#some weird lucid cult shit

[slime-sandwhich-nom]

Can't believe charlie slimecicle finally embraced his destiny and returned to the corn, where he can finally lead the corn cult.

[let-me-iiiiiiiin]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers (ó ꒳ ò✿)

You're countering my ask attack with the very same ask I see 😔🤝

I guess I should find 5 more things that make me happy.... ummmmm

Cooking. I'm not good at it, but sometimes I hit jackpot and make a divine meal, and the experimentation is very fun <3 full tummy makes me happy

Lucid dreams. I love doing weird shit in my head

I also enjoy video games a lot; the ones I play regularly are Warcraft, cult of the lamb, Tale of Immortal, some other smaller titles, and idk if this counts but DOL too

Specific times of the day make me happy. I like the night. I like the morning. I like dawn and dusk, and I like the afternoon. All of them make me happy <3

Drawing shitposts. I have no idea why but every cracky thing I draw is a masterpiece. It makes me laugh like nothing else :D

Thanks for this <333 beloved mutual

[hyperfixiationstation]

Thoughts on LUCIDS Part four

Once again, I took forever to post this, sorry. Spoilers for LUCIDS Part four under the cut.

1.  I love the little chimes when the apple pops up into view as he throws it. I just think the opening scene is really cool.  

2.Wait if they met in Elementary school, does that mean in this universe Benjamin could go and talk to a little Isabelle?

3. I definitely have to copy down his speech about everything constantly existing for theorizing purposes.

4. Benjamin writing his proposal speech is the sweetest thing I have ever scene, and I am absolutely in love with their relationship now. I desperately wish that there were more fanfiction writers in this fandom so that I could read so much fanfiction about it! Unfortunately, we have a grand total of like one person, so I guess I will have to suffer. 

5.Aghhh I love Isabelle's voice! 

6.Oh my god its the scene from the epilogue!

7.I LOVE THEIR INTERACTIONS SO MUCH! Oliver making for of Benjamin for being dramatic is quite possibly my favorite thing ever. I’ve probably mentioned this already, but Characters and relationship dynamics are always my favorite things in any series, and little things like that, and them knowing there is going to be a PowerPoint when Ms. Hills talks to them gives me so much joy.

8. Ms. Hills back at it again with the stellar memes! Also, the roasting of Benjamin’s jokes is so good.

9. Wait, its been at least 3 days, and neither of their parents have gotten at all suspicious that they haven’t seen their child? I’m slightly worried by this information. 

10. I know that I’ve been talking about like, every other line so far, but they’ve just been so good that it feels wrong for me not to comment on them. Anyway, the shot of Oliver calling dibs on Benjamin’s bed, Benjamin protesting, then it immediately cutting to Oliver sitting on Benjamin’s bed while joking with him is one of my favorite scenes in this whole series, and this episode has already managed to surpass part 2 as my favorite episode at only like 5 minutes in.

11. Oliver’s facial expressions when Benjamin is going on about the dreamscapes are so incredible, and I just- UGH! I can’t express how much I love this series. 

12.Ok, I already addressed how I’ve been talking about every single line and how redundant I am in this post, so I’m just going to say how much I love Benjamin and Oliver’s dynamic one more time, and then I’ll shut up about it for this episode. 

13. Ms. Hill’s facial expressions and mannerisms are one of my favorite things about this frickin series. Her little proud shift when she tells them that she made more “Dank memes” and her smirk at Oliver’s terrible joke are so good.

14. Ok, now we’ve caught up to the point where everything in Jasper, the Epilogue, and the Trailer have happened, so there is literally zero knowledge of what is going to happen going forward, and I am so excited for it!

15. Did Quinn not recognize Benjamin from the cult? Or was he just asking about Oliver?

16. I did say I wasn’t going to praise Benjamin and Oliver’s dynamic anymore, but I have to give some appreciation to Jasper and Quinn. Gosh it’s great. Like we only got one scene, but gushing about a show together is one of the best examples of friendship. Also, I’m so glad that Oliver got to hear people gush about his show like that. He deserves it. 

