button before stepping inside the elevator, the way she leaned both hands against the elevator’s rail in a V position, leaning closer to the mirror to examine her makeup – this aura of invincible sensuality and empowerment didn’t fail to stun, to stop people in their tracks. To make the middle-aged man going to the fourth floor gulp when the doors opened and she popped up an eyebrow, like she doubted he would even be able to take her.

She walked out of the elevator and ran a hand through her hair, still soft but needing a shower, something to wash away the sweat and the fingerprints of frantic hands tangled in her locks. She stepped towards room 520 as if the carpets were her runway, hips swaying from side to side until she stopped and placed one of her hands on the cold hard wood of the door, while the other hovered the access card across the sensor, proceeding to press the knob gently. He was still spread out on the king-sized bed, swallowed by the comforter and the generous number of pillows. His chest raising and lowering with every breath he took, the tattoo drawn above his heart almost becoming three-dimensional.

Shoes off, step out of the tight faux leather skirt, unbutton the shirt she’d stolen from him, a trail of clothes marking her way from the entrance door (which bore a do not disturb red sign she’d smirked at before stepping in) to the bathroom. A hot shower, the act of taking off any remains from the night before, a sacred ritual she took all the time in the world with. The plush towel loosely wrapped around her frame, like a formality she was half-heartedly accepting.

“Who was it this time?” his voice was low and sleepy, husky and muffled by a yawn that followed shortly after his last word came out of his mouth. Boris rubbed his eyes with his nail polished fingers, though his eyes refused to open just yet. Even so, he could feel her presence in the room, could easily point at her standing body in front of the full-length mirror, could tell she was rubbing some moisturizing cream into her makeup free skin.

“I believe his name was John… Johnathan, Johnny?” she replied simply, almost matter-of-factly, unperturbed from her skincare routine. What did it matter, anyway, who it was? She could hardly remember anything more than his tight grip towards his car, a deep blue Lexus NX Hybrid SUV, the nude leather tapestry, the eagerness which fueled his movements, the ease with which he followed her commands. “What?” she spoke as her hands lowered from her face, her eyes fixed on his distant reflection in the mirror.

“Was it… any good?” Boris first hesitated, but managed to ask anyway, propping himself up on his right elbow as he looked over at her, his lazy eyes taking in the sight of her bare back and the little skin left unexposed, trapped inside the towel.

Lola sighed and returned to massaging the cream into her skin, her eyes returning to the close details of her complexion. “Comes quicker than a kid. ‘Least he was obedient” she informed drily, like they were talking about the weather forecast, or exchanging thoughts about a movie that had failed to impress her. “Awfully boring, though. And married.” She finished applying her skincare, easily unwrapping her glowing skin from the not wet towel, heading for the closet room.

Boris sighed and closed his eyes briefly, before they opened again, too tempted not to follow her with his longing orbs. “You know, I’m trying not to be jealous now.”

“Don’t be silly, you’ve got absolutely no reason to be jealous.” Lola replied, absentmindedly almost, as she picked out some lingerie, and sprayed some heat protection through her hair.

“Don’t I? You think it’s fun knowing my girl was gone all night, screwing the brains out of a man I’ve never even met?” Boris spoke, this time propping up enough for him to rest seated, back against the dashboard of the massive bed.

“Oh, get over yourself, Boris. It’s just a random guy I’ll never see again, and besides you were awfully tired last night” the girl replied with an eye roll, plugging in the blow dryer as she sat down at the mirror table in the closet room, brushing her long dark chocolate locks.

Boris huffed and Lola could feel he was rolling his eyes in return, his hand violently falling against one of the pillows in frustration. “Sometimes I wonder how is it possible for you to have always been like this. It goes beyond me” he spoke in a stubborn voice, his words like bullets aimed at her, but too bad she was immune. “Has anyone ever been good enough for you? Good enough that you wouldn’t sneak out at night and bang the first prey?” Boris was now standing in the doorway, his slender frame sporting nothing but his black Calvin Klein boxers.

Lola put her hairbrush down and stared at the mirror before her seated self, teeth clenched together tightly while her mind debated whether it was fit for him to know or not. Oh, you’ve no idea.

++++++++

She was sixteen that summer, and on her first holiday without her parents. The Lafevres had miraculously convinced her parents their precious daughter was going to spend the hottest months of the year in the safety of their remote castle in Normandy, an estate inherited by Duke Lafevre from his great-grandmother, a remarkable woman of aristocratic origins who’d married Archduke Lafevre when she was very, pressed by her family. “They are going to enjoy themselves a lot, Yarol. The property is thirty minutes away from the closest neighbur, it’s literal heaven out there!” the duke would insist, accompanied by Lola’s wide eyes peering up at her father, her body curled up in his lap as she waited for his final decision.

The castle had six bedrooms and two living rooms, a dining place and four large bathrooms, with a generous kitchen at the basement. The gardener, Lola learnt, was also responsible for the cooking and cleaning, occasionally helped by his wife, a midwife working at the closest hospital. There were six of them, and no other adults apart from the staff – Lola, Dominic, Ingrid and three other girls, daughters of some friends of the Lafevres. It might have been just her endless fascination with him, but Lola found it impossible not to mention how every single soul at the castle – gardener and wife included – simply gravitated around him, charmed by his ease and charisma, playing the generous host only to keep his guests entertained.

