#nothing says 'reaching the top' better than a subsequent crash and burn.

[godkilller]

anonymous asked:  Going off of your hc about Gin being obscenely strong, do you think that he's been that strong through most of the series (if not the entire time)? Having to reign in his powers to always be less than Aizen's, but strong enough to earn his place as his second, just waiting with all that power at his fingers. Aizen gained power through transformations, Gin had to home grow his.

//   unprompted ask.   thank you !

          I’m always excited to get these sorts of questions----especially considering you’ve now officially enabled me to continue my lifelong rant of how underrated and underestimated Gin is. To answer your question, however, I’ll have to break some things down. This might get a lil messy so bear with me!

          Gin has always acted, in canon and especially in my experience writing conflicts, fights, throughout my time musing him... as dramatically weaker than he really is. It’s one of his most basic psychological tactics: in canon, Gin has countless times behaved as though he truly is incapable as a way to gaslight and altogether hide his true potential from being known, he lies about even sensing if an opponent has died or not to his fellow captains, utterly and willingly downplaying his power. Deliberately placing himself in a position for belittlement and for others to promptly underestimate him.

          In several instances throughout the series, Gin downplays his capabilities. He talks it off as luck, or maybe he’s just winging it all---- ” oh, oops, those Ryoka I didn’t even aim at survived ? ”  “ Ichigo dodged my Bankai that I’ve been slashing around wildly for no reason when I wasn’t even aiming for him ? ”  “ Ah, a fluke only your mask got cut ” or “ oops, Hinamori’s that way too since ya happened to dodge ! ” because Gin never wants anyone to ever know the extent of his knowledge, cunning abilities, and full power. Gin spent so much time throughout his debut convincing the audience, the other characters around him, that he was simply too playful or even downright stupid to truly be a threat. Whilst yes, his intimidating aura contradicted him----when put up against his “ oopsie I non-fatally stabbed Byakuya instead of killin’ Rukia ! ”  his vibes of a threat clash, leaving his opponents confused and on edge on whether or not Gin is just toying with them, or if they’re actually, in fact, battling him on semi-equal grounds. They’ll never know.

          Mayuri calls Gin out during the Rescue Rukia / SS Invasion arc’s first shown captain’s meeting. He says something along the lines of “ we all know you’re capable ” ( of sensing the livelihood of a target, etc. etc. ) which leads me to believe that while yes, Gin hid his strengths, he also was required as a captain to prove his worthiness of the title----and to walk amongst them as an equal. Therefore, yes, because the series begins with Gin being within the Gotei 13 as a captain, I do believe he has been that strong during the majority of Bleach.

          Gin’s rise to captaincy sparked his ascension to standing, at last, somewhat equal to where Aizen now stood. Aizen had not yet even begun to experiment on himself and his way to breach the limitations of a Shinigami at the time. Gin had decades as a captain to therefore bridge the gap to be as close as possible, achievable, for himself and Aizen. Between their betrayal and the chapter preceding the conclusion of the Winter War ? Gin had reached his highest potential in order to combat the transcendence Aizen plotted for years to achieve. Much like with the parallel of Ulquiorra hiding his Second Release state from Aizen, Gin sought to keep all murmurs of his Bankai’s true speed and poison, the cell-destroying ace, a secret. Keeping himself at a level of worthiness and respect, fear, precautions, by Aizen himself but without earning the threat of Aizen deeming him too dangerous and thusly drawing first, negating Gin’s chance to grasp Kyoka Suigetsu entirely in his self-preservation ? Well, let’s just say Gin banked a lot on Aizen valuing his deadly presence as a way to continuously challenge him----as well as the unknown fact that Aizen likely wanted to wait, not strike at Gin despite his growing threat, until the Hogyoku was fully absorbed for him to dance with death. This waiting game, finding that sweet spot in which Aizen’s arrogance finally eroded his caution ? The main reason why Gin, unfortunately, waited too long. The rest’s history.

          Gin was never  “ more ”  than Aizen, his power was not so vast----he brandished it, instead, into a fine blade. The way they wield their powers differ greatly; Aizen’s is oppressive and overwhelming, whilst Gin’s is a creeping dread. Both are capable of each other’s methods, though prefer their own------Gin may have never opted for Hollowification, for leaning on any other sword other than his own, but it’s bold to assume he didn’t, too, transform himself in seeking power. “ You’re turning into a snake ”  very much can be asserting that, indeed, Gin kept his powers solely as his own, but it can easily be argued that he lost himself all the same as Tousen, Aizen even, in doing so.

          No one achieves such power without cost, Gin’s just wasn’t outright shown throughout the series----he had suffered that loss for power mostly off-screen, slowly, until at last Rangiku was sobbing amongst that pile of rubble.

[kataang-dungeon]

Beautiful No Matter What

When a new beauty trend starts to increase in popularity, Katara struggles with her image of herself.

Rated: M

Word count: 1891

Read here on ao3.

ooo

It starts out as a new trend, mostly in the larger cities where more people reside, and in the areas where news comes quickly. Katara hears it first in Ba Sing Se, because of course she does. Of all the places she has been, this city is by far the most baffling. She guesses that she should not be surprised when she hears the first giggles and whispers on the streets.

"Oh Liling, your breasts are so big! They look so much better than mine," exclaims a rather prissy-looking woman. "I bet Diu will love them, especially in that dress you're wearing tonight."

At first, Katara thinks it is ridiculous. She thinks nothing of it. Then, she passes the winding districts in the Lower Ring on her way to help heal at a clinic with neglected funding. She sees drawings and pinups for sale in back corners, lewd imagined pictures of women with breasts popping out of their blouses, cleavage bigger than she has ever seen in person. Men salivate over them, turning in coin for a picture or two, and some of the wealthier ones even commissioning paintings of women in provocative poses through their servants.

She hates it, thinks it is demeaning to women. She scoffs at the idea. Still, she cannot help but notice that as the months pass by, more and more women walk with their chests puffed out, backs straighter, shoulders high. Everywhere she and Aang travel, she sees padding in local markets and shops for enlarging breast size and giving the illusion of a heftier bosom. Dresses with extra pieces of fabric sewn into the front become heavily advertised.

By the time half a year passes and summer arrives, the trend has even reached Kyoshi Island, a feat that Katara thinks could have never happened. Girls in their battle armor compare sizes and snicker when something looks particularly flattering on one of them. Katara is shocked when she hears one of Suki's girls say, "I only like women with breasts big enough for me to squeeze, of course!" when she is asked for her preferences. "If they're too small, it's not fun at all!"

She is not bothered by it except for at that moment, ever so briefly. She thinks that this could not be the new standard of beauty now, not when no one has cared about this before. But she supposes seven years after the war should be enough for people to find other things to worry about.

Aang latches onto her hand as the two of them walk through the streets of the capital city in the Fire Nation. The caldera rises around the buildings and pavement, casting a perpetual shadow upon them that serves as permanent shade in such a hot country.

She is content, her arm swinging with Aang next to her. They pick a place to eat that serves Aang’s favorite spicy potato curry.

She hears it then, the whispers that she dreads, the judging ones. They have followed her for years since she and Aang began dating. Sometimes, it is Aang they criticize. An Air Nomad taking a Water Tribe woman as a significant other, and he is bald at that. Other times, it is her they make snide remarks at. “That Water Tribe wench is only with him because he’s the Avatar. She’s taking advantage of his status,” is something she has heard.

Usually, they do not bother her. They bother neither of them. She and Aang love each other too much for things so trivial as what other people think to cause them to wedge apart.

But Katara listens anyway when a gaggle of people at a nearby table make their presence known.

“How crude of the Avatar to take such a hideous woman to bed,” laughs someone. The voices sound like they belong to young adults or teenagers, and perhaps of noble birth.

“Yeah, imagine Shi bringing that home!” laughs another. “Her boobs are the size of my pinky finger!”

“A piglet couldn’t even suck on one,” adds someone else.

She sees how Aang reacts first. His fingers start to curl, and she can tell he is trying to hold his anger in. The other table is not exactly subtle. But before he can say or do anything, Katara stands, her chair toppling over behind her.

A fire burns in her chest, her cheeks are hot with embarrassment, and she storms out of the restaurant without another word.

She makes it back to the palace, unaware that she has thrown open the doors to their chamber until she has already gone to the bathroom to furiously untangle her hair from its braid. She hears footsteps run behind her, and then Aang stands behind her. She can see the worried expression on his face in the mirror.

“Katara,” he starts, but she cuts him off.

“I’m going to bed,” she states, finally throwing her hair tie on top of the countertop. She pivots into their room and grabs her sleep clothes.

“It’s still sunset,” Aang speaks again. The door to their bathroom shuts. “Please, Katara. You know they were out of line. You’re—”

She swivels around to face him, mouth in a scowling line. “You heard them. I’m ugly and my breasts are too small and—”

Aang tries to grab for her flailing hands. Her sleep clothes fall to the floor. “You never cared about looks before,” he says. His eyebrows are scrunched together. “And you know that no matter what you say, you’re still the most beautiful person in the world to me.”

A tiny part of her wants to burst with affection for him because she knows he is right, and she knows he means it. Yet, all those months of being shown that she is not desirable enough, that she isn’t pretty enough—sinks into her head and suddenly all she knows is that all those things are true. And if they are true, she is not enough for him.

She wants more than anything to be enough for Aang.

Tears prickle at the corners of her eyes before she can stop them. She hastily begins to wipe them away, but Aang is there again. His hands on her face, thumbing her cheeks.

“You’re beautiful, Katara,” he murmurs. So soft. “I promise.”

Her breath heaves. “But what if I’m not?” she asks no one in particular. “I am small-chested, and people are more attracted to larger chests and—”

“And nothing,” Aang insists. His eyes are upon her. They sparkle with adoration. “It doesn’t matter to me. You’re perfect just the way you are.” He pauses to press a kiss to her forehead. Then, lowly, he says, “I can show you exactly how perfect.”

Their gazes meet, and she remembers just who she is with.

He guides her in a slow circle, a gentle dance. The sun sets through the window, and they move to their own tune. His hands are on her shoulders, asking for permission. She shudders when he makes his promise to her again, that she is beautiful no matter what.

He slides the fabric of her tunic down one of her arms and kisses her shoulder. He slides the other sleeve down to her elbow and his lips are on the crook of her neck. Her tunic pools on the floor and she is left with her trousers and undergarments on.

He looks at her, the fading sunlight lining his face, his strong jaw, and there is desire there. She feels it.

Still, she crosses her arms over her chest, covering the bindings that hide her breasts from him. She should not be afraid to bare herself to him. They have done this and more before. The lingering notions of shame grasp at her thoughts. She looks away.

“Katara,” Aang says. He brings her face closer to his until they are but a breadth from each other.

And that is all it takes.

He moves her so that she sits on the edge of the bed. His fingers find the fasteners of her bindings and unlatch them. In his hands he cups the sides of her, trails butterfly kisses in between her breasts, hovers over her stomach.

His touch is magic, melts something inside of her that she did not know was festering. He makes her feel like a panda lily that blossoms in its rarity on the cone of a volcano. A pinprick of loveliness even in the depths of destruction.

He lavishes her with his fingers, moves up her torso so that he kisses every part of her. He gently sucks on her nipples, one at a time, until they are swollen and wet and turgid with want.

His teeth graze her chest, and she feels him smile into her. He enjoys this, and it fills her with glee.

“Do you see how perfect you are?” he mutters, “How lovely you are?” The tip of his tongue then subsequently peeks out to the side of her breast.

She bites her bottom lip, trying not to moan her delight.

He has always made love to her well, but something about this time is different. He focuses solely on her, emphasizing the parts of her that she had started to hate. When he touches her, it is both with ease and affection. He does not move to remove her trousers, and somehow, that makes her want him more.

“Aang I—” she begins, quivering, “Please.”

His hands are on her back, and he finally moves so that she is laying down on the mattress. His body is so close to hers that she can feel his hardness against her leg.

His nibbles her breasts again and she groans.

“Tell me how beautiful you are,” he gently commands. He kisses her wrist, the inside of her elbow, her thigh. He moves up again, so they are looking each other in the eye. “Tell me,” he practically begs.

She shivers and shakes her head. “I can’t.”

Aang sucks a nipple again, teasing at the drawstrings of her trousers. He glances upward, waiting for her reply.

Katara feels the warmth building in her core, the wetness between her legs. She sees the pleading in his expression, the ripe and raw emotion in the way he looks at her. He holds himself back from her, and it is all she can take. She wants more.

She rises in a rapid motion until she crashes against him. Her arms are around his neck, her lips locked against his. She pulls away only for a second to say, “I’m beautiful,” before she is on him again.

She says it because she needs him. She says it because if anyone can see the magnificence in anyone it is Aang.

They fall to the floor, and he laughs because he has won. She believes him wholeheartedly now as her underwear and trousers disappear below her knees, and he adores her again. The way he loves her at this moment makes her remember that this is one of the many reasons she too loves him.

Aang makes her love herself.

When her back arches and she is thrumming with pleasure on the floor that evening, she forgets for a moment that anyone could make her feel inadequate when she has a man that can make her feel everything but that.

[perditaalottachocolate-blog]

Nap Buddies

A @kittylovezine story (also on AO3 / fanfiction.net )

Yay! I can finally share this with you. A huge thank you to @clueless-lost-daydreamer and @goblin-alchemist for betareading the fic. And an enormous hug to @da-tasuky​ for the amazing, wonderful, stunning art she drew for this story!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There is probably no better thing in this world than napping with your cat cuddled into you. Any proud cat owner will tell you that. The softness of cat’s hair. The kneading of the paws. The gentle nuzzles. The warmth spreading through you. And of course the purring. Ah, the purring! It’s as if the time has stopped and enclosed you in a personal bubble of happiness and comfort. 

So can you really blame Marinette? Who would have resisted an opportunity like that or refused a sweet kitty his cuddles? No one in their right mind and with their heart in the right place. And that would be her last line of defense.

Because Marinette was sinking into the alluring claws of addiction, and sinking fast.

How did it come to this? She honestly had no idea. All she remembered was being carried by Chat Noir after he found Marinette near the battle scene, tired to the point of almost falling asleep on her feet. That last akuma on top of a very busy day, on top of an even busier week took its toll. 

The musky scent of Chat’s cologne blended with light cheese overtones filled her nostrils and his heartbeat so close to her ear drowned out other noises. She didn’t notice when she fell. Asleep, of course.

She woke up to the delightful purring of her cat pillow. Only her pillow had never purred up until that very moment. Intrigued, Marinette opened her eyes and stared at a very black, very toned, and very not pillowy chest of Chat Noir. 

She blinked, hoping to chase away the remnants of a dream. It wouldn’t be the first time she dreamed about Chat, not that anyone knew. But blinking didn’t help. The leather clad chest rose and fell to the soft vibrations only a cat could provide.

Slowly, carefully Marinette raised her head but the movement was enough to rouse her pillow substitute. Similarly to her Chat blinked in daze, then blinked again as all the important bits of reality registered. And then he jostled away, only the chaise they were cuddled on was not so wide, so with a thud, he landed on his butt. His legs stuck straight up, bending at the knees so his boots dangled miserably in the air at her eye-level.

‘What happened?’ Marinette pushed his feet aside and looked down at the feline hero sprawled on the floor.

‘I don’t know,’ he whispered in horror. Ever the gentleman he stared at his claws, unwilling to meet her gaze. ‘I… I’d better go,’ he muttered, scrambling to his feet.

Marinette couldn’t decide if it really would be better, but before she could even think of something to say Chat climbed to the skylight and left into the night with one short nod of goodbye. She hoped he hadn’t noticed the treacherous blush that warmed her cheeks.

Fighting with some very peculiar thoughts on the matter (ones she would never ever say out loud), Marinette did a great job of ignoring Tikki’s pointed looks and not talking about the nap for a whole day. And then the mangy cat came back and ruined everything.

‘That was the best nap I ever had,’ he mumbled after a long moment of awkward silence, totally oblivious to the fact that he just voiced her own assessment of the whole ordeal.

Marinette’s disobedient heart did a little whoop. She scrunched her nose, letting her logical side lead the way. Nothing good would come out of this “following one’s heart” nonsense.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, taking a huge step away from him, albeit a little too late. Her lungs were now full of his scent. It reminded her of warmth, comfort and safety. He smelled like the only pillow she ever wanted.

Chat started picking on the end of his tail. ‘I want to do it again,’ he whispered.

‘Yes, please’ was what Marinette almost blurted out in an instant. Her heart was now beating wildly, let loose in her chest. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ it begged. She winced, as the little voice of reason, which sounded suspiciously close to what Tikki would say, kindly pointed out that napping with the cat hero (or any hero for that matter) was by and large the most ridiculous idea she could ever come up with, “Operation Secret Garden” included.

Marinette sighed inwardly. The voice of Tikki was right of course, despite the frantic mantra of her heart. She crossed her arms in front of her chest in vain attempt to get her emotions under control. She needed space. She needed to be away from that boy before her resolve crumbled to dust. 

‘We can’t do it again,’ she stated with much more determination than she felt.

Chat shrunk and looked at her with those damn kitten eyes. Even his voice oozed misery when he asked, ‘Why not?’  

She just raised her brow, afraid to do anything else that would probably end in them reaching a nap arrangement. For the sake of them both she had to be the reasonable one in this if he couldn’t. 

‘Fine,’ Chat huffed, turning away. ‘We never had this conversation.’

‘Fine,’ Marinette echoed pursing her lips.

It wasn’t fine. The stupid cat ruined naps for her and seriously messed up her sleep schedule, because she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not that she couldn’t sleep. She always could. With school, bakery, friends, designing and her superhero extracurriculars it was a miracle she hadn’t keeled over in the middle of the street yet.

But no snooze, nor a full night's sleep could rival that catnap. So was it really such a surprise that, when after a week of this torture Chat appeared on her balcony, looking every bit as doleful as she felt, Marinette wordlessly opened her arms and let him sink into her embrace and subsequently to the deck chair where the two of them happily conked out?

It all went downhill from there, with a silent agreement between the two newly established nap buddies. Chat’s visits became a regular if a bit random occurrence. There were short naps. There were long naps. There were on-the-chaise naps, on-the-chair-naps and on-the-carpet naps and even blanket fort naps.

And once they crossed the physical boundaries of their personal spaces, there was no telling in what position they’d end. Sometimes Marinette woke up sprawled on top of Chat. Sometimes Chat leaned into her, burying his nose in her hair or snuggling against her side. He also loved to nap with his head in her lap, when she didn’t feel like sleeping. She usually slipped her fingers into his hair and deployed the purr factory. 