17. QUINN IS A LUCID! I lowkey expected that, but I didn’t expect him to be like... practiced at it. Also, my friend mentioned this when I rewatched it with her, but the swear filter is such a great detail.

18. Why was this scene cut into Jasper episode 6? Does time move that much quicker in Jasper’s dreamscape? Does this give an indication of how time works as far as dreamscapes go? Does time move quicker in some dreamscapes than others? Did he not actually see this when he was knocked out at that time, and that was just foreshadowing?

19. Hey, he referenced the discord! Cool!

20. Oliver getting winded after like 5 seconds of running is a mood. Like same dude, same. 

21. Time for your regularly scheduled loving the music in this series mention. It is so incredibly good! I’ve actually been paying more attention to it lately, and I am completely blown away. I don’t know if that is because this is like par for the course, and I haven’t really thought about the soundtrack for shows that much in the past, or because this series in particular is really good, but either way I enjoy it immensely. 

22.I do not talk enough about the cinematography in this thing. Once again, it might not be more than what most shows do, but this is all done by like one guy! It is amazing!

23. I just realized that Oliver and Benjamin probably just straight up passed out in the Whole Foods in the first episode of TAOBAO. 

24. I wonder if Jasper is going to address what Oliver told him with Quinn later, or if he’s just gonna be like, “oh well,” and keep on livin. 

25. It is moments like these where I wish the fandom was bigger. Normally, I would have been reading Oliver/Benjamin and Quinn/Jasper fanfiction this entire time, and then after this interaction I would have been able to enjoy the brand new flurry of Jasper/Oliver fanfiction, but once again, all I can do is suffer.

26. Wait, why didn’t Ms. Hills realize that Quinn was a Lucid before? Are there certain criteria you have to meet to technically be a Lucid?

27. Was weird time jumping shenanigans going on? Why did we get a clip of Benjamin waking up? Are we going to learn more about how LUCIDS do time stuff in the future?

28. The Ah! A tree! guy was funny enough on his own, but Nick later explained it on the livestream, and gosh, that was a layered joke. 

29. What the actual fuck Ms. Hills. God I have so many thoughts and feelings about this scene. First of all, I almost cried the first time I watched it. Second of all, how are Benjamin and Oliver going to handle this information? Oliver especially? Like that is brutal man. Third of all, who did Quinn meet? Did he find another Lucid who trained him? What happened? Fourth of all, does Arthur know about this? Also, this was an observation from someone in the Discord server who wasn’t me, but does this have any implications for Arthur leaving and then Ms. Hills telling Oliver that “he always comes back”? Holy shit man, this scene is so crazy.

30. Benjamin cheated on Isabelle!? When they had a daughter together!? That scene was like two punches to the face, finding out about what Ms. Hills did, and then what Benjamin did. I can’t believe that he would open with that 2 minute shot making me fall completely in love with their relationship, and then just rip out my heart and completely stomp on it like that. 

31.Before I go into my closing thoughts, I just have to mention how much I love that ending music. Its so sweet and calming and comforting, and I want to be able to listen to the full version as soon as possible. This episode took everything I loved about Part 2, and then ramped it up to a ten. The soundtrack felt even more impressive, the characterization was pure gold in every single line, the character dynamics felt so real and natural, the plot twists were so incredibly insane, and the ending music makes me feel even more like I’m going to cry than the one from Part 2 did, but like in a good, comforting way.

32. Every single character in this series has to have an angsty backstory and moral complexity, don’t they? Like I can’t think of a single main character that those things don’t apply to in at least some way. 

33. Apparently Isabelle is voiced by a fan called astronautdancer (I think that is right) on TikTok who made a spinoff series about Isabelle, which I’m really excited to watch! (Nick did say it probably wasn’t canonical though)

[heyyylittlemo]

Ask game

1. Where did you hide the body??

Me: *pause* No, where did you hide the body—

*police stare at me with disbelief*

Me: there’s no—there’s not a single body here—well stop looking at me like that, you’re the cop! You should know! Why are you asking me for! Body? Whaaaaaat. Ahaha.