It was bright Saturday – the sky was a shade so light of blue, it almost seemed white, the blinding sunlight soaking everything around the castle. Every single door was left ajar, every window wide open, the cool air guarded by the thick stone walls freshened by the hot breeze that made the curtains seem like they were inhaling and exhaling. Ingrid left a note on the decades-old mirror in the main living room, ‘we’re out swimming’ written in bright red lipstick.

Lola overslept that day, and woke up the sound of a smirk she knew so well she could distinguish it in a crowded room, filled with people talking at the same time. She opened her eyes slowly, a small smile already plastered across her lips, and saw him – he in his personal tailor trousers, his patent shoes, his white shirt he always wore with the first three buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up right under his elbow. His sand-like hair, messed up by his habit of running a hand through it, his sharp jawline, the naughtiness in the curve of his mouth.

God, was she mad about him. Mad about his perfume – strong leather and black pepper –, mad about the way he picked his words and how his voice was always hoarse. Mad about his hands resting on the small of her back or behind her neck, or how they cupped the side of her face when he pulled her in for a kiss. It is safe to say she adored him, a devotion partly motivated by an unexpected respect she had never thought her first love would impose. Maybe it was his blue blood, or maybe just the three-year difference that made Lola feel like this was a big deal.

They’d known each other ever since their baby showers, really. There rarely was a family photo that did not include both Lola and Dominic, although they were linked by everything except blood. Their childhoods were almost identical, their dynamic exceeding the usual boundaries of common friendship. So much that only two months before the trip to Normandy, they became an official piece. Or so she thought.

It was on that very Saturday, in the most beautiful castle ever built on French land, that Lola lost her virginity. She’d been longing for it ever since, at the age of fifteen, she resolved there was much more in her heart for Dominic than the innocent affection you carry for a close friend. Nights before they departed to Normandy she kept shifting in her bed, touching herself in places she ached to be touched by him. Muffled moans and heartachingly desperate movements of her fingers filled the long hours of supposed sleep before she finally decided she was going to go mad if nothing happened in Normandy.

But it did happen – the unexpected, overwhelming amazement that ran though her body from head to toe as his slender body hovered on top of hers, his rawness dazzling her, his careful moves shortly followed by changes of speed or intensity. Her eyes so wide she thought they might fall out of the hollows in her skull destined for them, her mouth stuck in a permanent O shape, her body paralyzed with a pleasure she had never even imagined was possible.

At the end, he rolled over, gave her a small smirk, pinching her cheek the way an aunt might do, and got fully dressed in less than five minutes. But Lola, oh God, she was left unable to move, still stunned by the intensity of the moment she’d been longing for so long, her body – so young and fresh, only sixteen years old – spread out across the bed in shameless nakedness, chest unwilling to settle for regular breath.

It happened again that very night. Then the following morning after lunch, when Ingrid and the girls were out in town, stocking up on alcohol they secretly downed in the attic, after the gardener and his wife retreated to their home, a few yards away from the castle. Then the following three nights. Every time would bring an element of surprise, something to always remind her that she could never have as much knowledge as he did. Every time, she’d gasp in new ways, reach higher pitches than before, and inevitably watch him roll over, kiss her maybe, and then get dressed. He was out the door in less than five minutes. She’d never complain.

The game carried on until the Christmas that followed their holiday in Normandy. Dominic and Lola would sneak around, play hide and seek, and then she’d beg for a new revelation. The weeks she couldn’t be with him seemed never-ending and cruel, and she couldn’t get the job done herself. Lola was helplessly, tragically in love with Dominic, and for the longest time, the feeling seemed reciprocated.

The too-good-to-be-true love story started going downhill little after the Solange family returned from their holidays in Cape Town, flying back to Paris for New Year’s Eve, but Lola was too caught-up in the marvelous bedroom rituals Dominic imposed to notice the teeth marks, the bruises, the way his eyes followed when either of the family friends who’d been with them in Normandy passed by.

It took another couple months for Lola to notice he was hardly in the mood anymore. They scarcely even kissed anymore, his dismissive sighs and constant checking of his phone a sign too bold for her to play dumb anymore. There was a massive elephant in the room, and Lola gradually grew tired of putting up a show for him, every time wondering what on earth was it that aroused him back then, and she could no longer summon. Dominic once got up from where he was seated while she was playing with herself for him, storming out of the house without any explanation.

He did have the decency to tell her he thought breaking up was the best thing to do, but it was long after Lola had figured out what was going on. Nonetheless, after they officially called it quits, Lola still couldn’t fully convince herself it was over. For nights on end she’d dream about him, about rolling beneath his sheets, about sneaking out to see him. About their time in Normandy and how the first time felt. Lola was reeling, the type of pain that numbs your feelings and the functions of your body to the point where even getting out of bed to brush your teeth seems slightly unnecessary and far too complicated.

Not long after their breakup, Dominic announced – so formally it would have amused her, had she not been this devastated by the breakup – that he was off to travel the world and eventually settle for Britain, where he was to attend university. After days of persuasion, the Solange clan finally convinced Lola to get out of the house and attend the garden party thrown by the Lafevres to celebrate Dominic’s departure. It was then she noticed the not-just-friendly hands placed on the smalls of several backs, the kisses pressed against porcelain ears, the naughty winks passed around like the newspaper. The feeling of betrayal setting her teeth on edge, the bitter aftertaste of her greatest love making her swear she would never allow herself to feel so strongly about anyone.