The pattern of his visits evolved with time. Marinette made sure to keep her room clean and always provide a plate of snacks and a glass of fresh milk for her kitty. Adrien’s pictures disappeared from her walls after a while. But that, as Marinette claimed stubbornly despite Tikki’s comments, had nothing to do with Chat, but everything to do with Adrien. She felt plain weird cuddling up to her nap buddy while the model stared at them from the walls. Especially since she caught her classmate glancing at her a few times in school with a very disturbing expression. It all seemed a bit too creepy for her taste, so she bid the pictures goodbye. 

The longer it continued the happier Marinette felt. Of course she’d heard about the beneficial influence of cats on the health of their owners, but Chat wasn’t a cat after all nor was he hers. Even if the thought made her blush. 

That evening Marinette woke up enveloped in Chat’s tight embrace. Their legs were tangled and if it wasn't for Chat's suit it would be difficult to tell where one of them ended and the other one began. She breathed in the familiar warm scent of leather, musk and cheese. She ran her hand through his soft hair. She rubbed the skin behind his false ear. 

He watched her through his half-lidded eyes, tracing lazy patterns on her back with his claws. His gaze explored her face, like dozens of times before, but there was a new fire burning behind the green irises, something she noticed recently though it looked strangely familiar. His eyes seemed to be drawn to her lips and he licked his own, as if considering the taste of a delicacy he was about to devour. And maybe he was.

Marinette’s treacherous heart launched into an excited staccato and a churning heat stirred deep in her belly.

‘So are you going to kiss me or what?’ she murmured, ready to laugh it off should things go sour. 

His lips crashed into hers in a blink. It was desperate, hungry, insatiable. She briefly wondered how long had he been wanting to do that. But soon all reasonable thought evaporated under the onslaught of Chat’s kisses. He kissed her like there was not only no tomorrow, but today was also questionable. He kissed her the way he fought his battles, recklessly and with everything he had. She doubted she could ever have enough. 

When they finally broke apart, their lips swollen, their hair in disarray, Marinette gestured between them. ‘Does that make us “kiss buddies” now?’ she jested, trying to hide her giddiness.

Chat sent her a long, searching look. ‘How about girlfriend and boyfriend?’ he finally suggested.

She couldn’t help but smile as she nestled closer to him. ‘As long as there’s more kisses,’ she bopped him on the nose, ‘I am totally okay with that.’

And then there were more kisses. Many, many more.

[pucksnsticksnhockeyboys]

it’s what you deserve - pt. four

summary: Brett gives you the day out you deserve to get your mind off of Max.

word count: 2.2k

link to the rest of the series

The next morning you woke up to the sound of the front door slamming shut. Still feeling the effects of sleep, you rolled over to find your phone, which you thankfully had the common sense to plug into the charger the night before.

A crimson blush coated your cheeks as you remembered just what had happened before you crashed into the pillows. Max bailing on your date with no explanation or heads up. Bee telling the boys that it was a fairly common thing and lamenting about how much he sucked. Brett coming in and comforting you.

That's the one that got you the most, because you were used to the actions of both Bee and Max, but Brett being there for you was new. It was also something you could get used to, remembering how ease you were laying with him. Not that you would tell that bit of information to anyone.

You had a couple of texts, one from Bee saying she had to go run errands and was meeting up with Adam after. That explained the front door shutting that had woken you up. The second text you had received subconsciously brought a smile to your face, though you didn't let yourself think too much into it.

I have morning skate and a team meeting at night but from brunch until dinner I'm all yours

Brett had sent you the message early in the morning, presumably before his skate. You contemplated your response, but then you read his subsequent text, and you were gigging to yourself.

You're not allowed to say no, by the way. I already got Bee's permission and I'm picking you up

Not sure just when Brett would show up, you quickly hopped into the shower and got ready. You also weren't sure what he had in mind for the day, so you chose a simple pair of jeans and a sweater that was casual but nice enough for brunch.

Just as you were searching for a pair of matching socks, there was a knock on the door. You tossed it open, after checking to make sure it was who you were expecting, and soon after Brett was greeting you with a hug.

“So am I allowed to ask where you're taking me?” You teased, retreating back into your room to find your shoes. Brett followed behind you, chuckling as he trailed. You were smiling widely, a grin that was mirrored on his face.

“I'm taking you for brunch, and then I have a few other places I want go but other than that you can pick.” He shrugged. Unlike when he was in your room the night before, he took in his surroundings as you sat on the edge of your bed and tied your shoes. There was a small vanity in your room, the top full of pictures of your friends and family, along with the odd textbook. He was examining the various photos and objects that littered the desk, and you took a moment to admire him.

When you had first met him, you knew he was the most handsome guy you had ever seen. Getting to know him over the past few months only reaffirmed the fact that he was attractive in both looks and personality. Now that he stood in your room, with his back to you, could you take a moment to take in his appearance.

His hair was a still bit damp from his post-practice shower, but mostly it was covered with a beanie. He wore a sweatshirt with a jean jacket overtop, black denim pants, and it was all tied together with a pair of nice white sneakers. You glanced up, meeting Brett's gaze in the mirror. Immediately, you flushed, worried that he might have caught you staring.

He didn't say anything, though, and instead led you out of your apartment and to the diner of his picking. You both ordered, and he told you how his morning skate went. After a moment, neither of you were talking, though you were both looking at each other with a soft smile on your faces. It was dangerous, having him look at you like that and for the sake of your sanity you had to do something about it.

“As much as I love this,” you started, balling up the straw wrapper and tossing it at his face, eliciting a chuckle from him. “and I do, trust me, but why am I being kidnapped all day?”

You almost immediately wanted to take back your question with the way Brett reacted. His shoulders slumped a bit, his smile dropping to a more neutral look, and suddenly the napkin he was fiddling with was the most interesting thing.

“I felt bad about the whole Max thing last night, you don't deserve that.” He said with a shrug. Your heart skipped a beat at his words, but before you could even began to question it, the waitress reappeared and set your plates down in front of you both.

Brett made sure to change the topic after that, asking you about classes and your family and anything else he could think to distract you. And it worked, because by the time you were leaving the diner and on your way to the next location, you remembered his odd behavior, though you decided not to question it.

The place Brett had wanted to go to was a rescue shelter, and if you hadn't been so excited to see the dogs and cats, you probably would've melted right on the sidewalk. You had mentioned weeks ago that you missed your family dog, and that you liked to go to shelter to feel better.

“We can go someplace else, if you want.” Brett said, rubbing the back of his neck. He must have interpreted your silence as bad, but when you turned towards him and he spotted your grin, an infectious smile of his own grew across his face.

“Are you kidding me? Come on.” You chuckled, grabbing his hand and tugging him inside. You were certain that you had no effect on whether or not he moved, and that he was just indulging you in thinking that you were actually pulling him. It was endearing, how he could throw you over his shoulder whenever he so chose but acted like you were pulling against his will. Inside the shelter, a middle aged woman stood behind a counter, smiling brightly at you as you entered.

“Hi! Can I help you with anything today?” She asked, looking between you and Brett.

“We wanted to look at the dogs?” Brett told her, and she nodded, handing you both a sign in sheet before gesturing to where the kennels are located.

“Are you guys looking to adopt? Any of these dogs would be lucky to go home with a couple as lovely as the two of you.” She said politely, not realizing her mistake in assuming. It was then that you realized you hadn't dropped Brett's hand yet, which you so did like his touch burned you.

Which, okay, it did—but not in a bad way.

“We're not, uh, together.” You explained, cheeks flaming up at the implication. You risked a side glance towards Brett, only to find he was very focused on signing his name, his own blush creeping up his neck and turning his entire face red. She apologized, but you waved her off, heading in the back where the dogs all were. For a moment, things were stiff between you and Brett for what felt like the first time since you had met him. It was suffocating, almost, the few inches separating you as you walked side by side felt like miles due to the silence.

“Big dogs or little dogs?” He questioned, and just like that things were normal again. You looked over to him, grin on your face matching his. In an act of bravery, he slung an arm across your shoulders and tugged you into his side.

And you stayed like that, tucked under his arm, even when he dropped you back off at your apartment. You had insisted that he didn't need to walk you all the way to your door, that nothing was going to happen to you in the elevator ride up, but he claimed his mom raised him to be a gentleman. You were glad he did, though, because when you stepped off the elevator there was a figure outside your door.

“Max?” You questioned, shock evident in your tone. He hadn't texted you since the night before, when he had said that he was going to meet you at the restaurant—the very same one he didn't bother to show up at. You could feel Brett tighten his grip on you, his arm pulling you slightly closer into his side.

“Hey, there you are.” Max replied, looking at you and pointedly ignoring Brett as you approached your door. Bee wasn't back yet, so you wondered briefly just how long he had been standing there. Only when you reached your door, did Max shift his attention to the man you had arrived with. “It's Brent, right?”

“Brett.” The Rangers forward replied, his voice colder than you had ever heard it. You busied yourself by putting the key in the lock, hoping Brett would get the silent signals you were sending his way to tell him not to leave you alone with Max, to stick around until he left. You didn't feel like dealing with him at the moment, especially since he had been ignoring you for nearly twenty-four hours at this point. “Mac, right?”

You cleared your throat, trying hard to hide your smile at Brett's comment. Clearly, years of dealing and taking hockey chirps had taught him how to be petty. Plus, the look of surprise on Max's face was enough to make you feel slightly better about how he had treated you.

“Can I ask you why you've been hanging around my girl a lot lately?” Max asked Brett and you stiffened. You were in no way, shape, or form his girl and if anything, his actions the night before proved that.

Something seemed to switch in Brett in the second it took for him to digest Max's words. The Brett you knew was smiley, he was soft and often giggled. He was playful, sometimes messing up your hair just because he knew it'd get you to joking glare at him. You adored that Brett.

The Brett standing before you was glaring harshly at Max, shoulders squared and looking very much like the six-foot three professional hockey player he was. He didn't scare you, you were positive you could never be afraid of him. You did, though, worry about how Max would react. You didn't know why he thought it would be a good idea to piss Brett off, but you knew you had to intervene before things got out of hand. You didn't want to deal with a fight in the hallway outside your apartment, you could practically smell the testosterone between the two men.

“You need to leave, we're not doing this right now.” You told Max, and after a short staring contest with Brett did he look at you. Still, he didn't say anything to you, studying your face and trying to find out how he could come out on top. Only once Brett cleared his throat did he stop analyzing your every move, and once more you were thankful he had come up with you.

“I'll see you later, babe.” Max said, leaning down to press a kiss your lips. At the last second, once you realized what he was attempting to do, you turned your head to the side and he pressed a kiss to your cheek. He didn't comment, only looking at you with confusion before deciding to take leave. Everything was silent, you and Brett watching Max's back retreat until he was cut off from your view by the elevator.

“I don't get it.” Brett sighed, shaking his head. Your heart sank at the mere thought that he was disappointed in your choice of men, in you. You opened your apartment door, slipping just inside and turning to face the tall boy standing in the hallway, looking at you with the saddest expression in his eyes. The short interaction with Max took your mood and tanked it, and all you wanted to do now was lay on the couch and mope.

“You should probably go to your meeting.” You started, hating yourself for being the cause of Brett's shoulders slumping, his hands buried in his pockets and gaze trained on the floor. He really did have to go, but he hadn't moved.

You caved. You wanted him to go so you could clear your head about everything that had happened in the past ten minutes, but somehow you knew that you would feel so much worse if you let him leave while upset. So, you wrapped your arms around his middle, and he instantly tucked your head against his chest, resting his chin on top of it.

“Thank you for being here today, Brett.”

[cb-143]

Don’t be shy II - Chan x fem. reader [NSFW]

Word Count:  1.5k

Warnings: smut, handjob

She had still been resting on top of Chan's pillow. Her wetness stuck uncomfortably against her panties, subsequently also against herself. Her legs ached from being stretched around the width of the pillow. Chan was looking at her. His eyes stared at her with such an intensity, she was sure he must have been looking through her and at the wall behind her. It was then that the realisation hit her that Chan, too, was a person with sexual needs and desires. As foreign as this principle was to her, Chan was her boyfriend. Selfless as he was, he'd assure her that he didn't need help, right? Or perhaps she was wrong, very wrong, and instead of feeling that way she felt, he felt disgusted at her?

“I'm sorry!” She apologised, swung her leg around one side of the pillow. Now she was in an awkward position, somewhere between lying, sitting down, and imitating that scene from Titanic. Chan reached out for her hand. The purple item, which had turned out to be an adult toy, had since been placed on the night stand beside the bed. He intertwined their fingers, brought their hands together. Though his hand was small, it always felt warm. Chan, just from a single touch, made her feel so warm and secure. She often wondered what he felt like, when she touched him.

“Why're you apologising, hm? Because you were wrong? I told you everyone could cum.” he smiled, this time, his smile was softer than before. However, the dark sparkle in his eyes remained.

She took a deep breath in, then held it, as she stretched out her arm. With her free hand, the one not connected with her boyfriend's hand, went right to where Chris' most private parts laid.

Chan acted quickly. He caught her hand right in the air.

“No, don't!” He shook his head, “it's alright.” He gulped. A minute had passed, maybe two, and his erection had not softened one bit yet. He knew how shy she was. Nowhere near being ready to go that way. He could not hold her responsible for having this boner, much less to take care of it. All Chan wanted was for her to be comfortable, for her to feel well, and for her to have the best moments of her life together with him.

“You don't want me to touch you, do you?” She sounded so hurt, yet her words hurt him more.

“How can you say that?” The softness in his voice had disappeared momentarily. He caught himself again, before speaking on “I'd want nothing more than that, baby. But it's not right, I can't make you do that.”

“But I want to. Chan, I really want to. I know I'm not as good as the other girls you were with. I know that I'm nowhere near as good, but I want to make you feel, well, like that, too. Can't you teach me how to make you cum?” Chris wanted to protest, assure her that no, she was not as good as his ex girlfriends, but better, however, when the last sentence had left her mouth, he choked on his own saliva. He coughed; it had taken him off guard.

“Shit, you really want this? Want me to teach you how to touch me?” She nodded at his words. He thought for a second. On one hand, it was wrong, because she was his cute baby girl. On the other hand, he was hard, and the thought of his cock in her hand, her mouth, her pussy, made him twitch inside his pants. “Okay, yes, sure.” He nodded to himself, then moved forward to bring himself closer to her. They both sat on the bed, opposite of each other. “I will first take off my pants.” He announced. When he followed with his promised action, she sat up straighter. He could feel her watch him, probably with the same curiosity of earlier, when he had revealed the vibrator.

When he slid down his underwear, too, he noticed, out of the corner of his eyes, that she had looked somewhere else. Chan barely controlled himself. She was adorable – he had to try so bad not to laugh out loud.. he did not want to ruin her short moment of confidence.

He settled on the bed again, as he had done before; now, with his bare butt on the covers. Slowly, in a way that seemed nearly mechanically, she turned her head to look at him again. Though she looked straight at him, her eyes flickered downwards from time to time. Cute, but a little odd. Chan spread his legs to give her a little more room.

“It's okay, you can look. Touch, too.” She nodded, finally looked down at his hard cock. Though he didn't want to, he thought back to his last sexual encounter. How fast and hot everything had seemed. Back then, it had seemed like the best shag of his life. Now though, he wanted to live in this moment, enjoy it. He would not want it any other way, or with anyone else than her.

She felt worried, beyond worried. He must have had such high expectations, though she had no idea on what to do. How should she touch him? Surely, would it not be to bold to simply grab him? Where should she touch him? At the tip? At his shaft?

“Chris, I-” She started, yet he interrupted her.

“Just touch it however you like, babygirl. It won't bite you. That's my job.” He chuckled. “C'mon.” He reached out for her hand. If he'd have to help her, then so be it. It was even better this way. Somehow, it felt more controlling. He shouldn't show her this side of himself yet, it was too early, but in that moment, she needed someone to guide her. He gently cupped her hand with his and lead her to his crotch. Her breathing hitched when they first made contact with his dick – together. She wrapped her hand around it, then she paused to look into Chan's eyes. He smiled at her, butterflies in his stomach in a frenzy. He guided her hand to move up, slowly at first. When they reached his tip, he guided her back down. He repeated this, slow and steady, for a few more times. It didn't bring him any pleasure, or nearly enough friction to get off, but it gave her the security she needed to keep going on her own. When he removed her hand, that was exactly what she did. Her fist, wrapped around his cock, moved up his shaft, then down his shaft.

“Go faster, baby.” He instructed. She understood, listened to him, picked up the pace, “Such a good girl. You're doing great.” He praised her. “When y-.. when you're at the top, you can touch the head with your fingers.” Again, she followed his words and circled the tip with her thumb, then flatly ran it over the slit. It smeared the precum that had collected there on his tip. She noticed, too, and repeated the action on each stroke. It gave her a kind of lube, made it easier for her. The more she kept going, the better it felt for Chan. He watched her fist his cock, watched her concentrated, shy face. “Baby, fuck, kiss me.” He groaned. He couldn't wait any longer and closed the distance between them. His lips crashed against hers and it made her hand hesitate. Her motions on his cock stopped, but she quickly continued them as Chris bit her lower lip. He moaned into her mouth as she stroked him. It encouraged her. Let her know that it was her who made him moan; she had the ability to make him feel good. His tongue slid inside her mouth as her hand sped up once more. Chan's hands were on her waist, pulled her closer to his body and squeezed her sides. Her other hand came to rest on his thigh; she mimicked his previous actions and caressed his skin there. The gentle, unexpected touch had Chan thrust up his hips. He lost himself in the pleasure and love that she was giving him, slowly fucking her fist to meet her movements. He then came, the noises he would have let out had been muffled by her mouth. The cum, white and warm, had coated her hand that was now still, yet still around his cock. They pulled apart, momentarily, to let Chan catch his breath. She did not mind the cum on her hands, not when Chris was looking at her like this, as if she was one in a million, yet also the only girl to ever exist. She found nothing but love and adoration – the same emotions that she had always felt for him. Her heart ached with love and tears burned in her eyes. Could he truly love her just as much? Too many seconds had passed since their last kiss – they needed to be connected again.

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG153! … Abridged version because I messed up my planning orz

- And we finally got an actual Corruption statement this season!! You made it into season 4, babe!!

I like how its Crawling Moment Of Awesomeness came little by little:

(MAG140) BASIRA: Er… Jon. What’s this. [DRY SOUND] ARCHIVIST: Mm? … Oh. That’s… [SILENCE] That, uh, that’s… my rib? BASIRA: … Right. [PUTS IT DOWN] ARCHIVIST: Yup… BASIRA: And… the jar of ashes. ARCHIVIST: Not– Not mine; I–I mean, it belongs to me, I–I guess, but it’s not… Er, stationery is in the other drawer?