*cops shake head*

*whispers to my friend* Guys I think I pulled that one off

Police: you know we can hear everything you’re saying

me: 👁👄👁

2. Favorite rock? The 1975. Dominic Fike. Arctic Monkeys. Bad Suns. The killers. Pale Waves. Etc. That good good shit 👌

3. Most aesthetic season? Fall. Love them orange colors. The leaves falling. Though spring is also neat if you have a bunch of flowers bloomin in shit and winter is only aesthetic when it’s snowing. Boring ass summer tho just be heating me up.

4. When texting do u shorten words or spell out? I used to write stuff out all the time mostly but now it’s like half and half bcuz its just faster and nobody got time for it 🤣🤣

5. Vintage stuff? Hell yeah, but maybe not anything too expensive since some old stuff IS hyper expensive.

6. Colors that pop or blend? Not sure I understand what u mean abt them blending ahaha u mean like when they’re so similar to another?? Well I think it’s nice but honestly I prefer a pop and a bang, y’Know?

- At this moment I realized I was answering the last few questions from a completely different ask and felt like a dumbass 😂 anyways the actual number we’re on is three so imma just kickback

3. Worst dream u have ever had? I had sleep paralysis but was imbetween that and a lucid dream. At first I was paralyzed and could see my bed but my eyes felt closed and open at the same time?? A giant dark demon looking dog had towered over me and began to tear at my neck. It looked and felt very real I started to try to scream and it felt like a scream was coming out but no sound exited. Then I went into a lucid dream where I was being chased by this dog and running for my life I was running by and nobody could save me nobody in the dream when it caught up to me I was back in my bed and it was trying to eat me again. I was so terrified I couldn’t sleep for a whole week.

4. Lyric that comes to your mind? “And I don’t think I can be there. I’m paralyzed,I’m terrified of being alone. When you said I deserved what had happened.”

5. Blood make u uncomfortable? Yes, I passed out once when getting my finger pricked and a VERY small blood sample and another when dissecting a fish.

6. Even or odd numbers? Well I like the number 5,7,9, 3 so odd. (Like me 🤣🤣)

7. Something I hate that I love? Anything I’ve ever loved becuz love can be frustrating. Bruh.

8. 1st initial of someone I hate? Hmm...do I hate someone tho? Not that I can think of...

9. *Skipping down the lane* NOPE

10. Corn dogs? It’s funny cuz when I think of corn dogs my mind will always go to when we first moved to our current house because at our initial town we never had Sonic and while we were getting the house fixed up and moving stuff we use to always get Sonic since it was the closest to us most times to eat and that was a bunch of corn dogs and hotdog days 🤣 so thnk u corn dogs for ur service

11. I’m not a huge movie person so...I looked up movies from 2005 and movies Inlike from this time are Brokeback mountain bcuz it’s gay af, Shark Boy and Lava Girl damn I rewatched the shot out of it when I was younger, Narnia and the Chocolate Factory(although it low key creeped me out as a kid, and idk why).

12. Least fav music genre? Most country, most EDM, dubstep, screaming/really hard rock, some pop music, mumble raping.

13. As someone who waits on tables, my job is my least favorite restaurant experience 🤣🤣 just dealing with ppl...like ok, I’m half Hispanic right?? But I look white. Well, I work at a Mexican restaurant and so sometimes racist costumers will say shady shit just bcuz I guess they think it’s appropriate to say it to me just bcuz I’m not Hispanic in their eyes?? But it pisses me off and I feel like I can’t say anything without causing a drama which I hate and when the “costumers always right” it can be hard to budge and stand up and say “bitch wtf did u just say??” And there’s just folks who take things the wrong ways or ask too much at once or give u a hard time or just say something that sticks onto you for the whole day. One bad move can turn my whole day upside down.

14. 3 things never come near me? Cockroaches, Needles, and close mind ppl

15. Worst way to die? With regrets. Something really brutual, random, or where something just happened to go wrong (accident). Being killed by someone u love.