+++++++

It made little sense explaining all this to Boris, introducing him to a history from which Lola still couldn’t flee. And why should she justify herself, anyway? Why should she feel tied down to a single man? She’s been there before and had seen the way things end, no great act of love could convince her a lover would never change his mind about her. So why get hurt, when she could get what she wanted? It was a contract she had mentally signed with Boris just as well as Barbie and Benedict, but the deadlines and commitments were known by only herself – apart from a vague, never too in-depth explanation of her polygamous interests, Lola kept to herself. Her body, her business, this was the moto.

There was no time for thinking about hurting anybody when the main goal was not getting hurt herself.

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ruined-rp · 5 years

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Derek Hale Sample App

OUT OF CHARACTER:

Name: Admin Kitty Pronouns: She/Her Age: 27 Timezone/Country: Australia - GMT+10/AEST Triggers: Rape, trypophobia, clowns, insects Activity Level: 5-6, I own my own business and am currently caring for my grandmother as she’s very ill but I’m around on mobile constantly and am quite regular with my replies! How Did You Hear About Us: I am the creator of all things Ruined :p

Anything Else?: I am so excited for this RP to start! The Code: N/A

DESIRED CHARACTER:

Desired Character: The one and only Derek Hale. Why This Character?: The first ever male muse I ever wrote is Dean Winchester- and he still holds a very special place in my heart but when I connected with Derek Hale, it was like a whole new world opened itself up to me. He is my ultimate muse, the one I have written the most, the one I have written the longest... the one I will return to, time and time again because writing Derek is like coming home. Any FC Changes?: Never in a million years Ships/Anti-ships: He’s a bleeding heart, especially for the women. Even after all the hurt he’s suffered by their hands, he’s still a sucker for a damsel in distress but, I will go where the chemistry and development leads, every time. It also has to make sense to his plot and character type, for example; I would never pitch Kate with Derek unless it was flash backs showing their relationship before the fire. Headcanons:

TATTOOS: Derek has a triple spiral or triskelion on his back. It is three spirals connected together.The triskelion is an ancient symbol and whilst it has many, many meanings, to Derek , the symbol stands for the three types of werewolves - Alpha, Beta and Omega. He says it reminds him that while we can rise we can also fall, a Beta becoming an Alpha or an Alpha falling back down to Omega status.It’s also in my opinion an ode to his heritage. The symbol represents his family, almost like a family/pack crest. He has the symbol on Laura’s grave, also in his home and further, it’s the symbol on the tokens given to the Hale Children by Talia to help them with their transitions and to learn control. Derek also has a full sleeve down his left arm that covers the top of his hand- the entire depiction is an ode to the moon and his wolf. He also has a small crescent moon tattooed on the inside of his right wrist.

CRESCENT: Like all of the Hale’s and Labonair’s, Derek has a birth mark of a crescent moon. His is on the inside of his left ankle, whereas Hayley’s is on the back of her shoulder. It’s what ultimately lead to Hayley’s discovery and the one thing that sets their families apart from the rest of the Crescent legacies. The birthmark is what gives a wolf the right to become Alpha of the Crescent Wolf Pack, should their time ever come... something that isn’t always a blessing or a right of passage.

FAVOURITE THINGS: Derek has a thing for Winter too but there is something so special about Autumn. It’s natures way of preparing for change, of shedding the old after a brilliant array of colour and beauty ready for a new cycle. The colours that surrounded his loft and the home he grew up in felt like a warm hug from the earth. Not that he’d ever admit that out loud...He’s also an exceptionally good cook. There’s something so therapeutic about being in the kitchen, making something by his hand. He’s great at any handy-work style task but making good food for his pack and watching the joy on their faces as they sit around the logs and a freshly stoked fire eating whatever he’d prepared for them is one of his favourite traditions. Please Provide At Least One: You can find it all here → [xxxx]

CHARACTER QUESTIONNAIRE:

How Does Your Character Feel About The Peace Treaty?: It was his family that helped established the Peace Treaty but frankly, his thoughts on it are a lot like believing in God. You do, until something goes wrong and then you don’t. After the loss of his family, he wasn’t sure he could stomach the idea of living in Peace with the very people who destroyed him but the Hales and his pack have lived in New Orleans for centuries, have built a refuge here… if signing a treaty fortified their position in this town? Then so be it. Though, he is no fool. Peace is only ever temporary, and when it all falls apart… he is ready. His pack is prepared. Slice of Life: Derek is a simple man, with simple habits. Sleep, clean, wank, plot vengeance, exercise, cook, repeat. He lives his life one day at a time, and tries not to break the norm of his routine, because at this point in his life routine is all he had. It’s what kept him going day by day in his methodical existence.One of his most important habits is his exercise. He works out at least two hours every single day. A wolf in his position has to stay fit, after all. His routine consists of cardio + calisthenics. It allows his stamina and endurance to peak and it was what kept him so light on his toes, almost always guaranteeing the upper hand in any fight when combining that with the fact that he was an alpha. When he’s not training himself, he’s training the Pack- especially Scott and Hayley, who need him the most right now. On occasion, he’ll head to Auggie’s or Rousseau’s and blow off a little steam. Things are calm right now, and Derek is relishing in it whilst he can because he knows that it’s a false sense of security, literally the calm before the storm. With each day, the Nemeton grows stronger and it’ll take every none of them to stop it. What is Your Character’s Greatest Fear? How Does This Affect Your Character?: He’s lived it. Over and over again, Derek has come face to face with his worst fear of that decade and somehow survived. He’s lost every one he’s ever loved or cared for in any capacity. Felt the pain and anguish of life. He fears for the safety of NOLA and those who still look up to him for guidance and protection but at the same time, he’s broken- so yeah, the fear is still there, but it’s dormant. No longer the driving force of his actions.