(MAG145) ARTHUR: [SNORT] Slumlording over a nest. GERTRUDE: Oh. A nest of… what? ARTHUR: Found a mass of the Crawling Rot growing, a while back. Managed to get a hold of the property before it became too big. Gotta wait ‘til it blossoms before we can properly burn it.

(MAG152) HELEN: Hello, Jon. Been a while since you’ve been down here. ARCHIVIST: [ANGRY EXHALE] I didn’t come here to see you. HELEN: Oh, come now. I’m sure I’m more interesting company than the late Jane Prentiss. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … It’s all that left of her now. Apart from a… jar of ashes in my desk. Just a circle of rotten stone on an otherwise… unremarkable wall.

(MAG153) ARCHIVIST: This, well… The Corruption at work, if I had to guess, though with unsettling echoes of a… “Fleshliness”.

Jane, The Hive, Jane&The Hive, and now The Corruption for itself.

It’s… an obvious things given Smirke’s name for it (well, at least Gerry’s), but one of the things I find very interesting with Corruption is how it… does that. Rather than insects for themselves, it “corrupts” something, quite often perceived as “pure” and/or “absolute”: Jane craving for “something beyond [her]self” (MAG032), the malarial research turning horribly badly (MAG045), Private Amherst giving his bed to the injured soldiers who needed it more than him (MAG068), little Gordon helping the old Maggie (MAG084), Lester Chang’s not-that-healthy new relationship with his father-in-law and his subsequent obsession for cleanliness (MAG093), Benoît Maçon’s desperation for love (MAG102), Jon’s third victim from season 4 (MAG146: “A man rejected by all who knew him, searching ever-darker places for love. When he told me his story, he started… weeping maggots.”), The Divine Chain cult turning the notion of selfless love into a requirement (MAG153)… which tied in with everything turning Wrong when the dog “Agapē” joined it and that so-called ~pure~ love just opened the door for… spooks.

- But also:

(MAG153, Barbara Mullen-Jones) “I hit my “lowest point” when I turned 41. That’s when my life came crashing down; at least on the inside. From the outside, I’m sure everything looked… pretty much okay. I was getting gigs, I had a job, I had plenty of friends and a supportive family… But that was when I started to properly look at my life, and I… really didn’t like what was looking back…! I was a stand-up comedian, you see, and a really good one. That’s not boasting, that’s just the truth. And I’d always assumed that that was enough to eventually have real success. And for the first… ten years, it seemed like I was right. I worked my way up, performed for basically nothing basically every night, and got to be pretty successful.

… And I stayed that way for the next ten years. [SIGH]

Trouble is, do you know how much a “pretty successful comedian” makes? Let’s just say I had a full-time office job and was still barely making rent. But between working full-time and gigging full-time, I just kept putting off everything else in my life. Always so sure the big time was just around the corner. “This is the TV spot that gets me noticed.” “This is the sell-out fringe show that makes me mainstream.” “This is the deal that actually goes somewhere.”

I made it through turning 40 with my self-image intact, but for some reason, at 41 I just… cracked. I realised I had spent most of my life with nothing to show for it but a few awards no one cares about, a string of… awful comedian exes who broke up with me for being funnier than them… and a dreadful office job [SIGH] I was going to be working until I died, because I’d never bothered to build a stable career. I was never going to own a home; never going to have kids; never going to have the life I’d spent my entire youth sacrificing for.”

… Yes, I know I just quoted the whole beginning of the statement but: a lot of the RQ crew and their friends are comedians, sooo, uhhh. RQ folks, are you okay.

- Abridged version as promised, but things I liked: how you could understand why the statement-giver got wrapped up in the cult, but also how… she didn’t really belong there indeed, because she was mostly focusing on the form of it (the kind words, the contact, the work in itself, the wine production), like she was attracted to the gratuitous symbolisms around the meditation course, but not truly receptive to… the meat of things, what was behind the shape of it, what was at the core?

How she was, at the end, extremely petty about the cult’s failure (“There’s a part of me that’s glad. A sick little part that’s happy that whatever “love” was there, whatever I couldn’t be a part of, is gone from the world. And no one else gets it either.”).

How, oops, a fair amount of officers in the American police may have signed their local equivalent of a Section 31 form… or else, Gertrude or Adelard had been around, because explosives (“The compound was destroyed in an “accidental generator explosion”, and everything was gone.”)

How, once again, we got a statement with an exterior shape reminescent of different Fears (Jon pointing it out at the end, a “fleshliness”), like a few other recent ones? Though this one was a bit spelled out for us. (“And when you’re at that point, it’s astounding what can crawl into your heart – and start to fester there. […] Or if they… came about after things started to change. Started to go rotten.”)

How the statement was about leaving everything to settle in America… while later in the episode, Julia&Trevor revealed that they had come back from it to England.

How the simple representation of the world encouraged by the cult found a kind of echo with Julia&Trevor, simplistically separating people between monsters (preys) and the rest?

- … So, once again: why is Jon reading these specific statements, since he came back from Ny-Ålesund?

* MAG146, “Threshold”: Jon did mention that he had been pulled towards that one when he began to focus on Hill Top Road (“I spent so long looking for it, back when I found his father’s, and… no luck. But now, I decide to start looking properly into Hill Top Road, and all of a sudden… I’m drawn to rearrange a filing cabinet – and what do I find behind it?”)

* MAG147, “Weaver”: left by Annabelle to Fuck Him Up.

* MAG148, “Extended Surveillance”: Beholding, someone getting taken over by Beholding and obsessing over his friend.

* MAG150, “Cul-de-Sac”: Hey, The Power Of MLM Love Can Save Someone From The Lonely Zone If You Reach For Them xoxoxo.

* MAG152, “A Gravedigger’s Envy”: Someone falling deeper and deeper (ha) into their shiny new patron and Enjoying What They’re Doing.

* MAG153, “Love Bombing”: how someone got indoctrinated into a cult, and dodged a bullet by being dismissed from it because they didn’t believe/Feel It enough.

Has it been Annabelle still messing with him? Beholding? A reflection of Jon’s own preoccupations, that’s been leading him towards the few last ones?

- Aka: was that once again Annabelle cackling in Jon’s face because WOW, these first few lines sure felt like someone cackling in Jon’s face:

(MAG153, Barbara Mullen-Jones) “Everyone thinks they’re too smart to get involved in a cult. I’m sure you do. You think, that at the first mention of “aliens”, or the end of the world, or the lost book of the Bible, where Jesus buried his Holy Staff in the foothills of the Himalayas… you’d go running. Trouble is, that misunderstands how it works. I mean, when I was with The Divine Chain, some of the smartest people there were also the most committed. Intelligence doesn’t make you less prone to taking on bad ideas, it just makes you better at defending them…! To other people, and to yourself. Smart people can believe some truly ridiculous things, and then deploy all the reason and logic at their disposal to justify them. Because belief doesn’t begin in your mind – it begins in your feelings.”

… So once again, Jon’s reaction is a priceless “jON???” moment because:

(MAG153) ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. [SIGH] … I swear. I almost find the cult dedicated to the Dark Powers of Fear easier to understand than the more mundane sort. At least they have some consistency.

“What’s going on?” / Jon: *clicks “I’m in this statement and I don’t like it.”*

Oh My Gods, Jon… you read so many statements… they work/proceed exactly the same… getting you when you’re vulnerable… filling in what you’re craving and lacking, with the mix of “making you think you were shaped for them” and “shaping you for them” in turn…

(At least, he wasn’t in denial over the fact that the Dread Powers are “cults”. That would have been harder for him to do, anyway; and he didn’t deny it in the past when Georgie (MAG083, “Look me in the eyes and tell me that it’s not part of the cult or whatever the hell it was that left you homeless.”) and Jude (MAG089, “I don’t suppose I could talk to anyone else in your, um…” “It’s fine, you can call it a cult.”) both used the term. Still. Jon, there is no comfort/pride/excuse to get by trying to claim that the Fears Gods you’ve been involved with are more effective than your ~regular~ cults.)

- … How did Julia&Trevor manage to leave America? Last time we had heard of them, they were stuck:

(MAG109) ARCHIVIST: And… [SIGH] why America? JULIA: [FAINT GROAN] TREVOR: [CHUCKLE] Heard tell there were a wolfman…! JULIA: [LAUGH] TREVOR: Old Dave, he’s down in Plymouth, swore blind his brother had seen one on the Pacific Crest trail– JULIA: I told Trevor he was a liar, but here we are anyway. Have been for a couple of years…! TREVOR: Hey, now – no wolfman, sure, but there’ve been plenty out here that would needs killing! JULIA: [LONG-SUFFERING SIGH] True enough. Plus, it’s hard to leave. We’re not exactly here legally and trying to get a flight home would get us noticed by authorities we’d rather avoid. TREVOR: I keep telling her we could hop a boat! JULIA: And I tell him I’d rather stay hunting here than trap myself on a boat for two weeks!

(Julia has Bad History with water.)

- I wasn’t incredibly clear on the post-statement scenography – I assumed there had been a gunshot at first (but it wasn’t tagged in the content warnings, although it had consistently been in previous episodes), so was that loud bang… Jon’s door? Or the trapdoor? being violently banged open?

(There was the chair scraping on the floor when Julia was ordering Jon to stay sitting, so for that, I pictured her hands on his shoulder and at some point, them pinning his arms in his back and slamming his head on the table.)

- Loving how Julia’s perception of Jon doesn’t change:

(MAG107) JULIA: We can chat in the car! I’m sure you’ve got a ton of librarian stories, the miles will just fly by.

(MAG153) JULIA: Sure. Or: I slit your little bookworm’s throat…!

Jon Is Just A Nerd, uh.

- I really love how Jon “Can’t Shut His Mouth” Sims and Julia “Sims, Shut The Fuck Up” Montauk’s dialogue:

(MAG153) ARCHIVIST: [VENOMOUS] Gerry wasn’t “yours”. You had no right– [SLAMMING SOUND] TREVOR: Oh, you hear that, Julia? “Gerry”. JULIA: Sounds like it got pretty chummy…! Where is he? […] JULIA: Sure. Or: I slit your little bookworm’s throat…! DAISY: Do it. That give me a chance to finish off your dad. TREVOR: I’m not her father…! ARCHIVIST: Not by blood, maybe…! JULIA: Shut. it. ARCHIVIST: [GROAN OF PAIN]

… was basically an exchange of “YOU’RE JUST A USELESS BI” “OH YEAH? AND YOU HAVE DADDY ISSUES.”

Jon. Jon, please.

(Guuuh over Julia’s “You always do what evil books tell you to, do you?” because… she can’t know, but to say that to someone who had almost been taken by Mr Spider because following the book’s thread? Aouch.)

- And my heart BREAKS over the fact that Julia&Trevor are reproaching him… what was the Most Obviously Anti-Beholding thing Jon has ever done, back in season 3 – fulfilling the promise he had made to Gerry, and freeing/actually killing him, even if it caused himself pain in the process. But for Julia&Trevor, it’s precisely what made him an enemy just like any other monster.

(MAG153) ARCHIVST: He asked me to. JULIA: Oh, really? You always do what evil books tell you to, do you? TREVOR: Gotta say, I’m disappointed. Genuinely thought you were different. But you’re just another monster. Not even worth the chase…! JULIA: You want the honours, old man. TREVOR: Don’t mind if I do~!

Aouch. (I wonder what part of it was rightful anger at being deprived of their “monster manual”, and how much was actually a pretext to kill someone they had so far deemed as vaguely spooky, though? Interestingly, they didn’t mention that they felt like Jon had gotten worse or anything. According to their words, they only wanted to kill Jon because they felt that he had betrayed them and that siding with Gerry meant that he was “another monster”.)

- And bringing back the mention of Gerry and the book… also puts Eric Delano back to mind. Gerry only knew that his mother had used his father as training material with the book, but he didn’t find him inside. We know that Mary gave Gertrude a page, implying that it was Eric’s (“what’s left of him”), but Jon didn’t find it in Gertrude’s secret stash either:

(MAG111) GERARD: I never knew my dad. Not really. He worked in the Archives like you, but quit once I was born. I think he wanted to help raise me. But mum didn’t need the help, and after me she wasn’t able to have kids again, so she killed him in his sleep to practice her bookbinding. I guess she failed. I always thought he was in here, but when I eventually got hold of it, there wasn’t a page in there.

(MAG062) MARY: The End, of course. I could never truly serve it; I just don’t find death that interesting. I’ve always found a singular devotion far too restrictive. Just ask Eric… or what’s left of him. […] GERTRUDE: And do you have any proof of this? Your… “magic book”. MARY: Yeah. [PAPER RUSTLING] You can keep this page. I made sure it was in English. GERTRUDE: Go– Who… who is it? MARY: A surprise, dear. Just make sure you’re alone when you read it. [CHAIR SCRAPING] Goodbye, Gertrude. Wish me luck. [DOOR OPENING] [DOOR CLOSING] GERTRUDE: Well. I–I don’t… really know what to add to that. If what she says is true, I should think carefully before reading this page aloud. I should probably destroy it. [GRUNT] I do rather hate the smell of burning skin. Anyway… that’s a decision for another day. [CHAIR SCRAPING] [FLOORBOARD OPENING] [FLOORBOARD CLOSING] […] ARCHIVIST: […] But in spite of all that, I’m… strangely excited. Because what sticks out to me more than anything else in that tape… is the very distinctive floorboard, at the end. [CLOTHES RUFFLING] One that hasn’t changed in the eight years since this statement was given. There’s never been any reason to look closely at a random section of floor. This bit wasn’t even breached by any of the worms. [FLOORBOARD OPENS] Because it had Gertrude’s hidden compartment beneath it. Hmm. No… strange skin page. But there is a laptop. And a key. I wonder what it opens. End supplement. [CLICK.]

So… the question is still up – did Gertrude burn the page in the end? We know that she had burned a few things down in the tunnels, including at least one Leitner. Did she keep the page and is it stored somewhere? And if so… why would have she kept it? Eric was likely one of her assistants before Gerry was born, and Gertrude sounded… rather fond of him:

(MAG085) ARCHIVIST: Date of original statement unclear, though paper quality likely puts it at between twenty and thirty years ago. […] There are some… short pieces of correspondence in the file, addressed to Gertrude, from someone called, er, Eric Delano, confirming that while he typed out this statement, he has no memory of doing so, and requesting some sick leave to address… persistent migraines he has developed.

(MAG137) GERTRUDE: […] And I will admit I’ve grown… fond of the boy. I wonder, if I told him about Eric – whether he’d follow in his father’s footsteps. Still, that’s not like it kept Eric safe in The End.

A few things: Gerry did point out to Jon that he was surprised that Gertrude had apparently managed to get Mary to teach her how to book-bind (MAG111: “I just had to make sure I took the book while my mum was fading, and brought it to her, and then she would free me. I didn’t really believe her, I don’t think, but I did it anyway. When she returned the book to me a week later, her pages burned and mangled, I think I actually cried with relief. I never even considered that my mum might have taught Gertrude how to make pages for it before she was destroyed.”). Could Gertrude have learned it through Eric instead of Mary? Gerry also mentioned that, beyond the fact that Gertrude had chosen to imprison him within the book, he didn’t understand why she had left him behind (MAG111: “I think… I think I finally understand why she brought me back. I just don’t understand why she left me behind.”) – and, indeed, why…? Was it because she had been too freaked out by her arrest (although the book… stayed behind, unclaimed, and she could have got her hands back on it legally)? Was it because Gertrude wanted to leave behind a few hints about her actions, in case she got killed before achieving her goals? Was it because she wanted to retrieve it later, when things would be safer…? (That’d be extremely sentimental coming from her, but if she had kept Eric’s page… could it be that she had planned for Gerry and Eric to meet somehow at some point? If so: AOUCH, because Jon gave Gerry what he wanted, what he asked for… but if Jon were to discover that Eric’s page was still intact and that Gerry could have met his father at last? That… would hurt, uh.)

- Julia&Trevor being back in the game means that they… potentially share a connection with everyone in Team Archives, one way or another:

* Jon was Hunted by Julia, kidnapped/“bodyguarded” by her (MAG107), took Julia&Trevor’s statement about how they met (MAG109), stole Gerry’s page from them (MAG111) before burning it (MAG117). They were already on the fence about Jon’s status as a potential prey back then, but they had at least some interests in common with him (the world not ending, perceiving Max Mustermann as an enemy); right now, Julia&Trevor are clearly labelling Jon as a target and as an overall “monster” – plus, they have the grudge about the page and… there is the fact that Jon’s dreams contained them:

(MAG153) JULIA: [LAUGHS] You’ve got something of ours. TREVOR: “Someone”. JULIA: Took him right from under our noses…! TREVOR: In our own house. JULIA: I call that rude, don’t you? ARCHIVIST: [VENOMOUS] Gerry wasn’t “yours”. You had no right– [SLAMMING SOUND] TREVOR: Oh, you hear that, Julia? “Gerry”. […] Not gonna ask you again, son. ARCHIVIST: I burned the page. Released him. [SILENCE] TREVOR: Aren’t that right noble of you. JULIA: Proper humanitarian. TREVOR: So. [INHALE] Let me get this straight! We take ye in; protect ye from the thing that’s huntin’ ye… JULIA: Spared your life! Even though you’re no better. TREVOR: Help you; give you access to one of our most valuable resources; and you steal it from us, piss off back to England, and then… burn it?! [SHUFFLING] That’s just inconsiderate.

(MAG120) ELIAS: The dark building is newer, but he knows it well; knows the two lost souls who creep through it with an alert hunger on their faces. He recognizes that look from the other Hunter whose dreams he's watched for so long. They stalk the darkness itself, and hope to catch and kill it before it can do the same to them. They see him watching, but they cannot catch his scent.

… Even for Jon’s standards, that’s a lot. Usually, people wanted him dead because of the “Archivist” title and/or because he was marked by The Eye (Jane Prentiss, the Not!Them, Nikola, Michael-The-Distortion in MAG101…), not for… personal reasons, for things Jon himself had done. (… The only exception had been, interestingly… Daisy. Daisy who wanted to rip him apart because he had forced her to give him her statement, and because she kept seeing him in her dreams.)

(* Obviously Peter, and potentially Martin, because:

(MAG153) TREVOR: [SHAKING SIGH] … Come on, Julia. JULIA: What?! TREVOR: There’s no rush. [CHORTLING] We’ve got all the time in the world. Besides… this place is just full of monsters. She can’t guard ’em all.