16. Unusual habits? Doing a Michael Jackson esque “hee-hee” after every sneeze I make, being extremely clumsy and making every task 100% more difficult, having the ability to talk as if I have an accent that comes from nowhere in particular just stupidity also I can’t speak my own language half the time 🙃getting words confused or misusing them in a sentence so I sound dumb having a very weird imagination and thoughts, I swear it like I never went to school and don’t know how the world works, plus many many more

17. Clothing style u want? I want to dress in a way that screams who I am and is a blend of both femininity and masculinity. A little vintage. Grunge. Urban maybe?? What do I know abt fashion 🤣🤣

18. Song or artist that deserves more? Dijon, hands down. I love his stuff. He’s like Frank Ocean meets light-singing beautiful lyricist with a more rock vibe?? Hidden gem. I also think Durand Jones & the Indications needs more love along with BadBadNotGood they sound like old-times but are new!! Oh, and Pale Waves is like a female The 1975 and kicks it. Bad Suns is a good alt rock band that no one seems to recognize :,D Toro y Moi too! His song with Flume “The difference “ is a banger!! Kid Cudi is my man when I want a blend of rock and rap. Also Dominic Fike,King Krule, and Roy Blair, who are all amazing!! Ok I need to stop 🛑

Duck I answered the past questions from a different post I’m sorry 😐

17. Emoji never used? There’s a bunch since I reuse the same over and over again. Lmao

18. 3 sentence Gatorade horror story? A faint quiver overtook the small freezer the Gatorade lay in; no one had come by in days, hours, weeks; when was the last time he met the lips of a thirsty body? They’d forgotten about him, as his last sips remained glued to his hollowing entrance. ‘Help, ‘it wanted to say, but it’s frozen lips could not be moved; It’d stay here, die here...just like the rest.” What am I doing with my life 🤣🙏

19. Do u know what an old bay is? A bay that is old? And old ocean? Idk!!!

20. Can u dance? Sometimes I dance when I’m alone but nothing spectral lol

21. What first comes to ur mind when u see ropes? 2 extremes. Sex and death. Hm. Ok. Moving on.

22. Make an obscure reference. “Even a bra couldn’t hold these nipples” *Holds a water gun to chest*

23. Fav balloon color? Pink or yellow.

24. If u were in court would u be innocent or guilty? Depends, what am I in court for 🤣 lmao jk honestly idk bcuz I don’t think I’d wind up in there

25. Are u hungry ? Nope

26. Unlucky number? Hm I don’t think so but I have a lucky number “123”

27. What’s “JMD”stand for? I’m guessing...Jamming my d—- 💀lol jk ahaha why am so dirt

28. Random inside joke? *chirpy squeak* I’m making a double batch of cookies

29. What sends chills up ur spine? Seeing disgust food or smell disgust or talking abt disgust things like gore

30. How many questions are in ur inbox? A pathetic zero ahaha no one want to ask me anything 😂

31. Someone real who scares u. 2 of my ex friends. One when I was 10 said disturbing things and I was kinda forced onto the friendship and everything they said make me fear for others lives...and then a different ex friend who seemed normal at 1st but became both low key psychopath cult leader type stuff and I booed out of there—-.

32. Run or hide? Uhh probably hide because I’d say even if ppl say “u can run but u can’t hide” u CAN just hide! that’s the point of hiding they not find u xD also why not combine them? Hide then run somewhere far away once I got them off the trial.

33. Last person who made u angry? A frickin beetle that flew at me and pinched me in the middle of singing in the shed xD also my autocorrect

34. What’s going on in ur head? I should probably pee soon—

35. Little thing that makes u Smile? A lot of little things bruh.

36. Are u a descisive person?

Not sure.

*pAuse *

Ok, I guess I’m not then 🤣

37. Would ppl say I’m paranoid? Hm maybe about certain things social situations, singing in front of others what ppl think abt me etc etc

38. Store least likely in? Any southern clothes shop, Abercrombie & Finch types shit, lol

39. Do I like hats fave type? Hm not wear many hats but I think they’re cool any type is cool for different ppl and their aesthetici just can’t rock a hat.