SAMPLE:

“Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things, a semi deliverance from the human prison.”

The near full moons light illuminated the restless body of the alpha, reflecting against the light sheen of a cold sweat on his naked skin as he tossed and turned under the sheets that threatened to suffocate him. The recurring dream Derek had each night since the tragic events that affected the course of his life forever was yet again plaguing his mind; only tonight it was different…where he was normally thrown awake in terror, there was something pulling him deeper, sucking him further into the memory.

His feet were moving so fast, were he not a wolf he’d have tumbled face first. His heart beat so violently against his throat Derek feared he was going to choke on it. Panic was all consuming as branches whipped against him, cutting his skin and piercing his soul. How could he have been so stupid? Trusting Kate was going to have an affect on his life like he could never imagine…

His mind flashed to the house, the sky ahead now black in the midst of the night, the moon tucked away behind the dense trees surrounding his family home, the stars a beautiful contrast to the horror below them. The screams had begun, the blood curdling cries of those who shared his blood, locked in the basement and too far gone for him to save… The pain in his chest threatening to break him open.

Suddenly, his view shifted, he was running again only now that view was lower, his body morphed into his wolf form. The pain a little less, a dull ache in the back of his mind overcome by his animal instincts as he hunted his prey through the forest. With a shift in his sleep he pounced on the deer he had been stalking, his teeth sinking into the warm furry flesh as he ravaged the animal the way his past ravaged him.

Blood dripping from his fangs as he finally pulled away, satiated. Sitting back on his haunches his muzzle lifted to the night sky as a howl erupted from deep in his chest before taking off again. Constantly running, barely living…a half life, a life of fur deep emotions and animal meat for sustenance…

The alpha didn’t know how to pull himself out, the dreams getting increasingly more real as he lived his past trauma, playing out the last two years of his life mentally….only it wasn’t just the recent trauma he was seeing….The scene shifted to a younger version oh himself, the child with human eyes standing over the slowly fading body of his first love. His mother had told him it was mere puppy love, the hearts desire of a teenager swirling in his own hormones but he constantly denied it… how could something so pitiful feel so real? How could it end so fast, at his own hands, no less?

Sinking to his knees, tears choking him as he reached trembling hands out to grasp the skin getting colder and colder underneath his touch. “I’m sorry, Paige…I’m so sorry” He knew it had to end, Peter having left her crippled, the damage irreversible. “It’s ok, Derek-” her voice was faint as it escaped her soft lips, her eyes fluttering closed one final time as he snapped her neck needing the end to be as quick and painless as possible…even though his own heart shattered into a million pieces…

With a sideways slam, Derek was back on his knees among the rubble that was once his family, his home, his life. Ash streaked his clothes as his hands closed around the bones of his parents, attempting to lift the fragile bones only for them to disintegrate to dust, blowing away in the wind as a scream erupted from his lips. All the heartbreak he’d ever felt in his life coming out in the night, lost to the universe as he was lost to himself…

The night continued, the alpha trapped in a dream world, forced to relive all the mistakes he had made throughout his life. The lives taken because of him and his actions, the pain he suppressed from his own determination to carry on….for what? What was the point, when all he ever touched seemed to die. Something was keeping Derek under and he fought to get out, his hands turned to claws as he absent mindedly raked them through the air, through his sheets, through his own skin. Blood pooling around his unconscious body as his consciousness continued to be assaulted by his own wrongdoing.

__________________________________________________________________________

This was written for a prompt that I was in and very fond of. It consisted of characters being forced into a lucid dream they couldn’t escape and is one of my favourite Derek pieces. I thought it a great way to introduce Derek to Ruined. <3 Please note, when providing your own sample, it needs to either be specific to your character in this RP or from a blog proving you own the original work.

#sample app

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kidsviral-blog · 6 years

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I Thought His Idea To Do This With No Money Was Ridiculous. But It Turned Out AWESOME.

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/i-thought-his-idea-to-do-this-with-no-money-was-ridiculous-but-it-turned-out-awesome/

I Thought His Idea To Do This With No Money Was Ridiculous. But It Turned Out AWESOME.

I think just about every boy dreams of building his very own secret base. That’s exactly what reddit user kahnuck did. Except he’s not a kid any more, nor did he decide to build this shack as a secret base to discuss how icky girls are. He built this amazingly affordable shack on his parent’s land using pretty much nothing but scrap wood and metal he gathered from the surrounding area. Only buying a few things from a local store. But all of this begs the question, why?

Mainly just to get experience building something. I’ve read a ton of books on tiny homes and small cabins over the last few years, but I’ve never physically made anything. By using mainly reclaimed and found materials, I was able to gain a ton of experience at a minimal expense. Now I feel confident investing a little more money in my next project 🙂 “

“So I started building a shack three summers ago on my parents property. I had no previous building experience, and no real plan.”