There Are Other “Monsters” Here.

Would they sense the spooks from Martin, nowadays…?)

* Daisy used to be a Hunter like them, but has decided to stop serving. Trevor used to perceive The Hunt as an “addiction”, occasionally managed to make himself quit it, but when Jon met him in June 2017, Trevor had returned to The Hunt and already decided that he was getting a fair deal out of it, all things considered:

(MAG056, Trevor Herbert) “In the early 80s, I was deep in the grip of my twin addictions. As I mentioned, after a while, The Hunt became an addiction of its own. Of the two, I’ve always found heroin the easier one to quit. […] But The Hunt… the hunt is a purpose. It’s not just a way to get through the day, it’s a reason for there to be a day at all. […] Ah, it’s a shame I’m on the way out. I will miss The Hunt.”

(MAG109) ARCHIVIST: I–I mean, yes… But the situation has changed quite a bit. Last I heard, you were dying of lung cancer…! TREVOR: I was. ARCHIVIST: And now…? TREVOR: I’m not. [CHUCKLE] ARCHIVIST: And, and that doesn’t strike you as… odd. TREVOR: Not much I see these days isn’t “odd”, somehow or other. Not gonna turn my nose up at that one bit that worked out well for me. I hunt monsters; my lungs don’t kill me. [HUFF] Seems like a fair trade. No big job, today.

Daisy antagonised them both, Julia & Daisy are quite obviously ready and willing to jump at each other’s throat again… Which is a bad sign for Daisy, since they’re bringing back her murderous thoughts.

(On the one hand, their antagonism could push Daisy back into The Hunt’s waiting arms. On the other hand… it could go another way – though that would feel very hopeful: now that Trevor has been acknowledged as being a father figure for Julia… could it lead to Trevor pushing Julia out of The Hunt, because he would care more about her well-being than about hunting with her and he knows what a life of Hunt does to you?)

* BASIRA WAS WITH THE SECTION’D OFFICERS WHO RAIDED RAYNER’S LAST BODY-THEFT ATTEMPT, AND SHE WITNESSED HIS DEATH.

Especially since Basira&Jon have just come out of a mini-Dark arc… it feels especially relevant? Julia lost both her mother and her father to the People’s Church of the Divine Host, because of Rayner, and she had herself been scared of The Dark for long:

(MAG109) JULIA: There was another reason that I chose to work nights. If you read my statement, then I’m sure it will come as no surprise that for most of my life, I’ve had a pretty significant fear of the dark. I used to lie awake at night; listening, straining my ears for the noise of movement or that… dreadful growl coming out of the dark. It was one of my better counsellors that suggested I try working nights as a way to address it. And it worked! For the most part.

Amongst other things, we recently had confirmation of what had happened to Julia’s mom through Manuela’s statement:

(MAG143) MANUELA: You were not the first to try and stop us, you know. Not even within living memory. I was but newly joined when [Lynette] fled the Church, and Maxwell had her silenced. But I remember her brute of a husband. He fed the beast for us, you know, when first he believed [Lynette] might still be saved. Then, later, we faithful served as his fuel to banish it. But, not for long. That’s the thing about Darkness, isn’t it? You try your hardest to eradicate, flood your surroundings with light, but it’s always there at the edges – waiting for the glow to weaken, to return and cover you forever. Robert Montauk discovered that the hard way.

(And in return: Manuela mentioned that Darvish had “crossed a Montauk, which has… traditionally gone poorly for us.”, which was an allusion to Julia and was covered by the story she told Jon in MAG109.)

Why Robert Montauk did what he did and what happened to her mother could still be elements that Julia would be interested to know. (Or… not anymore, because she tried to leave that life behind her, but… still, I have trouble picturing that it would be a coincidence that she would be back right after Jon&Basira heard that story.)

* … I’m especially worried about Melanie, since her “connection” to Trevor&Julia is that… they burned down the Ivy Meadows care home, including what was left of Melanie’s father:

(MAG036, Nicole Baxter) “I turned and began to sprint back towards my car. I had to get away, to get out. Then, without warning, I felt something heavy hit me in the side and I lost my footing, falling to the ground. I looked up to see an old man pinning me to the ground, his long, white beard matted and filthy. I screamed and tried to escape, but his age seemed to have done nothing to diminish his strength, and he kept his grip easily. Then he spoke in a thick Mancunian accent and told me to keep my voice down. I noticed that his skin was unblemished pink, and behind him stood a young woman, tall and lean with close-cropped hair and a deep scar over her right eye. She carried a large canvas bag, and was shaking her head, telling the old man to leave me alone. After a few suspicious glances, he got up. I could swear I recognised him from somewhere, but when I asked the two of them who they were, they just shook their heads and told me to leave. I asked them what was going on, and the old man looked at his companion, as if asking permission, said something about knowledge being a good defence here. She shook her head and said that leaving quickly was a better one. I didn’t need to be told a third time. I got in my car, and I left them to their work. I didn’t turn around even when I saw the smoke start to rise behind me.”

[…] ARCHIVIST: The Ivy Meadows Care Home in Woodley was officially decommissioned in July 2011, a month before the first of these alleged calls came in. It burned down on the 4th of September that same year after a leaking gas main caught fire.

(MAG106) ELIAS: Your father was your last real anchor, wasn’t he? [STATIC RISES.] MELANIE: That’s none of your business. ELIAS: Perhaps. Five years is plenty of time to grieve. It’s a real tragedy, isn’t it – dementia? Oh, especially so early. But he always remembered you, didn’t he? “Little moth”. MELANIE: Shut. up. ELIAS: At least, you got him into a decent care home. Hard to afford on an irregular income like yours, but… your mother’s life-insurance helped plenty. And Ivy Meadows wasn’t as expensive as some of them! It’s a shame, about the fire. But I’d have thought it would offer something of a relief. MELANIE: Wh–what are you talking about…? ELIAS: Oh. Of course. They told you he died in his sleep, didn’t they? Smoke inhalation. A real tragedy, but at least he didn’t suffer. MELANIE: I… ELIAS: Do you want to know what really killed him? [STATIC RISES] MELANIE: [SHOCKED INHALE] [RAGGED BREATHING] [TAPE RECORDER HISSING] ELIAS: Awful, isn’t it? He really suffered. Not… really your fault, just bad luck. MELANIE: [RAGGED BREATHING TURNING INTO SOBS] ELIAS: That doesn’t comfort you, does it?

And I have no idea how Melanie will take that news. Able to remain stable and/or to decide that it may have been a mercy-kill? Refusing to feel any gratitude-adjacent feeling towards then, since they did it as Hunters (so, not to save innocents or to put the residents out of their suffering… but because there were monsters to kill)? Anger and resentment at what they did? (Would Melanie team up with them if it’s about tracking down Amherst…?)

- … So, Julia and Trevor just Got Inside Of The Institute Like That, and violence’d Jon, and would have gone for the kill if Daisy hadn’t stepped in:

(MAG153) TREVOR: Gotta say, I’m disappointed. Genuinely thought you were different. But you’re just another monster. Not even worth the chase…! JULIA: You want the honours, old man. TREVOR: Don’t mind if I do~! JULIA: [CHUCKLES] TREVOR: [CHUCKLES] DAISY: [FAR] Get away from him.

……………….. So, once again: pETER.

(S4 trailer) MARTIN: … Yeah. Yeah, I know. [PAUSE] I’m, er… I’m actually with him now. [SNIFFING] You were right. [PAUSE] … yeah. Yeah, I know. [LONG INHALE] I… [EXHALE] … Will they be safe? [PAUSE] … Okay… [INHALE] Okay! I’ll do it. Yeah. Sure thing.

(MAG126) PETER: Martin, this is what we agreed. After The Flesh attacked, you came to me. MARTIN: [SIGH] PETER: And I’ve held up my end of the bargain, despite your continued hesitation. Your friends have been largely untroubled by the many – many – enemies that they have made. MARTIN: What about the delivery guy? Breekon. And the coffin? PETER: Was that its name? To be honest with you, I thought it was dead. MARTIN: You thought wrong. PETER: True enough. And as soon as I learned it was here, I moved to intervene, but, well. It turns out I wasn’t really needed. And as far as the coffin goes, there’s not much I can do about a bull-headed Archivist– MARTIN: [EXPLOSIVE EXHALE] PETER: –who seems hellbent on self-destruction. My powers only extend so far. […] As I said, one of the last shreds of the Circus delivered a gateway into Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breathe. I went to help, but was too late. Then, your detective friend– MARTIN: No, she’s not a dete– PETER: –went on one of Elias’s wild-goose chases, then Jon wilfully hurled himself into the coffin. I did not intervene, because thankfully, I did not agree to protect your friends from their own idiocy.

(MAG142) MARTIN: … Anyway. So, what’s this field trip they’re on? DAISY: They, uh… they didn’t tell you? MARTIN: [DRY CHUCKLE] No, I… What. … [QUICKLY] Daisy, where have they gone? DAISY: You know that town in Norway? MARTIN: What? I… Wai– Wh–what?! You don’t mean Ny-Ålesund? DAISY: Yyyeah. They reckon there’s a ritual they need to, you know… MARTIN: Yeah, but Peter didn’t even men–…! [OPENS DRAWERS, SHUFFLES THROUGH THINGS] I don’t believe this! DAISY: Sorry. Shouldn’t have said anything. MARTIN: No, no, it’s… thank you, I just… [CLOSES DRAWER] For God’s sake, can he not stay safe for like, for like ten minutes?!

(MAG151) MARTIN: How honest has he been with me? SIMON: About which part? MARTIN: Protecting the others. SIMON: I think he tried. I suspect he may have slightly exaggerated his abilities when you first made the deal, but he certainly expended a reasonable amount of influence and resources to follow through. MARTIN: But… [EXPLOSIVE SIGH] But that was never the endgame, was it? He just wanted me on side long enough to rope me into his… his plans for The Extinction.

1°) I doubt that we’ll get to hear Martin learning about Julia&Trevor’s irruption in the Archives on tape, but PLEASE, I WANT TO HEAR HIS SHRIEKS WHEN HE DOES…

2°) We’re more likely to hear him explode in Peter’s face about it, though.

3°) That is, if Peter doesn’t flee into The Lonely forever to escape Martin’s wrath. Jokes aside: I don’t think that Martin will be surprised, at this point, because Simon has now confirmed to him that… Peter isn’t as strong/useful as a defender as he claimed. And this probably won’t be a game-changer for Martin… unless it pushes him to press Peter to unfold The Plan already, at last, because the longer they wait, the longer Jon and the others are kept vulnerable.

(… Though: they should still be defenceless, whether Martin&Peter’s plan(s) succeed or not? Peter promised their safety, however… was he referring to extending his own protection to them (because we now have confirmation that that deal was mostly a scam), or because Martin would become something else and/or trigger something that could keep them safe in the long run…?)

- … Meanwhile, Elias had suggested another “defender” to Basira:

(MAG127) BASIRA: … So why am I here? What do you want that’s so important you needed to tell me to my face? ELIAS: I believe you’ve recently lost Melanie. BASIRA: … We saved Melanie. ELIAS: As a person, yes, but as a defender… I would have thought you would want all the help you could get, or… have you forgotten what happened last time you lay your guard down? BASIRA: … We’ll work it out. ELIAS: Possibly. Then again: you are beset by enemies on all sides, Basira. And unless you expect Jon to record them into submission, it would seem you’re in rather dire need of another option. BASIRA: … And you just happen to have one. ELIAS: I might have an idea, yes. BASIRA: And what does it cost? ELIAS: Just some of your time, Basira. Just your time.

(MAG135) BASIRA: Like hell you don’t! Every lead, a dead end. Every contact, vanished or dead. I’ve spent three weeks bouncing all over the globe on your bad intel, because you said there was a way to bring Daisy back. ELIAS: There was. It required you to be absent. BASIRA: [EXPLOSIVE EXHALE] You wanted him to go in there. ELIAS: And you would never have allowed it, had you been present. BASIRA: Why? ELIAS: Would you simply believe I wanted you and Daisy reunited? BASIRA: No.

… and did he mean Jon (who would have developed his powers further), or Daisy, in the end? Directly post-coffin, Basira had been absolutely disappointed in Daisy’s state:

(MAG133) BASIRA: Yeah, I just… I didn’t realise she’d change into someone who… can’t look after herself. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] BASIRA: Even without the muscle atrophy. ARCHIVIST: You were hoping for a defender. BASIRA: I was hoping for someone I can trust to share the load. Because right now, it’s all on me. ARCHIVIST: [SLOC EXHALES] It doesn’t have to be. BASIRA: Hm. ARCHIVIST: You’re not happy she is back. BASIRA: I didn’t say that, Jon. I would never abandon Daisy and, having her back is… [SIGH] But right now, she’s dead weight. And I need to be able to travel light.

But Daisy is proving that she’s still… kicking a bit, indeed. Or at least enough to chase away Julia&Trevor despite her, uh, current state:

(MAG153) DAISY: [FAR] Get away from him. JULIA: Oh… TREVOR: What’s this…? You got yourself a watchdog? JULIA: Well, more of a lapdog…! Scrawny, isn’t she? DAISY: [MENACINGLY] I said get back…! TREVOR: Malnourished, I’d say. How long since you last tasted blood? DAISY: [SHARP BREATHING] JULIA: You think you can take us both~? DAISY: … I’d enjoy it. Start with the old bastard – he’s slower, doesn’t guard his neck. And you worry about him too much, don’t you? I go for him, you get sloppy, predictable. […] TREVOR: [SHAKING SIGH] … Come on, Julia. JULIA: What?! TREVOR: There’s no rush. [CHORTLING] We’ve got all the time in the world. Besides… this place is just full of monsters. She can’t guard ’em all. JULIA: [PANTING] … Fine. DAISY: [GROWLS] [DOOR SLAMMED CLOSE]

I’m not absolutely sure whether the final growl was hers or Trevor’s and/or Julia’s, but, in any case, GODS, I love how Daisy has turned fiercely protective of her idiot Archivist.

- And at the same time, I’m heartbroken over Daisy but IN A GOOD WAY because I… was really fearing that she might have gone back to hunting behind the tapes’ back. But no. It’s… “just” that not Hunting is slowly killing her:

(MAG153) ARCHIVIST: Are you alright? DAISY: [BREATHLESS] Don’t touch me. ARCHIVIST: Christ, he was right, I, I didn’t… When did you get so thin? DAISY: I’m not, it’s fine. ARCHIVIST: … It’s The Hunt, isn’t it? Without it– DAISY: I’m fine. Just haven’t been hungry. I’m strong enough. ARCHIVIST: Clearly. DAISY: They’re not gone yet. We could still get them. [CLOTHES SHUFFLING] ARCHIVIST: Daisy, no. It’s like you say. “Don’t listen to the blood.” DAISY: [SLOWER BREATHES] … “Listen to the quiet”…

… And I wasn’t expecting Jon to spontaneously remind her not to Chase. To respect what Daisy had been fighting for, although he tried to argue with her overall decision shortly after. Gods, so with Melanie going on an Eye-strike, Jon not taking live-statements anymore, and Daisy being slowly killed by (the lack of) The Hunt… current Team Archives is slowly crumbling, and how long can it truly last…? Unless they find a way to temper the effects, or get better after a very bad period…?

- Also, no wonder Melanie and Daisy were getting closer, aaaah!! Same mindset of choosing death over feeding/getting fed by a Dread Power… with some nuances between the two: I’d say that Melanie’s stance feels more… ethical, after all (she didn’t want to contribute to The Fears’ system), while Daisy’s is really about doing things on her terms and not letting anything control her anymore? Although, as she pointed out, she is aware of the fact that she herself used to be involved in a (non-spooky, still very harmful) system and to be protected by it:

(MAG153) ARCHIVIST: Even so, if it’s having this much of an effect on you– DAISY: I’m not going back. I can’t let it in again. ARCHIVIST: But it– … What if it kills you? DAISY: [CHORTLE] Always said I was dedicated to justice…! ARCHIVIST: Daisy! It’s not… You can’t think like that. DAISY: Jon. Do you have any idea how much damage you can do if you’re a police officer who wants to hurt people? How much the system will protect you? [SHARP INHALE FROM JON] I managed to keep most of it from Basira, but…

(Well, despite Daisy’s attempts to hide it from her, Basira did know at the very least about Daisy illegally killing “monsters”. Basira wasn’t Perfectly Pure And Innocent when it came to condoning it, either.)

- I’m love Daisy, I love how frank she is about what she did, the fact that it was her… and also, that she decided she wouldn’t condone those things anymore ;;

(MAG142) MARTIN: It’s alright. Wasn’t you. [INHALE] Not really. DAISY: No, it was. I hate… a lot of what I did back then; doesn’t mean I’m not… responsible for it, doesn’t mean it… wasn’t me.

(MAG153) ARCHIVIST: That wasn’t you, that was The Hunt! DAISY: … [SIGH] We were the same. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … You’d never known anything different. [SILENCE] DAISY: Because I never wanted to.

… And she’s also, implicitly, throwing what Jon Taught Her at his face:

(MAG121) OLIVER: I made a choice. We all made choices. Now, you have to– […] Make your choice, Jon.

(MAG132) DAISY: I hurt… a l–lot of people… and some who… who I shouldn’t have. Did you ever hear the, the story Elias told me? About what I did. How I am… He, he didn’t get a detail wrong. The Hunt… Hunger was in me all my life. Telling me who to chase, how to hurt them. I never needed to think… who I was outside of that. But down here, where I… I can’t hear the… blood anymore, I d–, I don’t… I don’t know who I am without, without the chase… I just know… that I… I don’t like who I was back outside. I don’t want to be her again. I want… to be… better… [PANTS] Y–you know what I thought wh–when I woke up here? I thought this was hell; I wa–, I was dead, and within hell. And I… eh, I–I knew I deserved it… I don’t want t–to be a s–sadistic predator again… I–I don’t want to… hobble around, like some pathetic, wounded prey either… I don’t know which would be worse. And I’m sc–scared, now, that I’ll never get the choice… ARCHIVIST: One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice. Even if it doesn’t feel like one.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: My– [PAUSE] [INHALE] [SIGH] My memories of the coma are not clear. But I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I… I don’t know if I made the right decision; I–I’m stronger now, tougher, I can… … If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever… I don’t know if that’s a bad thing.

(MAG153) DAISY: All that time trapped was good for one thing: thinking. And I did a lot of it. I’ve made my choice. ARCHIVIST: Okay…! So what do we do when they come back? DAISY: I don’t know.