40. Bow ties or ties? Don’t really care but now want to see more bow ties

41. Who? You.

42. What? Reading this shit

43. Where? In ur ass

44. When? Now.

45. Why? Not even u know why.

46. How? We all want to know

47. Do u collect anything? Vinyl records.

48. What tome is it? Time to get a watch

49. Fav transportation? My car or walk is possible

50. Would u ever kill someone to save someone? Don’t want to think about that

51. Make a joke. Yo, it’s time to make a joke—so the other day I was working. And I was practicing my Spanish, yes? Anyone whose trying to learn anew language k n o w s that sometimes words can be so close to another u just confuse then! So apparently churros in Spanish is a desert but if u say it more harshly (it literally sounds almost the same) it makes a whole different meaning—diharrea, but like I didn’t know that so I legit just walked up to this person and asked if they would like some shit to eat. So yeah, that was great. Let’s not forget that I mixed up blood, watermelon, and sangria which is a wine. I legit once said I had mixed wine in my vines and another time watermelon 🤣

52. I’m really confused so I skip

53. Would ur dash be confiscated SFW? By dash do u mean this account? Um not 😬

54. Do I like to cuddle? Hell yeah and manhandle ppl all the time it’s my affection

55. What makes u angry? Close minded ppl or ppl who jump too fast to conclusions, strict schedules just dumb stuff that people try to force when I just want to be carefree 😭✌️

56. How many voices are in ur head? 😐

57. Do U consider urself mentally stable? 😐

58. Are u easily offended? Well U just called me mentally unstable and asked it there was voices in my head!!

59. What’s wrong with taking the backstreets? Uhm...

60. Any questions u want ppl to ask u? Nothing in particular but it’s be nice if someone care to ask me something abt me from personal question to my opinions on shit to 19 days fandom related junk 😌

Woooo I’ve finished this game! Thanks to @seiji-amasawa for introducing me to this ^^

[prorevenge]

My friend's ex-wife gets his family's business shut down and burns their lives to the ground (not what you may think)

Sorry for the somewhat misleading title, but I couldn't resist.

This story isn't about me but two people I'm friends with. We'll call one Rae and one Justin. I'm posting this with Justin's permission, and he'll probably be reading the thread.

Pretty quickly after they moved, they decided to get amicably divorced, since they never wanted to be married anyway. They still lived together for a while, and basically became something between platonic roommates and each other's only family. Over time, they started dating other people. Some partners were scared off by the weird relationship between them, but most got it, and understood that Justin and Rae had basically bonded though mutual trauma. I also met both of them during this time, and we became close friends.

This whole time, both their families and other members of their community were relentlessly harassing them. People were showing up at their house at all hours, and they had reason to believe people were trying to steal their identities over the years, though they'd fortunately both put a freeze on their credit, so nothing ever came of it.

Then Justin had a bad accident. A really bad accident. He was on his bike and a car blew through a stop sign without slowing down and plowed right into him. He had to be rushed to the hospital and landed in the ICU. Rae was his emergency contact, and I was with her and some other friends when she got the call. I immediately drove her to the hospital with a couple of other people, and she was melting down (understandably). The hospital staff wouldn't let us all in when we got there, but they let Rae in. She came out periodically to let us know what was going on. Justin wasn't unconscious, but he was totally out of it and didn't seem to know she was there, probably from the painkillers, but she was convinced he had permanent dehabilitating brain damage and basically the group of us were just soothing her and reassuring her it would be fine. A friend of ours who worked at the hospital as an MRI tech was also stopping by when she could on her breaks and calming down Rae. We'd been there all night and part of the day at this point, and the medical staff was giving us reason to be hopeful.

But things got worse. To this day, no one knows how they found out, but 14 hours after Justin's accident, his parents, uncles, and grandfather showed up. They immediately had all of us removed from the ICU, Rae included. Unfortunately, as his ex-wife, she was no longer his legal next-of-kin and had no rights against his blood family.