“The logs were harvested from wind-fallen trees around the property. I bought some 2×4’s to frame the skeleton of the structure, and some concrete blocks to prop the structure up off the ground.”

“In hindsight I should have turned the roof beams on edge in order to maximize load-bearing capacity.”

“I finally returned home this summer, and decided to continue tinkering with the shack. I picked up a window and door for five dollars each, and was able to get some scrap metal roofing from a family friend who just completed building her own log cabin. I randomly started infilling the walls with logs collected from around my parents eighteen acre property.”

“I found another wooden door and a lot of miscellaneous pieces of wood from a local scrap yard. The more you reuse, the more affordable making a structure like this can be. My mom and aunt decided to “spruce up my shack” by adding the colorful solar-powered lights…”

“The shack also benefits from a large amount of evergreens being conveniently located on it’s north side – somewhat sheltering it from prevailing winds.”

“I decided I wanted to add a look-out tower to the eastern side of my shack. There are a few local shipbuilders in the area who dump a lot of their scrap wood off on an old, rarely used, historic road. Luckily for me, most of the wood is still in great shape – the entire tower is built from that salvaged wood. I used old tire rims to prop the ladder and tower posts up off the ground, to minimize water damage and rot. “

“I decided to spend some money and get a few packs of cedar shingles to cover the outer walls of the shack. In total it took three bundles, at twenty dollars per bundle. Normally you only expose five inches of the shingle, but I exposed six-and-a-half inches in order to stretch the shingles as much as possible. I was reluctant to put any more money into this thing, but I decided the functionality this provides would make it a worthy investment.”

“I secured some sturdy logs to the tower in order to increase its stability and strength.”

“While I was building the shack, my parents were working on an outhouse. I was able to use a lot of their scraps to start filling in around the windows.”

“By attaching these thin strips of wood to the back of the structure, it gave me a secure and level surface to attach the cedar shingles to. I used a staple gun to attach the shingles to the wood strips.”

“Using logs found around the property, I started building a front overhang. The front posts are propped off the ground with bricks.”

“I decided the tower needed more secure ladders. Using a level and measuring tape, I marked along the logs at one-foot intervals where a notch would be cut for the step. After sawing along the markings, I notched out small piece of wood with a hammer and chisel. Lastly, I slid the steps into the notched out spaces, and secured them down with screws.”

“I painted the corner posts and bottom boards with fisherman paint I found in my parents basement. The cedar shingles should last untreated for decades, but the other wood isn’t as hardy, and needs some added protection.”

“I decided to cover the front overhang with a double layer of clear plastic – this provides shelter at the front of the shack, while still allowing light into the shack. The gap between plastic sheeting and metal roofing is covered by more scrap metal.”

“In the woods beside the old historic road, there was also a large pile of old lobster traps. I salvaged a bunch of wire mesh from them, and used it to reinforce the plastic sheeting. I also framed some of the wire mesh and used it as walls on the tower – it allows the wind to pass through the structure without shaking the whole thing.”

“Interior tower facing wall, nothing pretty.”

“The floor is composed of a few layers of sand and some square chunks of cement I salvaged from the lobster traps.”

“Western windowed wall.”

This is the finished product. It might not be fancy, but for a cost of almost $0…I’ll take it! He even built a nice bench out front to sit on. 🙂

Gotta say, as a kid this was my dream, to build a shack and tower exactly like that. Except I’d probably have called it the Secret Fort of Doom or something equally cheesy. Good to see someone is living every kid’s dream. Next step, to become a Ninja Turtle and eat pizza for breakfast every day. Source

Read more: http://viralnova.com/affordable-shack/

#affordable #building #cheap #construction #diy #parents #shack

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argotmagazine-blog · 6 years

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The Extraordinary Longevity of Ordinary Objects

A couple of months ago, I moved for the first time in five years. What surprised me the most, other than high rent prices in the Bay Area and the extent to which the landscape had changed compared to my childhood memories, was the amount of stuff I had accumulated. I kept a lot of crap, no longer discarding my unnecessary belongings by moving to a new apartment every year, or moving back to my parents' for the summer in between school years. Stuff that I honestly forgot I had. Old lipsticks and eye shadows that had dried out, bed sheets from my dorm life, batteries of all types, so numerous I couldn't tell the difference between the charged one or the dead ones. Old IKEA boxes we had latched onto "for moving" and how we were loathe to get rid of such things, because "We might need it later." It felt expensive and wasteful throwing things away when you can't afford to replace them and might need them "later."

Dust collected in the corners of our towers of belongings, trapping us in a cathedral of forgotten goods. There would be one path in and out, so my wife and I would have to scoot out of one place if another wanted to walk by. Rarely would guests come over, simply because there wasn’t much space for a comfortable visit. When your bed becomes the center of meaning in your apartment, the place where your meals are consumed, words are written, as well as the majority of your time at home, it was not unlike living in a dorm room, with the feeling that I was in this purgatory of an undergraduate lifestyle.