(Jon… you threw out so many encouraging words but still didn’t follow through on them yourself, uh? Because meanwhile, he had already attacked two people, and was trying to convince himself that he was being manipulated/pushed into doing it without having a say in it…)

And Jon Trying To Argue Hurt A Lot, because it’s very obvious that he’s projecting / seeing himself in her? He was eight when he encountered Mr. Spider’s book. Daisy was eleven when she met something (Slaughter woman?) who turned Calvin Benchley against her; indeed, she’s “never known anything else”, and it shaped her as a person (she became “Daisy” because of the scar the experience left her with). So, if Daisy, who has taken a stance (to stop being a Hunter and hurt people), were to decide that in the end, it’s too painful, it’s not worth it… maybe Jon thinks that he wouldn’t feel too bad about doing the same?

But no, Daisy is still saying that it’s not worth going back to her patron and hurting people, stripping Jon of that excuse and possibility right away. I still have no idea whether Jon will take inspiration from Melanie&Daisy, but… whatever he chooses in the end, we’ve had prime demonstrations that it’d indeed be his own choice – not the Web manipulating him, not Beholding replacing by something else, not the “ineluctability” of becoming a careless or ruthless monster, just his own personal decision to hurt rather than be hurt.

So; I still have no idea, I still feel like only Martin is the only one who can make things go forwards at the moment, but also, lots of plot threads are accumulating to just… explode at the same time and make a carnage.

MAG153’s title is Magnificent in its simplicity and… evocations. So. Could be a Slaughter thing, with a mix of Team Archives (/Daisy) getting wasted, but obviously, it puts Mary Keay and The End to mind. Though I don’t know what else we could get about Mary? Jon hasn’t said anything about running out of the stash of Gertrude’s tapes from Elias’s office, so it… could be one of them again (last one was MAG145, Gertrude&Arthur) – Gertrude talking with Ended!Mary after having invoked her page? Something from Eric Delano (in written form, or a recording with Gertrude while he was alive or dead) about his ~lovely wife~?

[sympathyfortheblinderdevil]

The Cursed Side Of This Family Chapter 12

Slow burn, Tommy x Esme, grief, guilt, lust, drugs…What’s not to love?

Look here for Chapter 11

(NSFW) Of course Polly was furious that Esme and Tommy had developed feelings for each other, and Esme’s visceral reaction to Polly’s rage had sent her crashing to the floor in a sobbing heap. Somehow, nuzzled against the warm, salty skin of Tommy’s neck, none of that mattered anymore.

What have I done? I have pushed away everyone Help me forget Let's put it all to bed Forgive me, and save me From myself

Jack White –Connected By Love

He had done exactly what he said he would. Her enemies had disappeared and her family was safe. She was softly sighing in the arms of a man who kept his promises.

The events of the day were mercifully foggy: the battle between the Blinders and the Wood Family, the long night of waiting to hear of their fates, Polly’s epiphany and the subsequent argument, all seemed like they happened long ago to someone else. All that mattered now was that she belonged to Tommy, and he belonged to her.

He felt the flutter of her eyelashes against his neck and shifted her slightly, moving his arm to a more comfortable position.

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Hey,” she smiled into his neck and kissed him, savoring the taste: a mixture of sweat, cologne, and something else that was just Tommy. “How long have I been out?”

“Not long.” He leaned back to take in the sight of her. Even with bleary eyes and tear-streaked kohl on her cheeks she was beautiful. She had been dozing in his arms, peaceful in the afterglow.

 Earlier that night after Polly stormed out, Esme surrendered to Tommy. He had knelt behind her on the floor whispering in Romani and calming her with his caresses. “They’re gone, Esme. They won’t return. They will never threaten us again.”

“What about Polly?” Esme spoke softly, “I’ve lost her. She has been like a mum to me these past months, and now she hates me.”

“She is angry now. Give her time” He turned Esme around to face him. She was so broken and vulnerable. God, she had been through enough, and he hated that his need for her, his pursuit of her had caused her even more pain.

He closed his eyes and buried his face in her neck, taking in the scent of her hair with every breath. His heart still raced from the violence he had committed in her name. Three men were dead, and the remainder had sworn to fall in with the Lees. Leftover adrenaline had fueled the row he had with Polly. Under normal circumstances, he would have been able to remain calm in the face of her anger, but tonight he had nearly lost control.

Esme’s embrace grew fierce as she pushed herself deeper into his arms. “I was so afraid of losing you. The waiting was unbearable, I watched the clock, I… God, I tried to make it all go away…,” she ran her fingers through his glossy black hair, “But you’re here now. Thank Christ, you’re here.”

Tommy straightened up to meet her eyes. He needed her to see the resolve he felt. He needed her to see that he wanted nothing more than her. “I’m here, Es, I’m not going anywhere.” He pulled her face close to his and pressed his mouth to hers, hot with need. She yielded to his lips and tongue, arching her back and pressing her hips into Tommy’s.

Kneeling before the fireplace, feeling Esme’s heart beating next to his own, no one else mattered. He had waited for her as well. He felt like a part of him knew that this was meant to happen from the moment she returned to Small Heath, but fear, pride, and worry kept her from surrendering to him. Tonight he would make sure that she would never deny him again. Tommy was, after all, a selfish man, and he wanted to claim her. With every breath, his resolve to make her his own was strengthened. He grasped at her hips and her ass, bringing every inch of her body closer to his. He wedged a thigh between her legs and moved her onto it where she undulated, breathless from the friction.

Leaning back, she slid her sweater off of her shoulders. He trailed his fingers around the back of her neck and began undoing buttons, picking up where he had left off earlier in his office. Esme slid her dress off of one shoulder and Tommy mouthed the pale skin revealed there. He pulled the other side down, revealing the creamy skin at the top of Esme’s breasts, and lay her down in the glow of the firelight. Tommy sat back for a moment, his eyes hungrily swept the length of her while the flames threw light and shadows on the aquiline planes of his face. He took the hem of her dress in his hand and pulled it, slowly revealing the curves of her body as he finished undressing her. Aching with need she writhed before him. She grabbed his shirt and pulled him down, her fingers tearing at his buttons, and her mouth begging him to take her. “Tommy, I need you, please…”

He grabbed a handful of her tangled hair and pulled her to him. “You are mine, Esme. All mine,” he rasped.

She peeled his shirt from his back, ran her hands over the sculpted muscles of his chest, and traced the downy trail that led down his stomach.  Tommy unbuttoned his trousers and slid them off. He strained heavy and hard against her thigh as he hovered over her, struggling to maintain control. He could not wait to devour her.

His mouth was unrelenting and insistent upon hers, and she moaned into him. He moved down to her neck sucking hard at the tender skin there as she panted, “Tommmy, please, God, fuck me!”  He lost all control at the sound of her beautiful mouth uttering such a filthy word. He shifted from where he had been grinding on her thigh and reached between her legs; she was hot and slick. She rolled her hips and helped him to get into position.

He paused to look into her deep brown eyes and whispered, “Esme, there’s no turning back after this.”

Her face was flushed with raw want, and she answered his statement by lifting her hips.

He slid inside of her and groaned. His lust for her was overwhelming, and he had to still himself for a moment to keep from cumming. He regained control and began to ride her slowly. His fingers sank into the soft curves of her hips as he set his pace, each thrust deeper than the last.

The anesthetizing effects of the opium had worn off, and her senses were in overdrive. Tommy’s every movement was amplified, and she was in a frenzied state of desire. She wantonly bit and sucked at his shoulders, neck, and lips, and her nails left marks on the milky skin of his back. In return, he drove into her with an animalistic fury.

She arched her back so that his pelvis ground against her and she could feel her juices overflowing. He felt better than she could ever have imagined. She broke out in a cold sweat and a delicious tension built up inside of her core. She wrapped her legs around him more tightly and rocked her hips until she could feel herself contract and squeeze Tommy’s length. He gazed at her, mouth slack, pupils blown, and drunk with desire. Just as she was coming down from her high, his eyes rolled back in his head as he exploded inside of her.

He collapsed on top of her, his head cradled between her breasts. They lay for a long while until their heartbeats slowed and their breathing returned to normal. After a while, Tommy rolled to his side and propped up on his elbow. He looked at her earnestly, then finally spoke.

“If this is going to work, I will need to set the tone with the family. I will have to make it clear that this is not an affair. It is not some dalliance resulting from the thrill of the forbidden.”

As he licked a calloused thumb and wiped away her smudged eyeliner, her deep brown eyes searched his face.

“So all the things that you told Polly… that is really how you feel.”

Without hesitation he answered, “Yes. I love you. I want a life with you. You and everything that you bring.”

Esme felt an overwhelming awe. Looking at Tommy in the firelight, the angles of his cheekbones, the curves of his lips, the deep blue sea within his eyes, she wondered how he could possibly want to take on a mess like her. The women he had been involved with in the past were posh and elegant, and they inhabited the social strata that Tommy aspired to reach. May, Grace…

It was as if he could read her mind, and he quickly reassured her. “Es, I feel like for so long I have been searching. I’ve reached for things that I thought would fill the void within me and people who I thought would prove my worthiness. I’ve attained power, wealth, social position, but,” he stressed, “nothing and no one has made me feel like you do. I am home. You are my home.” He traced her lips with a finger and went on, “And before you say anything about Polly, she will come around. She loves you, and she wants the kids to be nearby. Just give it time. I’m not letting you go.”

Esme settled her head into the sweet spot between Tommy’s shoulder and neck and closed her eyes in contentment. Tomorrow she would wake up in the arms of a good man who loved her. She would make breakfast, and they would talk to her children about their new living arrangements. Small Heath would eventually get used to the fact that Mrs. Shelby was with a different Mr. Shelby, and yes, even Polly would come around. Tommy and Esme, against all odds, would live happily ever after.

 I know, I know, I know! This is wholly unrealistic, but it’s my party and I say Tommy x Esme get a fairy tale ending!

UPDATE: Chapter 13 because I just couldn't leave well enough alone.

[belliscommproject-blog]

Briceson Ellis

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

This theory states that we experience mental discomfort (dissonance) when there are inconsistencies in our beliefs or a belief and an action. We seek to have consistency in our actions and beliefs, therefore dissonance is often reduced by changing the behavior or the cognition. This theory also tells us that there are multiple ways in which individuals deal with cognitive dissonance. 

Background

Good Will Hunting is a movie centered around the life of the main character, Will Hunting. Will is a genius. He posses a level of intelligence that is greater than all the professors at his local college. Shockingly, he's not a student at this college, he is a janitor. Rather than pursuing where his talents could take him, Will spends his time getting into trouble in South Boston with his friends. 

Will’s Cognitive Dissonance: Vulnerability & Self-Concept

The two main aspects that cause Will cognitive dissonance are his vulnerability and self-concept. In this post, I will examine how his cognitive dissonance is evident throughout the movie in the interpersonal relationships he possesses. How Will deals with this cognitive dissonance and how he attempts to resolve this dissonance will also be explored.

Vulnerability 

Throughout the film, we see Will’s stout resistance in showing any transparency and vulnerability in his interpersonal relationships. This can be attributed to the fact that Will was an orphan, was severely abused, and has abandonment/trust issues. Because of these things, Will holds the belief that people are out to get him and him opening up will make him once again experience the pain he felt in his childhood. Therefore, Will pushes everyone away, with the exception of his three best friends. This causes him no cognitive dissonance because his beliefs and behavior are in harmony with each other.

Sean

Will finally meets his match after going through multiple court-appointed therapists. The other therapist appointed before Sean couldn't deal with Will’s games and defense mechanisms. To keep them at bay and preventing himself from opening up, Will would toy with them and waste their time. In his first few sessions with Sean, Will attempts the same games and mechanisms, but Sean refuses to fold like the others. This is when Will realizes Sean is different than the ones before. Sean understands and can break Will down in a way most people cant. Furthermore, there is a high degree of relatability between these two men as both are from the same hometown, and experienced similar childhood abuse. The more time they spend together and the more self-disclosure Sean engages in with Will, the more Will’s walls begin to crumble. 

The crumbling of these walls and subsequent development of trust creates a lot of dissonance for Will. We know he believes in hiding his emotions and vulnerability, yet he also feels that he can trust and open up to Sean. This dissonance reaches a boiling point as the last of these walls give way during a session where Sean continually repeats to Wil “its not your fault”. Sean is referring to the abuse he was subjected to as a child and Will continues to repeat “I know”, brushing it off and continuing to hide behind his last wall. Sean continues to repeat the phrase and Wills’ eyes begin to swell with tears. It's in this moment that Will faces a showdown with his cognitive dissonance. He has his 20-year belief of showing no weakness and vulnerability to people on one shoulder and his new belief that he can be vulnerable with Sean because he trusts he won't hurt him. We see this is tough for him to choose as he looks at Sean and says “don't mess with me, not you Sean” as he physically pushes him back while also having tears in his eyes. The pushing him away and tears in his eyes can be viewed as physical representations of the two conflicting beliefs living inside of Will has. 

Will pulls Sean in and the two embrace in a  passionate hug where Will immediately begins sobbing. He has finally chosen between his two conflicting beliefs and brought harmony to his cognitive dissonance. All walls are gone as Will decides to change his cognition and lay completely vulnerable in Sean’s arms as he cries, letting out the emotions he's kept bottled up for so long.

Will’s Cognitive Dissonance Regarding His Self-Concept

The second of Will’s cognitive dissonance exists between conflicting views of how he views himself. For the majority of the film, we see Will display and act out the belief that he is shackled to the troubled, blue-collar, Boston life forever. He thinks he is deserving of this because of his abusive, orphaned, childhood. He makes this apart of his self-identity because this life is comfortable. Living this blue color delinquent life is a way for Will to keep his cognitive dissonance in harmony. It doesn't challenge him to grow and confront his conflicting views about his vulnerability and self-concept. 

Cognitive Dissonance theory tells us that one way people reduce dissonance is justifying one of their inconsistencies. We see Will do this during one of his sessions with Sean. He is pressed by Sean on the subject of what he wants to do for a living. Sean tells WIll he could be doing anything in the world he wants and he's settling for jobs like laying brick. Will realizes, in his head, that Sean is right and this causes him dissonance. In response to feeling this dissonance, Will lashes out at Sean “what's wrong with laying brick? That's someone’s home I'm building, that's a living to be proud of”. While Will is not wrong, given Will’s gift of intelligence, its not a job Will should be doing by any means. 

Will tells Sean there is nothing wrong with laying brick and working as a janitor because there is honor in these professions. But we know Will isn't doing janitorial work because of the honor embodied in such work. No, Will is working as a janitor because it allows him to address his second conflicting view within his self-concept. 

Will holds another belief believe about himself, one where he believes he can do great things and there is more to life than the small-minded, comfortable, reality he is living out in Boston. Will doesn't just work as any janitor. He is a janitor at the number one technical college in the world. This position allows him to stay close to the feeling of what his life could be if he confronted the dissonance in his mindset and applied his gift. The books Will reads and the things he studies are consistent with that of a scholarly student, not a janitor. This is another sign of dissonance that calls his first belief into doubt. If he was satisfied with the life of a janitor and didn't think he could be anything greater, why does he study and read things most janitors never think to read? This leads us to another example of inconsistency in Will’s beliefs. This is evident by how at night he solves equations on the boards. No other student at the school can solve these equations, much less any janitor. The interesting thing about Will solving the equations is that he wants no credit for it. When he is caught solving the equation he cusses at the professor and runs. This is another attempt by Will to avoid dealing with any cognitive dissonance. He knows if he gets credit for the equation, they will expect more and more from him. He will be brought into the light where he is vulnerable and will no longer be able to live the complacent, comfortable life he currently lives. This will force him to confront the fact that his first belief is wrong, and resolving dissonance, as we know, isn't always easy. 

Skylar

We see both subjects of which Will has cognitive dissonance about play out in his relationship with his girlfriend Skylar. Wills conflicting views about vulnerability and his self-concept causes the relationship to crash and burn. Skylar wants to know and love Will, in order to get to know him better she pokes and prods in an attempt to get him to open up. Similarly to how Will begins to experience dissonance with Sean because he begins to trust him, the same starts to happen with Skylar. Yet Will doesn't have the same positive breakthrough in cognition that he did with Sean with Skylar. Instead, his belief that his childhood abuse defines his self-concept and that he isn't worthy of love causes him to shatter the relationship. His fears of vulnerability cause him to think Skylar has ulterior motives in her pursuit of him. He believes Skylar just wants to have a fling with a member of the lower class, instead of believing she loves him for him. 

Applying what we know about cognitive dissonance theory we can get a better understanding of why Will had this reaction to Skylar. We as humans, according to the theory, don't like dealing with challenges to our cognitions and Skylar presents a large challenge for Will. It's easier for him to act in harmony with his belief that Skylar is out to prey on his vulnerability and inconceivable of loving him, than for him to believe her about her true intentions. Seeing her for her true intentions would require Will to move to resolve his resulting cognitive dissonance, a much more difficult thought to battle with.

Chuckie 

Chuckie represents that closest friend all of us have. We can say we have 5 best friends and we love all of them equally, but when push comes to shove we know who fills the number one spot.

In the final confrontation of Will’s cognitive dissonance before he acts to resolve it, we see Chuckie challenge his cognition at their blue-collar job. Chuckie questions him about the high-level job interviews Will has lined up, jobs that include possibly working at top levels of the U.S. government. Will trivializes the job opportunities with words like “If I work for them ill be doing long division the rest of my life, ill be a lab rat.” Will trivializing the job opportunities is a way for him to deal with the dissonance he is feeling as a result of Chuckie forcing him to confront his conflicting cognitions. If Will downplays the opportunities he can live in harmony with his cognitions and behaviors as he works construction day in and day out. Wills final attempt to avoid confronting the dissonance he is feeling is his line of “you don't know that”. This is the last gasp Will can muster up to launch his final opposition in hopes of preserving his negative cognitions about his self-concept. But it isn't enough as Chuckie delivers the final blow that forces will to act to resolve his dissonance. 

The final blow Chuckie delivers is in the words above he says to Will. These are the words that are the final straw forcing Will to confront his cognitions and stop suppressing them. Chuckie is one of the few, if not the only person, Will trusts. Which is why Chuckie saying such a harsh reality is the eye-opener for Will. He dealt with his cognitive dissonance from everyone else by just blowing it off and saying they don't get him. But he can't deny the words of Chuckie, Chuckie knows him better than anyone. Chuckie’s words outline his belief in the cognition Will has inside of him, that he can be great, not the cognition Will shows, which is he is satisfied and can't do better than his current life.