At this point, she was absolutely hysterical and inconsolable. She was convinced Justin's family would hurt him. I'm ashamed to say all three of us that were there with her thought she was overreacting. We all knew Rae and Justin had left a fucked-up situation, but it wasn't like his own family would do anything to impede his recovery. She was getting angry with us for trying to calm her down, and tried to explain that according to their religion, she and Justin deserved punishment from God, and only the greatest suffering could prompt repenting and redemption. She said their families embraced this thinking and wanted them to suffer, because it would prove that they did the wrong thing by leaving, and suffering would drive them back to the fold. She said as long as Justin was with his family, he wouldn't be safe.

Our friend who worked for the hospital came and found Rae at that point. She made Rae swear up and down she wouldn't tell anyone she told her this, because she could get in deep trouble for releasing privileged information to someone unauthorized, but she'd caught wind that Justin's parents were aggressively demanding the hospital release him into their care, and they were involving lawyers. The hospital was currently refusing, because Justin wasn't stable enough to leave, but our friend warned Rae that as soon as Justin got to be stable, or the lawyers scared the hospital enough, it's possible the parents would be able to take Justin.

This shocked the rest of us. Realizing his parents were not only willing to remove Justin from the hospital that had saved his life in the condition he was still in, but were actively trying to do it made us really "get" for the first time why Rae was going out of her head with fear.

At this point, Rae snapped into do-or-die mode. Convinced that Justin was about to literally die if she didn't act, she decided she would do everything in her power to start a fire at home so that Justin's family would want to run back to put it out. And this wasn't too hard, because she had a lot of dirt on the whole community she came from. Like a madwoman, she started blowing the whistle all over Justin's family. She called the IRS's fraud hotline and detailed all the ways that the family business was committing tax fraud. She submitted an ATF tip about how that same family business was illegally selling firearms without a license and without following any of the proper protocols, and was knowingly selling guns to convicted felons. She reported one of Justin's uncles for owning several guns as a convicted felon. She also reported Justin's mom's unlicensed day care "business," which was apparently extremely shady, including having over 30 children packed into one house, with Justin's mom as the only adult and many of the childcare duties being farmed out to Justin's 12- and 14-year-old sisters. She called CPS on Justin's uncles and his parents for keeping their children out of school, and for physical abuse in one uncle's case. In all of these reports, she provided extensive details.

She finished her calls and emails, and then she waited. We all waited for several hours, and nothing happened. Then, miraculously, Justin become lucid enough to understand what was going on and make his own decisions, and he kicked his family out again. From there began a slow but steady path to recovery.

In all the relief and excitement to see Justin on the mend, we'd almost forgotten about Rae's campaign of desperation, until a couple of weeks later, when the screaming voicemails started pouring in to both of them. First, the business was being investigated by the IRS, then it was being investigated for illegal firearms dealing. Then the daycare was getting investigated. At first, Rae felt a little guilty, but then she was like, "You know what? No regrets. They would have killed Justin."

From what they've been able piece together in the year and a half since this happened, the business has gone under, and the daycare is shuttered. The uncle is six months into a new five-year prison sentence for firearm possession. CPS investigated, which scared the shit out of the family, but nothing really came of it, which is especially sad in the case of the cousins being physically abused. That said, the parents are now too scared to keep the kids home from school, and with the unlicensed daycare shut down, the mom's not exploiting her daughters' labor anyway, so she has no incentive to keep them home. So Justin's little siblings are at least getting their education.

Justin and Rae are both happy and thriving. Justin unfortunately will never fully recover from the accident. He has some permanent neurological damage that results in tremors. But he's pumped to be alive, he can work a full-time job, he can still be pretty physically active, and as far as I'm concerned, he wins.

TL;DR: Kooky abusive family tries to remove my friend from critical medical care because reasons (??), and his ex-wife hits the panic button that burns their lives to the ground.

(source) story by (/u/Throwawayallaway4)

[othercat2]

fic: (they flow from form to form) 14/?