All this stuff didn't make me happy. It bothered me. I felt like I was kept hostage by all my stuff and couldn't move freely throughout my living space. I would trip and inevitably cause a tower of carefully placed mail, magazines, and promotional keychains cascading to the floor, another mess to tiptoe around and later, pick up. My elbows would brush against another precarious stack invariably five minutes later. No, we weren't hoarders. Just living in a rent-controlled basement studio apartment in San Francisco. The golden handcuffs, where you couldn't move without paying exorbitantly more in monthly rent and having the requisite six roommates to make that said monthly rent. When we found our one bedroom, one bathroom in Berkeley, it felt like an opening for a new beginning. We could finally get our cat, couch, and a coat rack, a mantra my wife and I said to each other while lying in our full size bed. It may not sound like much, but it's the little things that make a difference when you have little space.

I learned where I got it from once my father helped us move. He brought my old space heater that kept me warm when I was child in the early 90s. I couldn't believe my eyes that this rickety radiator adjacent appliance had outlasted our years in my childhood home, kept among the debris of old soccer trophies, swim team ribbons, and sheets of piano music. When I went back to my parents apartment to gather my books that had been patiently waiting for me to have enough room for them five years later, I sorted through the artifacts of their own dreams too expensive to discard; sheets wrapped in plastic envelopes, sustainably sourced bamboo wooden spoons still in their mesh packaging, a Nutribullet in mint condition, and other various "as seen on TV" kitchen gadgets. So many new things just waiting to be used when the older version "wore out."

Clearly this is not limited to my wife and I. As soon as we moved to Berkeley, we noticed new phenomena that people just…left stuff in front of other houses; old cribs, couches, a nonfunctional microwave. Buildings had signs emblazoned with "No Dumping" which finally made sense as we walked along hand in hand amongst the flotsam and jetsam of our street. Why would people just leave things for someone else to deal with, rather than throw them out themselves? I didn’t understand how people could offload their responsibility of stuff on others. However, getting rid of stuff is expensive. Junk removal costs money, city infrastructure for recycling costs tax dollars in short supply. It's easier to throw it away in landfill for those who are not fortunate enough to live in a wealthy city with new and developing recycling programs like San Francisco (for example, you can now recycle coffee cups in SF, plastic lid, sleeve and all).

But first, we needed to get rid of a lot of shit that wouldn't fit in the new apartment. We had old clothes, shoes, appliances, electronics, and tons of promotional items to get rid of (don't ever accept a free tote bag, y'all!). And we wanted to do it sustainably, instead of throwing away everything into landfill. For one, there wasn't enough room as we were moving because our landlord died. Her children were dealing with a lifetime's worth of belongings by cramming everything into the garbage bin week by week. 81 years of living cannot be discarded in any meaningful way with this method. Ultimately, they hired junk removers but when we left; her children still weren't finished. They had just excavated the garage, jaws dropping at the sight of old Elizabeth Arden face cream from 1985, vintage furs moulding in the San Francisco fog, and so many rusted cans of paint. The story of stuff is nothing new. We only take ourselves to the grave, leaving behind our lives in belongings for our descendents to manage.

You've found these formerly owned possessions before in your local thrift store, on the sidewalk, and in your home. We define ourselves by material, what we wear, and how they are signifiers of our identities,, rather than by our actions and what we say. I recall reading "If you're holding onto something out of guilt, get rid of it." There was so much guilt in all the possessions I held onto. The potential of what I could be, who I would be held in the promise of smaller sized clothing, clothes I made for myself that ended up being unwearable, and the things my mother purchased for me, forming me into her ideal image of a daughter. I tried to purge myself of these as I moved to Berkeley, to shed an old skin, so I could grow a new one, tender under the sun.

Textiles, the new frontier for recycling in San Francisco, became easier than ever to rid ourselves of, no longer beholden to the gatekeepers at Crossroads or Buffalo exchange to give us paltry dollars in exchange for our outdated threads. We could just put our clean fabric and unwanted clothes in a clear plastic bag, and it could go in the blue recycling bin. Before 2018, we had to go to retail clothing stores that had a bin for recycled textiles, but the bins would always be full to bursting. After all, fast fashion is a booming and toxic industry, with most synthetic petroleum based fibers taking decades to decompose. The average American throws away 68 pounds of textiles per year. Inundated with messages about our dwindling resources, San Francisco citizens wanted to do their part. But the infrastructure couldn't meet the demand.

With 45 in the White House, the EPA loosening restrictions for air pollution, and Jakarta sinking due the rising waters of climate change, as citizens of the human species we can no longer grant an all access pass to the stuff that comes into our lives. Ideally, everyone's carbon footprint would be zero, there would be no single use plastics, and we would bring our own reusable coffee cups to every café. But that is not the reality. Consumer capitalism encourages us to participate effectively by marketing everything to us. Flyers that withstand the rain have a special plastic coating are now unrecyclable. The advent of online shopping and Amazon have increased the amount of cardboard our local recycling facilities intake every day. As I write this on top of Grizzly Peak overlooking the entire Bay Area, there are rusted bottle caps, cigarette butts, bits of broken glass littering the ground next to my feet. Human brought these with them. And they left them behind.