Resolving His Cognitive Dissonance 

At the end of Good Will Hunting, we finally see Will resolve both aspects of his cognitive dissonance. He decides to go visit Skylar in California. This is behavior that we wouldn't have expected from him when we saw the breakup in her room. This is evidence of a change in Will’s cognitions. Through his trust and therapy with Sean, he is able to give Skylar a chance. He now holds the cognition of openness and not so fearful of vulnerability.

The second resolving of Will’s dissonance is evident by him fulfilling the destiny of Chuckie’s “best part of my day” speech. Will finally leaves Boston on the exact terms Chuckie said. No good by, no see you later, just gone. This is something we wouldn't have predicted of Will earlier in the film, given our knowledge of his negative self-concept cognition. Will replaces this cognition with the belief in himself and his potential. Will no longer seeks to hide behind the comfort of his underachieving life, instead with his new cognition he begins to engage in new behavior. 

Summary

In the movie Good Will Hunting, we see how Will dealt with two significant aspects of cognitive dissonance in his life. We analyzed how he was brought to challenge and eventually resolve his cognitive dissonance through his interpersonal relationships with Sean, Skylar, and Chuckie.

 His first aspect of cognitive dissonance is inconsistent views about his vulnerability. We see this dissonance causes him exponential interpersonal relationship turmoil. He has believed for years that he shouldn't let anyone in and be transparent in his relationships because it will make him vulnerable. This vulnerability has burned him already once before when he was a child. Will experiences dissonance as he finds himself developing trust for Sean and Skylar, this calls into question his vulnerability cognition. 

Wills second major aspect of cognitive dissonance is his struggle with inconsistent thoughts and beliefs about his self-concept. He allows his childhood and past experiences to be proof that the complacent underachieving life he currently lives is one he was meant for. He actively tries to stay away from anything that will cause him to challenge his beliefs about himself. Yet, on the other hand, Will knows he has a gift and that he isn't using it, and could be living a much better, more meaningful life if he applied himself.

At the end of the film, Will finally resolves both of his cognitive dissonance issues. He decides to change his cognitions about vulnerability and his self-concept. His vulnerability and negative self-concept cognitions have been replaced by more positive cognitions. Will is more open to the idea of opening up in his relationships and hold a more positive self-concept about himself. This is something that can be predicted by the cognitive dissonance theory. Within the three typical ways to resolve dissonance, Will resolved his by changing his cognitions.

 He finally leaves Boston to go see Skylar. This shows that he is no longer scared of being vulnerable and no longer has a belief about himself that someone shouldn't love him. This also speaks to a change in his cognition about his negative self-concept. He leaves Boston, escaping the comfort he's resided in for years so he can go apply himself in the way Sean and Chuckie challenge him to. Will finally gives into his cognition that he can be much more than just a janitor and he is deserving of Skylar's love. Will has spent his whole life running from and protecting himself from anything that challenges him and causes him dissonance. With the help of three challenging interpersonal relationships, WIll has been able to resolve his dissonance and take on the world with new cognitions. 

[rebeccahpedersen]

Turn Back The Clock: Garth Turner In 2006

TorontoRealtyBlog

A reader sent me this article last week, and I found it quite interesting.

I’m not here today, with the benefit of hindsight, to provide any sort of “I told you so,” but rather to look at why real estate bears like Garth Turner, or Hilliard Macbeth, thought that the Canadian real estate market was set to crash – before it more than doubled in many places.

Cynics will point to the profits these bears have made from directing followers and listeners away from real estate, but there simply must be reasons for their predictions, right?

In this article, Mr. Turner provided several…

(This is a transcript of the March 24th, 2006 article in its entirety)

The real estate boom is over. You may or may not like that news,but it is now official.  I am calling the eight-year-long housing lovefest, finito.

Done like dinner.  Does that mean housing prices are going to start spiralling lower, with a rerun of the equity-busting days of the early 1990s? Should families who have concentrated most of their wealth in their homes be panicking?

Hardly.  I see no storm clouds on the horizon.  But neither do I see the weather conditions that would allow prices to keep on rising.  And there is one overwhelming piece of news that,more than anything else, should tell everyone that real estate is an overvalued commodity ripe for correction.

This past week my friend Peter Vukanovich,who came to visit me a few days ago in my MP’s riding office, pulled the trigger.  His company, Genworth Financial, has now become the first mortgage insurer to cover 35-year home loans.  That goes one better than CHMC, which three weeks ago said it would insure 30- year-long mortgages.  And the country’s best-known mortgage guru, whom I spent time with as well last week in the boardroom of a Toronto law firm, told me in hushed tones he is preparing for the advent of the 50-year mortgage.

What does this mean? And what’s the big difference from today’s normal 25-year mortgage amortization?

Simply, it is this: Mortgages have always been very large debts for people to pay,and in order to make them more affordable, the payments have been spread over a long period of time – usually 25 years. The effect of this is that monthly payments are brought down,but the amount you end up paying back rises.  At today’s interest rates, with a 25-year am, you actually pay the lender about twice what you borrowed – almost $580,000 in payments on a $300,000 mortgage.

So, when the payment period (that’s the amortization part – based on the French verb ‘to kill’) is extended, then the same formula kicks in, namely, lower monthly payments and a greater amount actually repaid.  In the case of that $300,000 mortgage and a 35-year amortization,monthly payments fall from $2,000 a month to about $1,700, but the amount you dish over rises by $135,000, to a substantial $712,000.

So, why does this show the real estate market has peaked and is about to hit the down escalator?  Simply because this is the third major indicator that housing prices have passed the ability of the average family to afford them.  And anytime that transpires,the writing is on the garage wall.

First we have had the unprecedented use of the 5 per cent down payment program.  Genworth’s Vukanovich told me in our meeting about the tens of billions in mortgages his company has just insured for buyers in that program – in fact, this is where almost all of the mortgage growth is.  Not good.  Buyers putting up 5 per cent of the price of a home and mortgaging 95% are doing the same things as stock market junkies snapping up securities on margin.  The only way they make money is if the asset rises in value,and quickly.  So far the 5 per cent down crowd have done very well, since their extreme leveraging has paid off in a rising market.  But if housing prices move in the opposite direction, their tiny little bit of equity can evaporate in a week or two, leaving them with nothing but a sea of debt. Oh yeah, and a home they “own.”

The second indication this is a market living on somebody else’s oxygen was the announcement some months ago that several of the banks would lend money to people who don’t have any — hence, the zero-down mortgage.  Borrowers with good strong employment earnings, but no savings, suddenly qualified to buy houses they could not afford.  Need I say more?  But, actually,there is more – because boutique lenders will now give you enough money for 100 per cent of the purchase prices, plus more cash for the closing costs and a new plasma TV.

So, here we have the third indicator – amortizations which have gone from 25 years to 30, then to 35 years and quite possibly now to fifty.  This is irrefutable proof that houses at these levels are unaffordable if you play by the rules that have influenced real estate supply and demand for the last three generations.  And layer on top of that the effect of five recent mortgage rate increases, with the prospect of a couple more to come, and you can see what’s going down.

Over the last year, Vancouver house prices rose 26 per cent.  In Calgary, 24 per cent.  In Toronto, just 6 per cent.  I would argue that the inevitable correction in real estate prices has already started in the GTA and will soon be spreading west. In mid-town Toronto right now, you have to spend $1.3 million to buy an 80-year-old brick house on a street full of the same houses, on a 30-foot-wide lot with no garage.  And this is not an area of wealthy millionaire families, but rather working couples with public school-age kids. They may live in million-dollar homes, but they quite often also have million-dollar mortgages.

The only way they’ll make money on those houses is if they find somebody to pay even more.  And behind that indebted buyer will be a generous lender. And behind that lender, a creative insurer. And you don’t want to know what’s behind him.

More on this, soon.

Again, thanks to a reader for finding this 12-year-old article and sending it my way.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention what you all already know…

The average Toronto home price in March of 2006 when this article was published was $353,134.  This past May of 2018, the average was $805,320.  That’s an increase of 128%.

The Canada-wide HPI Benchmark Index sat at $307,700 in March of 2006, and has risen some 108% to $637,500 this past month.

But let’s get that out of the way.  I’m pretty sure Mr. Turner doesn’t care anyways.

I’m more interested in his reasons for the impending “end” to the real estate boom, and how looking back, they were so right – even though they were completely wrong.

What I mean is, he identified issues in the market that, he thought, would be troublesome.

And looking back, many of these issues were noted and acted upon by the Finance Minister and/or CMHC (making Mr. Turner right), and yet the market still continued to climb (Making Mr. Turner wrong).

Mr. Turner first noted that buying with a 5% down payment was a problem, as it would leave buyers “owning” their homes with a 95% debt-load.  Perhaps he wasn’t wrong in identifying this was an issue, considering the changes that have been implemented by the CMHC since then:

1) Minimum 20% down payment over $1,000,000. 2) Minimum 20% down payment on investment and/or second properties. 3) Increased down payment requirement on mortgage amount from $500,000 – $999,999 from 5% to 10%.

The second point that Mr. Turner made was about 0% down mortgages, and even cash-back mortgages.  In 2007, I had a client buy with the 107% financing plan, whereby he purchased for $1,000,000 and provided a $50,000 deposit cheque, and upon closing, was given the $50,000 back by the lender, plus another $20,000.

But these programs were long done away with, as the minimum down payment requirements above explain.

The third point that Mr. Turner made was actually two points – first about the increase in amortization periods, the second about the five consecutive hikes in mortgage rates.

Amortizations did reach 40 years, but then came back down to 25 and 30.  Most buyers out there right now look for, or can only qualify for, a 25-year amortization.  The 30-year product still exists, but isn’t nearly as prevalent.  As for the potential “50-year amortization,” I had honestly never heard of this as a possibility until I read this 2006 article.  I don’t know how close this was to ever becoming a reality.

As for the increase in mortgage rates, and prediction of subsequent rates, Mr. Turner was hypothesizing here.  Or if you want to try to get into his head, based on his feelings on the market, he might have been catastrophizing.  Adding potential increased rates to his other qualms would only make the fire burn brighter!

Looking back on this article twelve years later, and knowing Garth Turner’s track record, and history of disastrously-incorrect predictions about the real estate market, I’m actually going to come away giving him more credit than I previously did.

His predictions, at least, were based on ‘problems’ in both the real estate and mortgage markets, several of which were rectified.

As I said, it’s ironic (or more disastrous for his predictions) that increasing down payment regulations and shrinking amortization periods didn’t make the market turn and run the other way.

But I have to give him credit for putting this into print – even before the housing crisis in the United States began two years later.

The post Turn Back The Clock: Garth Turner In 2006 appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

Originated from https://ift.tt/2KeGa3k

[canaliculi]

A Little Sweet and Simple

Gravity Falls

Bill/Ford (pre-relationship)

T: Magical girls, light magical violence

It's been months since the Mystery Trio arrived in Gravity Falls, and they're still no closer to finding the source of its inherent weirdness - or any proof of its weirdity at all. Until one day, Ford discovers a mysterious carving in a cave.

"I thought a COSTUME CHANGE might be FUN! You know, make this moment REALLY special! Even your GLASSES look cooler!” Cooler? Oh god, Ford did not want to see his face right now. “I LIKE IT, Sixer! Those BOOTS really EMPHASIZE your CALVES!” Ford wanted to die. “Okay, okay, I’m getting the feeling you don’t LIKE IT, but we’ll have to time to TALK SHOP later! Right now you might wanna deal with THAT GUY!”

In other words, it's a Magical Girl Ford AU.

“Fidds! Stanley! Hurry, we must be getting close!” Ford shouted over his shoulder. He was almost breathless from exertion, but nothing could slow his pace or dampen the triumphant feeling burning in his chest. Or maybe that was just the lack of oxygen – it felt like they had been running for miles now, chasing down this thing.

Speak of the devil, a deep grumbling echoed from somewhere above and before him, hidden away in the thick leaves of the canopy. The sharp snapping of splintering wood was all the warning Ford got before jagged pieces of a great tree were raining down all around him. He covered his head with an arm, wincing, but he didn’t falter. Couldn’t afford to stop even for a moment. It – whatever it was – wasn’t going to get away. Not this time.

“Ford! Slow down!”

“You’re gonna get yourself killed, numbnuts!”

Ford didn’t bother to answer them – didn’t they understand? This was finally their chance! Weeks of tracking its movements, dealing with the wreckage it left behind, and most importantly, weeks of it slipping out of their grasps. They hadn’t even managed to catch a glimpse of the damn thing! Just thinking about it had him gritting his teeth, hands clenched tight into fists.

At least their plan was working. He, Fiddleford, and Stanley had managed to herd it away from the city proper, out into the woods. Even if he couldn’t see it, the crashes left in the monster’s wake were heading directly towards the clearing, where Ford had spent the better part of the night laying out various traps. Judging by the size of the claw marks and the amount of damage it could inflict, whatever kind of beast this was had to be large.

There was a tremendous roar from ahead, loud enough to send flocks of birds fleeing into the tranquil blue sky, deep enough that it rumbled around in Ford’s ribcage, shook him to his spine. He grinned in response. It must have stumbled into one of their snares! The trees were thinning out, the light becoming brighter, no longer tinged green from the overhanging leaves. All at once he burst into the clearing, a victorious grin stretching his face.

This was it, what they had been searching for – perhaps not the source of Gravity Falls’ weirdness, but at long last, some solid proof of it! Ford had expected the monster to fill the entire glade; it was at least tall enough to score the tops of the trees, after all. Yet, he saw… nothing. There were multiple traps disarmed, some even laying warped and twisted far from where he had set them. But no monster. Ford couldn’t even hear it anymore. His eyes searched the enclosing trees, desperate for some sign of movement.

Nothing. It was like the creature had vanished entirely. A heavy wave of anger, frustration, and disappointment welled up in Ford’s chest, but he crushed it down ruthlessly. Now wasn’t the time; he had to think analytically. Even if the monster was gone now, it must have left something behind. He knelt down to examine the nearest snare, hoping to find some clue in the way the creature had rent the metal.

A few moments later Fiddleford came crashing out of the woods, followed closer by Ford’s brother, holding his side and gasping for breath.

“Wh-where’d it go, Poindexter?” Stan said in between gasps, hunched over with his hands on his knees. When had his twin gotten so thoroughly out of shape? Ford just shook his head in reply.

“I don’t know, Stanley.”

“It just got away?”

“Not ‘just,’” Ford replied, shaking the mangled trap in the air. Fiddleford came closer, crouching down next to him and pushing his glasses further up his nose. Patches of dirt were smeared on his cheeks, tiny scratches across his skin from rushing through the unkempt underbrush. Ford handed the twisted metal over to him, plucked a leaf from the other man’s tangled hair as Fidds began turning the object over, examining it in detail.

“Well it certainly got sprang; no blood or fluid of any kind left behind, huh?”

“Not that I’ve been able to spot, no.” There was a loud clanging and clattering from the other side of the clearing, where Stan had roughly kicked one of the larger traps. And then colorful cursing, as he hopped around on one foot, holding the one he’d used to drop-kick literal steel and iron. Ford sighed and rolled his eyes. “Stanley-”

“That’s just great!” his twin shouted, setting his foot down in favor of throwing his arms up in the air. “We’ve been out here for months – months! – with nothing to show for it!”

“These things take time-”

“What! What! You gonna tell me to be patient again? Just admit it, Ford, we’re no closer to solving anything than we were the day we rolled into this jerkwater town!”

Ford jumped to his feet, marching over to his brother. Thoroughly unintimidated, Stanley held his ground, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Ford as his twin got up in his face. “This is the closest we’ve come yet, Stanley!”

“Yeah! And what do we have to show for it! A big, fat, steaming pile of nothing!” Stan barked. Fiddleford came rushing over, throwing himself between the siblings, shoving at them in an effort to separate them. Neither of them budged even an inch.

“Guys! Let’s just, let’s just cool it, okay?” he suggested. “We’re all disappointed, Stan, but that doesn’t mean this has been a total waste.”

“You’re just taking his side, like always!”

“There’s no sides here, Stanley, we’re all on the same side,” Fidds said. His tone only seemed throwing fuel on the open fire of Stan’s temper.

“Oh really? Cause it seems to me that you two nerds are always sticking together, always leaving me out of the loop!”

“It’s hardly our fault if you can’t keep up with the conversation, Stanley!” Stan visibly bristled at his twin’s words.

“Can’t- can’t keep up?! Why you smarmy little-”

“Stanford, Stanley, that’s enough!” Fiddleford pleaded, still struggling in vain to push them apart. He fell to the side as Stan abruptly turned and walked away, Ford’s hand darting out to grab his arm and steady him.

“Forget it! I’m heading back to the shack!”

Ford and Fidds both stood unmoving, watching Stanley’s retreating form as he waded back into the woods, eliciting a soft, steady stream of curses. Well, that was Stanley for you; always making everything about himself. They were all frustrated, obviously – at the lack of progress they’d made, at the disappointing results of their current ploy. But Stan was the only one who made it personal, the only one who wanted to throw around blame. Why had he even come here?

For some reason, the thought stuck in Ford’s mind. Why was Stanley here? He wasn’t supposed to be here… was he? And Fiddleford, he shouldn’t be here either. At his side, Fidds cleared his throat, and Ford flushed, realizing he still had a death grip on his friend’s arm. He let go immediately, self-consciously pulling his hands together.

“Well… I guess we better gather up these traps then, huh?” Fiddleford offered, rubbing the area Ford had been holding onto. “For further, uh, analysis?”

“Yes, yes… good idea, Fidds.” Ford scratched the back of his head. “Uh, would you mind…?” He gestured vaguely at the clearing. “I’d like some time to think.”

“O-oh, yeah, I mean, no, I don’t mind, Ford!” Fidds eyed his friend warily, almost cautiously. He opened to his mouth to say more, but closed it again just as quickly. Ford was already walking away, deeper into the woods, clearly lost in thought. With a sigh, Fiddleford hunched over, began picking up the bent remains of the traps.

The reaching branches and tangling under root were no match for Ford as he marched steadily into the forest. First the monster, then Stanley; this day had been nothing but disappointment after bitter disappointment. How could it have gotten away? Surely the creature had been injured, having set off multiple traps designed to capture and ensnare it. Ford had heard its bellowing cry – even if it had been able to tear itself free, he should have been able to catch a glimpse of it. At the very least, it should have left behind some sign of a struggle – fur, scales, blood – anything.

It just didn’t make any sense.

Slowly, Ford came to a stop. With the adrenaline from the chase and subsequent argument fading, he could feel how sore his muscles were, how his chest burned from exertion. Having spent so much time mapping these woods in search of their inherent weirdness, Ford hadn’t been overly concerned with which direction he took, but now he came to the startling realization that he wasn’t entirely certain where he was. The trees surrounding him were all thinner than normal, with pale, gnarled bark and spotted with whirling eye-like knots. He touched the one closest to him, running his fingers over the rough surface and feeling strangely nostalgic.