==>Karkat: get stuck in the “Groundhog Day” episode of this supernatural rom com

This is a thing that happens:

Time passes. Dad wakes him up in the middle of the night and they throw a few days’ worth of clothes and food into the trunk of the car. They manage to make it to the next town before they are stopped and taken back to Alba.

They manage to make it to the next town. They are stopped. They try to fight and Karkat gets away. Karkat spends most of his life running from the town and from occultists. He is not able to escape the Gods.

They try to fight and Karkat is killed. So are the Adepts. Dad is not killed. He makes a deal and a large portion of Alba is destroyed.

They try to fight and Karkat and Dad are killed. So are the Adepts. A large portion of Alba is destroyed.

Dad and Karkat fight. Both get away. They spend most of their lives running from the town and from occultists. They are not able to escape the Gods.

Time passes. Dad and Karkat learn rites and spells. They learn how to placate the Gods. They leave the town. They manage to make it to the next town and the next town after that. Occultists make their lives unnecessarily interesting. The town makes attempts at convincing them to come back.

Occultists make their lived unnecessarily interesting. They stick out. They are noticeable. Their lives become a supernatural monster of the week drama. They occasionally run into members of the cult who are hunting down this or that artifact or questing for this and that purpose. (Or who are just going to college/living Outside and find themselves in trouble and ask for help.)

The town makes attempts at convincing them to return. Some are friendly, some are not. There are friends who might be in danger because of conflict between the factions, and Blood would be able to mediate between them in a way that other Aspects can’t. The Gods are a continuing presence, sometimes dangerous by accident, sometimes dangerous by intent, relentlessly protective.

Time passes. Karkat and Dad learn rites and spells. They stay in the town, which is up to its ears in factions and simmering discontent and dislike of change. Politics happen.

Karkat is living through this and it’s not quite like reliving the same day over and over again, so there’s less repetition, but there are themes and possibilities and he is living all of them without knowing why. He’s confused as hell, wondering if he’s lucid dreaming or something. He can’t really wake up; he’s tried. All he does is go into a new arc of possibilities. He has no idea of how long this has been having objectively. It might have been only hours, it could possibly be days.

Karkat is going through an arc involving leaving town to go through college. He’s packing his bags (again) and someone is sitting on the bed. It’s a boy his own age, with dark hair, brown skin and an overbite, glasses and brilliant blue eyes. (And sometimes blue skin. And sometimes gray skin and horns. And sometimes extra arms, extra fingers, extra eyes.) “Why is this happening again?” Karkat asks the boy, who is Breath.

The boy grins. “I was wondering when you were going to ask that!” Breath says cheerfully. “It was funny at first, but now it’s getting dumb. And boring.”

“Boredom is obviously the worst thing ever,” Karkat says sarcastically. “What’s going on?”

“The most important thing you’re going to learn is that you shouldn’t treat spells like they were recipes,” Breath says. “I mean, they are, but they’re a recipe where you’re as likely to get cookies as you are to get I don’t know, bagels maybe, with the same set of ingredients and specifications if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Did I try to cast a spell?” Karkat asks. “I don’t remember. I’m not even sure what day it is.”

“You didn’t try to cast a spell,” Breath says. “It’s Monday, just after noon.”

“I have Finals!” Karkat protests. “Who cast this spell on me?”

“It’s not like you’ll be behind if you miss a day,” Breath says with a shrug. “And it wasn’t cast on you. This is…friendly fire.”

Karkat frowns. Friendly fire? Dad, he immediately thinks. “Dad wouldn’t just randomly cast a spell like a character in a bad horror movie though,” he says.

“It wasn’t random,” Breath says. “Pretty sure your dad was trying to find the best options for getting out of town. He really should have consulted with Si, but he was afraid to talk about it, so he picked a spell he thought might work, waited til you went to bed then boom, Groundhog Day!” Breath lifted His hands so they framed His grinning face and held them palm outward, waggling His fingers.