What do you do with your shoelaces, once you are done with them? The plastic ends of the shoelaces doesn't allow for it to be textile recycled, you can't recycle the plastic coating bits in your home recycling bin. So you throw them away. Teabags with staples cannot be composted, or recycled, so into the trash it goes. What about all those plastic eyeliner pencils you don't have to sharpen but just twist up? So convenient! Yet into the trash bin it goes, because we haven't figure out a way to recycle those either. It goes back to the manufacturer, the research and design process, with items being invented to collect your dollars, short-term profits, and your customer loyalty over the next organization marketing a lifestyle, a way of looking, or even just eating. The brands that are trying, such as Lush Cosmetics, are incredibly popular thanks to their green-washing marketing. Environmentalism is also feminist issue, as the majority of women produce, grow, and feed the world as well as fulfill the roles as nurturers of their families. We will all be subject to rising tides, volatile weather that will harm crop production, affect where humans can live, and what we can eat. But ultimately, stakeholder profits are on the line and sustainability is simply, too expensive and seen as repressing innovation. Just ask Trump.

Every single item of human origin needs to have a method of disposal for it to be considered "sustainable." Despite this fact, during product research and design, the main factor is often marketability, user-friendliness, and built-in obsolescence for when the company wants you to upgrade; not whether the packaging will decompose in a short amount of time or a made from durable materials. Other countries, such as India, are already considering this in their industrial processes. Yet America is heading in the opposite direction and has pulled out of the Paris Agreement regarding climate change. What can we do?

You can start in your very own community. Find the person in your apartment complex who keeps throwing away their plastic bottles in the trash can…or the compost. Strike up a conversation, teach them about recycling or be the person who volunteers at your recycling center. It will change the way you view our mass consumption habits. Clean up your neighborhood by picking up litter with your friends. I promise you, it’s there if you take a second look. Humans did this to the Earth, but we can fix it. Repair items, instead of throwing away and replacing them. Stop impulse-purchasing stuff that will go out of fashion in a season. Do you really need that polyester unicorn headband that you're only using for one outfit? It's not the amount of objects and possessions you surround yourself with that matter, but whether it improves your quality of life. My wife and I were trapped by our belongings in our old home. In some ways, we still are in our new one. Stacks of DVDs, sewing supplies, and other abandoned hobbies when we had time for them have followed us into the new apartment. Yet we still haven't unpacked them because, well, there's no place for them to go.

There is something awe-inspiring that despite our best intentions, our human bodies don't remain on this earth nearly as long as the plastic items that we used. Awe-inspiring and awful in its longevity.

Dust collected in the corners of our towers of belongings, trapping us in a cathedral of forgotten goods, not unlike the Room of Requirement where Draco practiced his vanishing cabinets in The Half-Blood Prince. There would be one path in and out, so my wife and I would have to scoot out of one place if another wanted to walk by. Rarely would guests come over, simply because there was not much space for a comfortable visit. When your bed becomes the center of meaning in your apartment, the place where your meals are consumed, words are written, as well as the majority of your time at home, it was not unlike living in a dorm room, still feeling like I was in this purgatory of an undergraduate lifestyle.

All this stuff didn't make me happy. It bothered me. I felt like I was kept hostage by all my stuff and couldn't move freely throughout my living space. I would trip and inevitably cause a tower of carefully placed mail, magazines, and promotional key chains cascading to the floor, another mess to tiptoe around and later, pick up. My elbows would brush against another precarious stack invariably five minutes later. No, we weren't hoarders. Just living in a rent-controlled basement studio apartment in San Francisco. The golden handcuffs, where you couldn't move without paying exorbitantly more in monthly rent and having the requisite six roommates to make that said monthly rent. When we found our 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom in Berkeley, it felt like an opening for a new beginning. We could finally get our cat, couch, and a coat rack, a mantra my wife and I said to each other while lying in our full-size bed. It may not sound like much, but it's the little things that make a difference when you have little space.

I learned where I got it from once my father helped us move. He brought the old space heater that kept me warm when I was a child in the early 90s. I couldn't believe my eyes that this rickety radiator adjacent appliance had outlasted our years in my childhood home, kept among the debris of old soccer trophies, swim team ribbons, and sheets of piano music. When I went back to my parents apartment to gather my books that had been patiently waiting for me to have enough room for them five years later, I sorted through the artifacts of their own dreams too expensive to discard; sheets wrapped in plastic envelopes, sustainably sourced bamboo wooden spoons still in their mesh packaging, a Nutribullet in mint condition, and other various "as seen on TV" kitchen gadgets. So many new things just waiting to be used when the older version "wore out."

Clearly this is not limited to only my wife and I. As soon as we moved to Berkeley, we noticed new phenomena that people just…left stuff in front of other houses; old cribs, couches, a nonfunctional microwave. Buildings had signs emblazoned with "No Dumping" which finally made sense as we walked along hand in hand amongst the flotsam and jetsam of our street. Why would people just leave things for someone else to deal with, rather than throw them out themselves? I didn’t understand how people could offload their responsibility of stuff on others. However, getting rid of stuff is expensive. Junk removal costs money, city infrastructure for recycling costs tax dollars in short supply. It's easier to throw it away in landfill for those who are not fortunate enough to live in a wealthy city with new and developing recycling programs like San Francisco (for example, you can now recycle coffee cups in SF, plastic lid, sleeve and all).