Heh, nostalgic. In a part of the woods he’d never been before. Ford shook his head. Well, he might as well make the most of it. He continued on, this time taking more note of the environment around him. It almost felt like an entirely different wood; the trees here were like no other. They gave him the eerie feeling of being watched. And, he noticed, there was the barest slope to the ground, leaping him slightly downwards.

Abruptly, it seemed, he spotted a cavern entrance, nestled amongst overgrown bushes in a jutting pile of rocks. Ford paused. This all seemed so familiar, and so wrong. Where was he? How had he never stumbled upon this place before? Despite his own misgivings, he was eager to explore the cave’s dark depths, found himself itching to plunge into a new mystery. It was hardly a good idea, however. He had only the vaguest idea of how to get back to the shack, and the day had already taken its toll, his tired muscles straining.

He took off his glasses, absentmindedly cleaning them with his shirt. One short look couldn’t hurt. He didn’t have to go deep into the cavern. Ford replaced his glasses, took to rummaging through his coat pockets. Flashlight, flashlight… he was sure he’d packed one. Ah ha! There it was. Torch safely in hand, the explorer cautiously edged into the cave, clicking the light on just a few steps in. He swept its ray across the entrance way, frowning as he saw the passage leading deeper in, curving downwards and towards the right. It wouldn’t do to go too far in now.

But then, something caught his eye. On the far wall, some etching into the stone that looked too organized, too purposeful to be anything other than manmade. Writing? The excitement of discovery seemed to revitalize him, made Ford forget about any pretenses of not thoroughly examining this new area. Briefly, a guilty flash of Fiddleford and Stanley passed through his mind, but he was able to brush them aside. Fidds would be busy for the rest of the night – he wouldn’t need Ford’s help with any of traps he’d gathered – and this would give Stan the time he needed to cool off a little.

Not to mention, it would give Ford the same opportunity.

Doubts settled, Ford hurriedly strode over to the wall, studying the strange markings. Their appearance rang a bell in his mind, and he kept the flashlight trained on the shaky lettering as he pulled his journal out with his free hand, awkwardly flipping back towards the beginning. Yes, these were the same symbols he had found in various spots of the woods – presumably from whatever aboriginal culture had once made a home here. It took a few moments of cross referencing, but he eventually made out the long forgotten message – something about a ritual deeper inside the cavern, a source of knowledge and power.

Well, the idea was interesting, and tempting, but Ford didn’t place much belief in the superstitions of those long-since gone and buried. Nevertheless, a ritual chamber would be a new find for him – there was nothing like this contained in any of the other writings he had found. With one last glance towards the sun, Ford tracked on into the darkness.

The cavern went on long enough, went deep enough and with enough twists and turns that Ford considered calling the whole thing off, and perhaps coming back another time. He had a watch, but it most have broken sometime during the chase earlier. When he had tried to read it, the various hands had ticked backwards and forwards without rhyme or reason, flickering spastically across the numbers. But then, the curving hall straightened out, opened out into a dead end, and there, finally, was a carven figure on the wall, encircled by inscriptions.

His heart leapt in his throat as he gazed at the relic, that sick and nostalgic feeling swimming in his head again. Had he been here before? No, impossible. But it all seemed so familiar – painfully so. Ford came closer to the carvings, traced the three sided figure in the middle of them all with one finger. Slowly stitching together the ancient writing, he identified the incantation – to bring forth a one-eyed being of infinite answers – and clumsily recited it, his voice echoing off into the empty depths of the cave.

And… nothing. Ford could have sworn that the central figure – a triangle? the all-seeing eye? – had briefly glowed with its own power, but it was nothing more than a trick of the light. He hung around the ritual chamber for as long as he could stand, sketching out the room and its symbols, before finally admitting defeat and retracing his steps, making the long trek back out towards open sky. By the time he had reached the surface again, the sunset had fully set, the forest garbed in long, draping shadows, and Ford was exhausted.

Would Fidds and Stan be worried about him? They should be used to him going off on his own by now. Ford made it back to small clearing with the eerie trees before giving in, settling himself against the trunk of one of them. Sleeping in the middle of a forest wasn’t exactly what he would call a good idea, and that was even ignoring the fact that he knew there was some kind of monster lurking nearby. Even so, he felt tired – almost abnormally so – and he fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.

Ford somehow knew he was asleep, but he felt so alert, so strangely in control that the effect was almost disconcerting. Around him stretched the starry expanse of the universe, and he unconsciously mapped out the familiar star signs and constellations, recognizing the patterns from nights he had spent on sandy beaches with Stanley, staring up at the skies and dreaming, before-

Before what? He frowned, puzzled. Before… something. Something had pulled them apart. But that made no sense – after all, Stan had followed him all the way to Gravity Falls, a hick town in the middle of almost literally nowhere.

“HIYA, SMART GUY!” A perky voice jolted him out of his reveries, and even more surprisingly, confusingly, it seemed to be coming from… a glowing triangle, which flickered with every word. His shock must have been written all over his face, because the yellow figure let out a piercing laugh, zooming close to hover in circles around him. “Hey, don’t go having a HEART ATTACK – you’re not 92 YET!”

Ford’s mouth hung open, shut, dropped open again. What did one say to a sentient geometric figure? “I… what?”

“STANFORD PINES, am I right? What am I saying, OF COURSE I’m right!”

“…What?”

The triangle sighed – it sighed, a triangle sighed at him, what the hell – and ceased its dizzying movements. “You’re confused, I know, but you SHOULDN’T BE – you’re the one that SUMMONED ME HERE after all!”

Something finally clicked in Ford’s mind. “You… the inscriptions?”

“YUP! I know, those DECREPIT OLD WALL CARVINGS hardly do me JUSTICE! Name’s Bill Cipher!”

Bill Cipher? The name seemed oddly plain for a facet of the Eye of Knowledge and bizarrely current for the supposed age of the dated messages left in the stone walls of the cavern. Perhaps this was nothing more than a vivid, if outlandish, dream. Well, if it was his own mind, there could be no harm in playing along. And on the off chance that this was something truly supernatural going on, Ford wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass by.

“Bill Cipher? It’s… a pleasure to meet to you?” Ford held out his hand to the triangle, to Bill, but the being scooted back, waving its own small, black hands.

“Whoa whoa, don’t go getting AHEAD of YOURSELF there, IQ! Coming on a little STRONG if you know what I mean!”

Ford flushed – could he really blush in his own dream? – and let his hand drop. Despite its earlier words, the triangle immediately invaded his personal space, floating by his side and leaning its slight weight against his shoulder. Even in a dream, even through the layers of clothing on his body, Bill felt blazingly hot, crackling with energy.

“No need to get EMBARASSED, this isn’t NEARLY as bad as the time you TRIPPED over your own GRADUATION ROBES!” Ford let out a groan, covering his face with his hands. Was this just his subconscious toying with him? “Now now, why don’t you CALM those RACING THOUGHTS and let ME do the TALKING! HERE, why don’t we RELAX a little!”

A chess board, glowing and translucent, shimmered to life in front of him, and Ford fell into what was perhaps the most comfortable chair he’d ever experienced in his life. The little triangle – Bill, Bill Cipher – had blinked out of existence next to his shoulder, instead appeared across the board, settled in its own armchair. Did mathematical figures need creature comforts like furniture? The whole situation was perplexing, but he tried to do as Bill asked, tried to calm himself and his constantly questioning mind.

“I’m not a FIGURE of your IMAGINATION – though I HAVE to say, yours is as INVENTIVE and CREATIVE an imagination as I’ve SEEN – but you want HARD PROOF! Well, you’ll get it when you WAKE UP, assuming you do one thing for me.” As Cipher spoke, he swirled one pitch black finger in the air, a set of teacups and their matching kettle popping into existence over his hand. Once one was filled, it floated over to Ford, bobbing on an unseen current. Despite Bill’s hospitality and friendliness, Ford felt himself go slightly on edge. Do something for him?

“What is it you’re wanting me to do?”

“Listen, we BOTH want the same thing!” Ford stared, unabashed, as Bill’s eye winked and transformed seamlessly into a mouth, sipping at his tea. The scientist’s own tea was left forgotten in his hand, poised halfway to his mouth. “You’re HUNTING the MONSTERS of GRAVITY FALLS, and having some TROUBLE with it, right?”

At that, Ford perked up. “I- Yes, that’s exactly right! Do you know what they are? Why can’t I find them? How do they keep escaping?”

“Hey, hey, ONE QUESTION at a TIME!” Bill chided him gently, sounding more amused than scornful. “I KNOW what they are, all right! Spirits, or DEMONS – manifestations of that force you HUMANS know as EVIL! As you are RIGHT NOW, you can’t SEE THEM, can’t TOUCH THEM – shouldn’t even be able to HEAR THEM, but you’re EXCEPTIONAL among your SPECIES!”

Ford’s head was reeling, thoughts chasing themselves in dizzying loops. Demons? Spirits? He was supposed to believe all this?

“You’re got your DOUBTS, Fordsy, and I LIKE THAT about you!” Bill left his seat, floated through the chessboard that dissipated into smoke at his touch. “But here’s the THING – we BOTH want those things gone, and NEITHER of us can do it WITHOUT the OTHER!”

Frowning, Ford stayed quiet for a moment, chewing over Bill’s words. The triangle needed him? “What are you proposing?”

“Just a little DEAL – a PARTNERSHIP, even! I’ll LEND you some of my POWER – it’ll allow you to DEAL with these creatures on EQUAL FOOTING! And I’ll even come along to HELP YOU get the HANG of it!”

“So what do you want in return?”

Bill’s eye curved in what Ford was sure, somehow, was a smile. It sent a shiver up his spine. “You just have to PROMISE ME that you’ll DESTROY THEM, Sixer!”

Destroy them? The thought made Ford blanch. He wanted to find and document new species, that much was true; to study them and their ways, but to destroy them? He wasn’t sure he was up for that kind of task. Who was he to say what should live or die?

“I don’t know, Bill…”

“I understand your CONCERNS, Ford, I do! But TRUST ME, these things are BAD NEWS! You’ve SEEN the DAMAGE they LEAVE BEHIND, and that’s just the PHYSICAL EFFECTS!” Bill’s body suddenly lit up, flickering like a film on an old projector. Images of people, crying alone, standing at funerals, of accidents, of sickness, abandoned homes and dreams. “They SPREAD PAIN and SUFFERING like a PLAGUE, PROPRAGATING themselves through the MISERY of HUMANS. You can even use your NEWS REPORTS like a MAP to FIND THEM!”

The triangle flashed back to yellow, and he made a fist in the air to his side and yanked it down. Above it, a map unfurled as though Bill had unrolled it. It was a map of Oregon, and black dots began speckling across it, becoming more and more closely clumped together as they neared the epicenter of Gravity Falls.

“ACCIDENTS, SUICIDES, VIOLENT CRIMES, CHILDREN CHEATING ON STANDARDIZED TESTING – ALL of it INCREASES the CLOSER you get to good old GRAVITY FALLS!”

Ford leaned forward in his chair, studying the map. At least this was a piece of information he could verify with his own research. Still, it seemed a tad farfetched, and what was that last one? Where was he supposed to get statistics about children cheating, of all things?

“And you’re saying these… demons are the cause of it all?”

“That’s EXACTLY what I’m saying!” Bill tugged on the bottom of the map and it rolled itself up again, blipping out of existence. “But I’m ALSO saying that you’re the only human around that can STOP THEM! I don’t APPEAR to just ANYONE who comes TRAIPSING into my CAVE!”

“I’m the only one?” The idea made him uneasy, nervous, but there was something appealing about it too.

“You got it! You’ve got NATURAL TALENT – it’s why you were able to SUMMON ME in the FIRST place! I can’t just give my MAGIC to any old SHMUCK, they wouldn’t be able to USE IT!” Bill came even closer, placed a hand on each of Ford’s cheeks. The triangle’s dark skin was surprisingly cool in comparison to the flickering heat of his body. “I haven’t seen a MIND like YOURS in a long, long time.”

Ford shifted in his seat slightly. “I have one more question, Bill.”

“’COURSE you do, CHAMP!”

“Why can’t you just deal with these things yourself?” After all, if he was going to be borrowing Bill’s power to deal with them anyway what was the sense of playing middleman?

“Well I can’t INTERFERE with your world DIRECTLY like the SPIRITS can! I’m stuck on the METAPHYSICAL side for all intents and purposes! I’ll be able to MANIFEST around you while you’re using my POWERS but otherwise I’m TRAPPED here in the dreamscape!” Bill’s hands finally dropped from his face, but one snaked down to tap against Ford’s sternum. “But REALLY, you should think of my MAGIC as a LOANER – it should be JUST ENOUGH to get your OWN MAGIC cranking!”

“My own…?”

“Now LISTEN, I hate to cut our CHAT short – I KNOW how important FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE – but that BEASTY you were TANGLING with EARLIER is starting to SNIFF AROUND your BODY!” Ford shot to his feet, narrowly missing head-butting Bill as the triangle floated backward.

“It’s here?! I have to go! I have to wake up! I have to-” CAN’T SLEEP, CAN’T SLEEP, CAN’T SLEEP.

“Hey, CALM DOWN, Sixer!” This time, when Bill touched him – gently now, like he was a startled cat – Ford flinched bodily. Where had that thought come from? Can’t sleep? “You can WAKE UP whenever you WANT to – you’re on the VERGE of it now, even! But if you go out there AS YOU ARE that thing’ll just GET AWAY again – OR WORSE, it could really HURT YOU!” Bill actually sounded quite concerned. And he had a good point. Ford had no weapons on him, aside from a flashlight and some pens, and despite the old adage, he would much rather have a sword in this particular instance if he was supposed to face down a demon.

“All right.”

“All right?”

“I’ll do it!” Ford declared. Bill looked briefly surprised, then incredibly happy, and he even threw his little arms in the air, confetti flying from the tips of his fingers. Ford found himself grinning in return. Then his eye flared bright, burning blue and Bill extended his hand, wreathed in flames of the same color.

“IT’S A DEAL THEN, PARTNER!”

Without hesitation, Ford clasped Bill’s outstretched hand. The fire licked at and tickled his skin.

“It’s a deal!”

With that, Ford found himself abruptly awake, utterly alone in the strange glade. He didn’t feel any different at all, save for an aching back from having slept against a tree. Was it all just a dream? If he had just made a deal with a supernatural being he would expect something to be different, to feel more powerful or capable, or… something, anything! It had seemed too real, and unlike most dreams, he could remember every second of it. A low groan issued out of the woods to his side, the sound of a tree bending, bending, and finally snapping, splintering. The monster! The demon! He’d forgotten all about it!

Ford scrambled to his feet, and something slid off his chest, landed heavily among the thick, dark grass of the clearing. What was that? He knelt back down, searched through the long blades of grass until his fingers ran across something oddly smooth and sharp. Pulling it up to eye level, Ford tried to examine the object. It was difficult to see it clearly in the dark, but it appeared to be a triangle – of course it was - with perhaps some sort of gem embedded in the middle, serving as an eye.

His heart leapt – it hadn’t just been a dream! This was incredible, unbelievable! His elation was cut short by another crashing sound nearby, one of the pale and slender trees falling to the ground. Even if it had been real, even if he had some of Bill’s power now, the being hadn’t exactly told him how to use it. Ford got to his feet again. If he was going to die to this spirit, this demon, this whatever-it-was, it wasn’t going to be on his knees. His hands clenched into fists, his right hand squeezing hard around the small triangle in his hand, and the clearing was suddenly lit up in a gold, gleaming light.

It all seemed to be emanating from his fist, and Ford held his right hand in front of his chest, opening it try and peer at the now almost blinding pendant. When released, the golden triangle floated before him, and Ford felt a sudden surge of power flood into his body. Everything seemed white hot, like electricity jumping through his body, burning ribbons wrapping around his flesh, and just as quickly as it began, it stopped again, the light slowly fading.

“HIYA Sixer! LOOKIN’ GOOD!” Ford startled, glancing to his side. Bill was there, looking as chipper as ever, his body providing the only light in the dark forest. Looking good? Why would he say that? But Ford felt different, and looked down, and wished the ground would swallow him whole, and maybe he should just run into the jaws of whatever demon was hunting him.

“B-Bill! What the hell?! I wasn’t- I wasn’t wearing this!” For some reason, he was desperate for the triangle to know that Ford hadn’t dressed himself this way. Everything was tight – far too tight – and colorful, and surprisingly floofy, a huge bow on his chest that held the gold pendant in its center, and was he wearing shorts!? Why God?

“I KNOW! I thought a COSTUME CHANGE might be FUN! You know, make this moment REALLY special! Even your GLASSES look cooler!” Cooler? Oh god, Ford did not want to see his face right now. “I LIKE IT, Sixer! Those BOOTS really EMPHASIZE your CALVES!” Ford wanted to die. “Okay, okay, I’m getting the feeling you don’t LIKE IT, but we’ll have to time to TALK SHOP later! Right now you might wanna deal with THAT GUY!” Bill pointed to the edge of the clearing where something unnatural was coiling its long body around the trees, claws scratching at the bark.

As the costume had been, this demon was surprisingly colorful – none of this was going exactly as Ford might have thought it would. Its snakelike body was painted with splotches and stripes of clashing colors, loud enough that they actually hurt to look at. It had spindly white arms and legs located seemingly at random, all ending in reptilian hands and feet equipped with long, curving claws. The demon’s head popped up over the trees, snakelike but as garishly colored as the rest of its body.

“I don’t think it’s SPOTTED US YET!” At the triangle’s loud, obnoxious words, the demon’s head turned straight towards them. Ford swore he saw it raise an eyebrow. “HEY, maybe its VISION is BASED on MOVEMENT! If. We. Stay. Very. Still.-” Bill didn’t get to finish his stilted sentence as the creature suddenly lunged towards them. Ford grabbed the triangle in one hand, ignoring Bill’s indignant shout and leapt away, narrowly avoiding the snapping jaws of the demon, startled when his jump launched him high into the air.

It was exhilarating on the way up, but Ford reached the apex of his jump and realized he was about to go crashing that same distance all the way to the ground. Bill wiggled out of his grasp somehow, floated in the air next to him.

“You’re about to start FALLING, right?”

Ford couldn’t answer as gravity finally set in, but he only fell a few inches before long, dark arms hooked under his own, dragging him back up. He stared up at the triangle in shock.