But first, we needed to get rid of a lot of shit that wouldn't fit in the new apartment. We had old clothes, shoes, appliances, electronics, and tons of promotional items to get rid of (don't ever accept a free tote bag, y'all!). And we wanted to do it sustainably, instead of throwing away everything into the landfill bin. For one, there wasn't enough room as we were moving because our landlord died. Her children were dealing with a lifetime's worth of belongings by cramming everything into the garbage bin week by week. 81 years of living cannot be discarded in any meaningful way with this method. Ultimately, they hired junk removers but when we left; her children still weren't finished. They had just excavated the garage, jaws dropped at the sight of old Elizabeth Arden face cream from 1985, vintage furs molding in the San Francisco fog, and so many rusted cans of paint. The story of stuff is nothing new. We only take ourselves to the grave, leaving behind our lives in possessions for our descendants to manage.

You've found these formerly owned possessions before in your local thrift store, on the sidewalk, and in your home. We define ourselves by our possessions, what we wear, and how they are signifiers of our identities, rather than by our actions and what we say. I recall reading "If you're holding onto something out of guilt, get rid of it." There was so much guilt in all the possessions I held onto. The potential of what I could be, who I would be held in the promise of smaller sized clothing, clothes I made for myself that ended up being unwearable, and the things my mother purchased for me, forming me into her ideal image of a daughter. Yet I tried to purge myself of these as I moved to Berkeley, to shed an old skin, so I could grow a new one, tender under the sun.

Textiles, the new frontier for recycling in San Francisco, became easier than ever to rid ourselves of, no longer beholden to the gatekeepers at Crossroads or Buffalo exchange to give us paltry dollars in exchange for our outdated threads. We could just put our clean fabric and unwanted clothes in a clear plastic bag, and it could go in the blue recycling bin. Before 2018, we had to go to retail clothing stores that had a bin for recycled textiles, but the bins would always be full to bursting. After all, fast fashion is a booming toxic industry, with most synthetic petroleum-based fibers taking decades to decompose. The average American throws away 68 pounds of textiles per year. Inundated with messages about our dwindling resources, San Francisco citizens wanted to do their part. But the infrastructure couldn't meet the demand.

With 45 in the White House, the EPA loosening restrictions for air pollution, and Jakarta sinking due to the rising waters of climate change, as citizens of the human species we can no longer grant an all-access pass to the stuff that comes into our lives. Ideally, everyone's carbon footprint would be zero, there would be no single-use plastics, and we would bring our own reusable coffee cups to every café. But that is not the reality. Consumer capitalism encourages us to participate effectively by marketing everything to us. Flyers that withstand the rain have a special plastic coating are now unrecyclable. The advent of Google Express and Amazon have increased the amount of cardboard our local recycling facilities intake every day. As I write this on top of Grizzly Peak overlooking the entire Bay Area, there are rusted bottle caps, cigarette butts, bits of broken glass littering the ground next to my feet. Human brought these with them. And they left them behind.

What do you do with your shoelaces, once you are done with them? The plastic ends of the shoelaces don't allow for it to be textile recycled, you can't recycle the plastic coating bits in your home recycling bin. So you throw them away. Teabags with staples cannot be composted, or recycled, so into the trash it goes. What about all those plastic eyeliner pencils you don't have to sharpen but just twist up? So convenient! Yet into the trash bin it goes, because we haven't figure out a way to recycle those either. It goes back to the manufacturer, the research, and design process, with items being invented to collect your dollars, short-term profits, and your customer loyalty over the next organization marketing a lifestyle, a way of looking, or even just eating. The brands that are trying, such as Lush Cosmetics, are incredibly popular thanks to their green-washing marketing. Environmentalism is also a feminist issue, as the majorities of women produce, grow, and feed the world as well as fulfill the roles as nurturers of their families. We will all be subject to rising tides, volatile weather that will harm crop production, affect where humans can live, and what we can eat. But ultimately, stakeholder profits are on the line and sustainability is simply, too expensive and seen as repressing innovation. Just ask Trump.

First, you can start in your very own community. Find out whom the person in your apartment complex who keeps throwing away their plastic bottles in the trash can…or the compost. Strike up a conversation, teach them about recycling or be the person who volunteers are your recycling center. It will change the way you view our mass consumption habits. Clean up your neighborhood by picking up litter with your friends. I promise you, its there if you take a second look. Humans did this to the Earth, but we can fix it. Repair items, instead of throwing away and replacing them. Stop impulse-purchasing stuff that will go out of fashion in a season. Do you really need that polyester unicorn headband that you're only using for one outfit? It's not the amount of objects and possessions you surround yourself with that matter, but whether it improves your quality of life. My wife and I were trapped by our possession in our old home. In some ways, we still are in our new one. Stacks of DVDs, sewing supplies, and other abandoned hobbies when we had time for them followed us into the new apartment. Yet we still haven't unpacked them because, well, there's no place for them to go.

There is something awe-inspiring that despite our best intentions, our human vessels don't remain on this earth nearly as long as the plastic items that we used. Awe-inspiring and awful in its longevity.

Dena Rod is an Iranian American writer, editor, and poet. They're a graduate of San Francisco State University, where they received a Master’s Degree in English Literature. You can find more of their work in CCSF’s Forum Literary Magazine, Endangered Species, Enduring Values: An Anthology of San Francisco Area Writers and Artists of Color, and the upcoming anthology Iran Musings: Stories and Memories from the Iranian Diaspora (Release Date: 2019).

#earth day #capitalism #Dena Rod #journey

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