“Look, I don’t wanna be DOING THIS all the time, okay? This is a ONE TIME RIDE until you FIGURE OUT how to fly! It’s not even that HARD! Just think of really LIGHT THINGS, like feathers and BUBBLES and that fancy WHIPPED YOGURT stuff!” It was hard to think of anything just now, as the demon launched itself into the sky after them, its head bursting through the canopy in a spray of leaves. Bill just hauled Ford up higher, and Ford yelped, lifting his legs up as the monster’s jaws clamped shut just centimeters below him, the creature slowly falling back down to the earth. Bill was laughing. “What a MORON!”

“W-What are we going to do about that thing?” Ford stared down at the rustling trees below them, his whole body swaying up and down as Bill shrugged.

“Well, you gotta go down there SOMETIME and deal with it! Whoa, HEAD’S UP, LITERALLY!” Bill laughed and jerked Ford up again as the beast threw itself up a second time, howling in rage and frustration. “Man, this THING is REALLY as DUMB as it LOOKS!”

“You know, maybe taunting a literal demon isn’t a good idea, Bill,” Ford offered. “How exactly am I supposed to ‘deal with’ that?” He grit his teeth as his answer was another shrug.

“How you USE my power – and how YOUR OWN MANIFESTS – is up to you! The SKY’S the LIMIT, pal!” Bill casually threw Ford into the air, catching him bridal style on the way down. This was the most bizarre, humiliating day Ford had experienced yet in life. “What do you say? Ready to go DOWN THERE and TEACH that DEMON a LESSON?”

“I-”

The monster interrupted them again, once more surging up from the dark forest. Bill started laughing at it, his eyehole switching to a mouth to blow a raspberry at the beast. This time, however, the demon’s tongue lashed out, long and prehensile, and looped itself around Ford’s ankle, yanking the man out of Bill’s arms and dragging him down the ground with it.

“I BELIEVE IN YOU!” Bill called after him, and Ford lost sight of him soon after as he and the monster crashed back through the canopy.

They both hit the trees hard, the shock of the impact loosening the thing’s tongue and setting Ford free. Branches broke under his weight as he tumbled through the trees, their splinters scratching at his exposed skin. Why, oh why, had Bill thought short – short – pants and a sleeveless shirt was the proper attire for monster fighting? Ford hit the ground hard, knocked breathless but feeling better than he suspected he should for having fallen god knows how far.

He barely had a chance to get to his feet before the demon was charging forth through the underbrush. It paused before him, rearing its head up like a cobra, long mouth open as it practically screeched at him. Besides the coloring, size, and unnatural limb placement, it actually looked pretty normal now that Ford had a chance to examine it. Its head shot forward, and split vertically down the middle, the four sides of its face unfurling like a particularly disgusting and sharp-toothed flower. Ford could see all the way down its gullet, a long dark hole collared with painful looking spikes.

He promptly turned and ran from the beast, though judging by its roars and the near constant din of shattering trees, it was staying right behind. Think, think, he just needed time to think. Why hadn’t Bill just taught him how to use all this damn power he supposedly had? Instead, the triangle had just prattled on about nothing, about yogurt. Bill had said something about how his powers manifested, didn’t he? That it was up to him?

His mind immediately conjured up images of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons, of the mage character Ford so often played, and the air around his hands started shimmering, tingling. Ford slid to a halt, turned his palms up to examine what was happening to them, and a staff materialized above them. He almost wished it hadn’t. It was long and slender, the shaft white with twining lines of pink and gold circling it. At its head, the two lines became fluffy white wings arching off to either side, and in the middle, oh god, was a rose in full bloom, a glistening gemstone nestled in the center of its petals.

Oh, he and Bill were definitely going to have a chat after this. There was no time now for Ford to curl up in a ball and wither away of mortification. He had a weapon, he had inexplicable magic powers at his command, and the only thing left to do was send this demon back to whatever Technicolor hell it had clawed its way out of it. Ford whirled around, holding the staff diagonally across his body just in time for the monster to surge forth from the darkness, mouth opened to consume him, inhuman wails echoing in his ears.

“Hold monster!” He shouted the first spell that came to mind, aiming the embellished head of his staff directly at the demon. It was quite a high level spell, and Ford wasn’t even sure he would be able to use it, but there was a great gush of wind as the gem of his stave lit brightly and the monster froze, hanging suspended in the middle of its lunge. Beneath its strange, smooth skin, Ford could see the creature’s muscles shuddering spastically as it struggled in his magical hold.

With the demon immobilized, Ford dared to edge closer to it. Maybe he would have time to sketch it, examine it in detail? Not that there was room for pockets or a notebook in this getup. He reached out cautiously, running a hand against the demon’s flesh. It whined menacingly in response. The colors of its skin appeared to be constantly shifting, a brash kaleidoscope. In the corner of his eye, Ford saw movement, looked down its elongated body to see its tail twitching, some of its back limbs feebly kicking. It didn’t look like his spell was going to hold much longer.

“Scorching ray!” Ford was silently thankful for all the long nights he and Fiddleford had spent playing his favorite game. He would have to be sure to rub this in Stanley’s face afterwards. The monster howled and writhed as its body went up in flames, and even through his excitement and satisfaction, Ford felt a little bad for the beast. It burned for longer than he would have thought, and it seemed to grow smaller and smaller in the blaze until all at once the fire went out, and Ford saw something small and white fall from the air into the bushes.

The quiet that fell over the woods felt strange. Ford held his staff loosely in one hand, walking over to the bushes and crouching down, searching for whatever had dropped at the beast’s demise. He had the thought that this would be easier with a bit of light, and the gem began shining once more, casting a pink light around the area. Oh. Maybe he didn’t have to say the spells out loud.

“Nicely DONE, Fordsy! I KNEW you could DO IT!” The triangle seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, shoving a hand in his hair and ruffling it affectionately. A smile broke out on Ford’s face. Whatever misgivings he might have had slowly lessened. He had done it. And if everything else Bill had said so far had been true, that meant that this creature must have been a demon, had been causing pain and destruction for its own purposes, and deserved its pathetic end. Bill was smiling too, before he floated closer to look at where Ford had been previously searching.

“Oh, it looked like it dropped something,” Ford said in explanation.

“YEAH, they’ll DO THAT!” The two of them shifted through the tangled roots and brush for a few moments, before Ford spotted a flash of white.

“There it is!” His hand shot forward and he found himself holding a tiny albino lizard, wriggling frantically between his fingers. He briefly squeezed it until it went limp, panting, and then he held it up for Bill to inspect. “What is it?”

“Lemme see it,” Bill said, holding out one small hand. Ford deposited the little creature in Bill’s hand, and the triangle held the thing dangling between two fingers, pulling it close to his eye and peering at it. And then he closed his eye, opening it again as a mouth and dropping the creature in.

“Bill! What the hell!” The triangle laughed at Ford’s outraged tone.

“Relax, Sixer! I just BANISHED it back to its PLANE of EXISTENCE!”

“Why did it look like you were eating it then?”

“Oh, I thought it would be FUNNY!” Bill flicked Ford’s nose, but his limbs drooped guiltily when the frown didn’t fade from the man’s face. “Okay, okay, I won’t DO THAT again! But they’ve GOTTA GO somehow!”

Ford sighed, standing up straight. “So, that was a demon?”

“Yup! A LESSER ONE, but a DEMON all the same! It was SIPHONING off CHILDREN’S HOPES and DREAMS, hence the, ahem, COLORFUL nature!” With how brightly, forcefully yellow Bill himself was colored, Ford thought the triangle hardly had room to talk. “I meant what I SAID, you managed that QUITE WELL! I’m IMPRESSED! Not many HUMANS could pull that off!” Ford shifted slightly from side to side but he was smiling again. The triangle drifted downwards, running a finger against one of the numerous small cuts covering Ford’s legs. “You MAY have a POINT about that OUTFIT though – I forget how FRAGILE your skin can be!”

Whatever Bill was, he clearly didn’t understand the concept of personal space. Ford felt hot from his collar bones to his ears, and he reached down, dropping his staff and gently grabbing the triangle’s bottom angles, pulling him up him. Here in the physical world, Bill didn’t feel as scaldingly hot as he’d felt when they met. And he just looked so happy, it was kind of infectious.

“Maybe something a little less flashy next time,” Ford suggested. He let go of the triangle but Bill stayed hovering close by, tapping a finger against his front surface like he was considering the man’s request. “And pants. Pants are a must.”

“If you say so~” Bill singsonged in reply. It wasn’t very comforting. Ford wanted to argue more, but he was struck with a sudden wave of dizziness. His limbs felt like lead. Belatedly, he realized Bill’s hands were on his shoulders, holding him steady. “Getting a little SLEEPY there, Sixer?”

“Yes, exhausted, actually.” His mouth felt like it was filled with cotton.

“You EXPENDED a lot of ENERGY there – flashy SPELLS make for quick work but they DRAIN you pretty THOROUGHLY! I’m honestly SURPRISED you’re still standing!” Bill laughed as Ford suddenly wavered on his feet, knees starting to buckle. “WHOA, maybe I SPOKE too SOON! All right, let’s just get you back to that FANCY WOODEN SHACK of yours, huh?” For the second time that day – maybe even that hour – Ford found himself scooped up, Bill carrying him high over the treetops.

“I thought you said it was a one-time ride,” Ford reminded him. Bill glared at him in return.

“Hey, don’t MAKE me drop you! This is ONLY because I don’t want you doing something DUMB and HUMAN like DYING OF EXPOSURE in the middle of the WOODS!” Mortifying position aside, it was kind of nice. Bill was warm, and when Ford closed his eyes the brightness of his body was soothing, reminded him of resting outside on a summer’s day. It felt like only seconds later that Bill was shaking him awake, probably about as gently as the triangle was capable of doing anything. They were still in the woods, but through the trees Ford could see the lights of the shack. Bill carefully set him on his feet. “Well, this is the END of the LINE! You don’t have to GO HOME but you CAN’T STAY HERE!”

That seemed like a reference to something, but it went over Ford’s head. “Thank you, Bill.” He looked down at his clothing, the ridiculous and now banged up outfit still in place. “Uh, how do I…?”

“Oh! Just take that BROOCH thingy off!” Bill tapped the golden triangle on Ford’s chest. “But I can ONLY manifest here PHYSICALLY when it’s ACTIVE, so I guess it’s GOODBYE for now!”

“Oh.” Ford felt strangely disappointed.

“Least you’ll be back in your BORING, NORMAL clothes, right?” Bill blinked at him rather forcefully, and Ford wondered if that was supposed to have been a wink. “Either WAY, GOOD JOB TODAY, PARTNER!”

“Please, Bill, call me a friend.” The triangle’s eye curved in a delighted grin.

“You got it, pal!”

Ford removed the pendant – it wasn’t a brooch - watching as Bill slowly faded away like a mirage. If it wasn’t for the complete exhaustion and heavy golden triangle in his hand, Ford would have believed it all a dream. He shoved the badge into his pocket and headed toward the shack, wondering what the hell he was going to tell Fidds and Stanley.

[rebeccahpedersen]

Turn Back The Clock: Garth Turner In 2006

TorontoRealtyBlog

A reader sent me this article last week, and I found it quite interesting.

I’m not here today, with the benefit of hindsight, to provide any sort of “I told you so,” but rather to look at why real estate bears like Garth Turner, or Hilliard Macbeth, thought that the Canadian real estate market was set to crash – before it more than doubled in many places.

Cynics will point to the profits these bears have made from directing followers and listeners away from real estate, but there simply must be reasons for their predictions, right?

In this article, Mr. Turner provided several…

(This is a transcript of the March 24th, 2006 article in its entirety)

The real estate boom is over. You may or may not like that news,but it is now official.  I am calling the eight-year-long housing lovefest, finito.

Done like dinner.  Does that mean housing prices are going to start spiralling lower, with a rerun of the equity-busting days of the early 1990s? Should families who have concentrated most of their wealth in their homes be panicking?

Hardly.  I see no storm clouds on the horizon.  But neither do I see the weather conditions that would allow prices to keep on rising.  And there is one overwhelming piece of news that,more than anything else, should tell everyone that real estate is an overvalued commodity ripe for correction.

This past week my friend Peter Vukanovich,who came to visit me a few days ago in my MP’s riding office, pulled the trigger.  His company, Genworth Financial, has now become the first mortgage insurer to cover 35-year home loans.  That goes one better than CHMC, which three weeks ago said it would insure 30- year-long mortgages.  And the country’s best-known mortgage guru, whom I spent time with as well last week in the boardroom of a Toronto law firm, told me in hushed tones he is preparing for the advent of the 50-year mortgage.

What does this mean? And what’s the big difference from today’s normal 25-year mortgage amortization?

Simply, it is this: Mortgages have always been very large debts for people to pay,and in order to make them more affordable, the payments have been spread over a long period of time – usually 25 years. The effect of this is that monthly payments are brought down,but the amount you end up paying back rises.  At today’s interest rates, with a 25-year am, you actually pay the lender about twice what you borrowed – almost $580,000 in payments on a $300,000 mortgage.

So, when the payment period (that’s the amortization part – based on the French verb ‘to kill’) is extended, then the same formula kicks in, namely, lower monthly payments and a greater amount actually repaid.  In the case of that $300,000 mortgage and a 35-year amortization,monthly payments fall from $2,000 a month to about $1,700, but the amount you dish over rises by $135,000, to a substantial $712,000.

So, why does this show the real estate market has peaked and is about to hit the down escalator?  Simply because this is the third major indicator that housing prices have passed the ability of the average family to afford them.  And anytime that transpires,the writing is on the garage wall.

First we have had the unprecedented use of the 5 per cent down payment program.  Genworth’s Vukanovich told me in our meeting about the tens of billions in mortgages his company has just insured for buyers in that program – in fact, this is where almost all of the mortgage growth is.  Not good.  Buyers putting up 5 per cent of the price of a home and mortgaging 95% are doing the same things as stock market junkies snapping up securities on margin.  The only way they make money is if the asset rises in value,and quickly.  So far the 5 per cent down crowd have done very well, since their extreme leveraging has paid off in a rising market.  But if housing prices move in the opposite direction, their tiny little bit of equity can evaporate in a week or two, leaving them with nothing but a sea of debt. Oh yeah, and a home they “own.”

The second indication this is a market living on somebody else’s oxygen was the announcement some months ago that several of the banks would lend money to people who don’t have any — hence, the zero-down mortgage.  Borrowers with good strong employment earnings, but no savings, suddenly qualified to buy houses they could not afford.  Need I say more?  But, actually,there is more – because boutique lenders will now give you enough money for 100 per cent of the purchase prices, plus more cash for the closing costs and a new plasma TV.

So, here we have the third indicator – amortizations which have gone from 25 years to 30, then to 35 years and quite possibly now to fifty.  This is irrefutable proof that houses at these levels are unaffordable if you play by the rules that have influenced real estate supply and demand for the last three generations.  And layer on top of that the effect of five recent mortgage rate increases, with the prospect of a couple more to come, and you can see what’s going down.

Over the last year, Vancouver house prices rose 26 per cent.  In Calgary, 24 per cent.  In Toronto, just 6 per cent.  I would argue that the inevitable correction in real estate prices has already started in the GTA and will soon be spreading west. In mid-town Toronto right now, you have to spend $1.3 million to buy an 80-year-old brick house on a street full of the same houses, on a 30-foot-wide lot with no garage.  And this is not an area of wealthy millionaire families, but rather working couples with public school-age kids. They may live in million-dollar homes, but they quite often also have million-dollar mortgages.

The only way they’ll make money on those houses is if they find somebody to pay even more.  And behind that indebted buyer will be a generous lender. And behind that lender, a creative insurer. And you don’t want to know what’s behind him.

More on this, soon.

Again, thanks to a reader for finding this 12-year-old article and sending it my way.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention what you all already know…

The average Toronto home price in March of 2006 when this article was published was $353,134.  This past May of 2018, the average was $805,320.  That’s an increase of 128%.

The Canada-wide HPI Benchmark Index sat at $307,700 in March of 2006, and has risen some 108% to $637,500 this past month.

But let’s get that out of the way.  I’m pretty sure Mr. Turner doesn’t care anyways.

I’m more interested in his reasons for the impending “end” to the real estate boom, and how looking back, they were so right – even though they were completely wrong.

What I mean is, he identified issues in the market that, he thought, would be troublesome.

And looking back, many of these issues were noted and acted upon by the Finance Minister and/or CMHC (making Mr. Turner right), and yet the market still continued to climb (Making Mr. Turner wrong).

Mr. Turner first noted that buying with a 5% down payment was a problem, as it would leave buyers “owning” their homes with a 95% debt-load.  Perhaps he wasn’t wrong in identifying this was an issue, considering the changes that have been implemented by the CMHC since then:

1) Minimum 20% down payment over $1,000,000. 2) Minimum 20% down payment on investment and/or second properties. 3) Increased down payment requirement on mortgage amount from $500,000 – $999,999 from 5% to 10%.

The second point that Mr. Turner made was about 0% down mortgages, and even cash-back mortgages.  In 2007, I had a client buy with the 107% financing plan, whereby he purchased for $1,000,000 and provided a $50,000 deposit cheque, and upon closing, was given the $50,000 back by the lender, plus another $20,000.

But these programs were long done away with, as the minimum down payment requirements above explain.

The third point that Mr. Turner made was actually two points – first about the increase in amortization periods, the second about the five consecutive hikes in mortgage rates.

Amortizations did reach 40 years, but then came back down to 25 and 30.  Most buyers out there right now look for, or can only qualify for, a 25-year amortization.  The 30-year product still exists, but isn’t nearly as prevalent.  As for the potential “50-year amortization,” I had honestly never heard of this as a possibility until I read this 2006 article.  I don’t know how close this was to ever becoming a reality.

As for the increase in mortgage rates, and prediction of subsequent rates, Mr. Turner was hypothesizing here.  Or if you want to try to get into his head, based on his feelings on the market, he might have been catastrophizing.  Adding potential increased rates to his other qualms would only make the fire burn brighter!

Looking back on this article twelve years later, and knowing Garth Turner’s track record, and history of disastrously-incorrect predictions about the real estate market, I’m actually going to come away giving him more credit than I previously did.

His predictions, at least, were based on ‘problems’ in both the real estate and mortgage markets, several of which were rectified.

As I said, it’s ironic (or more disastrous for his predictions) that increasing down payment regulations and shrinking amortization periods didn’t make the market turn and run the other way.

But I have to give him credit for putting this into print – even before the housing crisis in the United States began two years later.

The post Turn Back The Clock: Garth Turner In 2006 appeared first on Toronto Real Estate Property Sales & Investments | Toronto Realty Blog by David Fleming.

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