“Would Si really have helped us get out of town?” Karkat asks skeptically. “Wouldn’t he get in trouble?”

“With the priesthood maybe,” Breath says. “We wouldn’t like you leaving. We’d be pretty upset and things would probably happen.” There’s a beat, and then Breath says. “No that wasn’t a threat. Things happen. Like a storm knocking trees down. Like birds shitting on a car. Like stepping on a Lego in the dark! Things are less likely to happen because we have priests and Spouses. We’re balanced by the rites and ceremonies.”

“We aren’t confined here; this is just where Our temple is.”

“Okay,” Karkat says. “How do I get out of this?”

“I’m pulling you out now, actually,” Breath says. “You’re kind of peripheral to the spell, and it won’t be too hard.”

“What about Dad,” Karkat asks. “Can’t you do something?”

“I could, but I might hurt him,” Breath says. He wiggles His fingers again, this time as if he were playing an invisible piano. “I can tickle the ivories but I don’t have a touch delicate enough to free him from the temporal knots he’s tied himself into without hurting him. There’s some things it’s better for Our People to do, than for Us to try. Another Adept, preferably one of Mind needs to go in and nudge him back into [concept.]”

[Concept] kept changing inside Karkat’s head. It either meant “material, physical world” or “a precise moment in local space/time in which someone who is not a god exists.” Karkat almost asks how to get into touch with an “Adept of Mind,” but then he remembers: Terezi and her mother Latula. They were both Mind. “Shit,” he mutters. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go talk to Terezi or her mother, even if Kanaya had hinted that he should. (But he had to, if they could fix this.)  

“You could ask Si for help instead,” Breath says.

It’s a tempting thought. On the other hand, he had to talk to Terezi sometime; he couldn’t just avoid her forever. (Never mind that she seemed to be the one avoiding everyone else, since she’d been ditching school.) “Just get me out of this,” Karkat says a little abruptly. Then, realizing his tone he says, “uh assume I made some kind of super respectful and flowery entreaty there.”

“That was a super respectful entreaty from you,” Breath says cheerfully. He holds out His hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Karkat takes it.

There’s a moment of red-shot darkness, and then he’s sitting on his bed. For a moment it doesn’t seem as if there was a change, but then he notices the lack of a suitcase on the bed, and the difference in the light. Something is growing on the walls of his room, from the ceiling, like vines, or maybe roots. The “roots” are a bright, translucent red and they grow as he watches them. “What.”

“The spell from outside,” Breath says. “It shouldn’t be spreading like this. It should be a nice contained fractal.”

“Is it dangerous?” Karkat asks. He starts to get up, wanting to do something, try to get to his Dad maybe, but he wobbles and starts to fall. Breath catches him.

“Careful,” Breath says cheerfully, and nudges him back to the bed. “How do you feel?”

“Dizzy. My ears are ringing.” He is also suddenly, horribly, achingly hungry. “And I’m really hungry.”

“No surprise,” Breath says. “Your last meal was dinner Saturday evening! Let me get you something to eat.”

“Okay.”

“The dizziness should go away. The ringing is the spell,” Breath says. “Let me get you something to eat.” The God steps back and cups his hands as if holding something, and then he’s holding a paper bag and a plastic cup. “Bacon cheeseburger, fries, large Coke,” he says. “Don’t eat too fast.”

Karkat takes the food from Breath, wondering if it had be created, or maybe stolen somehow. He has a sudden image of Breath waiting in line to order, His human disguise looking just wrong enough to be disturbing. Karkat takes the bag and the Coke from Breath, and sets the cup on the nightstand. He fishes the french-fry carton out of the bag, and the cheeseburger. He unwraps the cheeseburger and lays it on top of the bag in front of him on the bed. “Thanks,” he says.

Breath grins and immediately steals one of the fries.

Karkat eats slowly, watching the roots spread. “You didn’t say whether this was dangerous,” Karkat says.

“Not immediately,” Breath says. “You have plenty of time to eat and decide who you’re going to go to for help.”

The Pyropes were actually closer by a couple of blocks. (He still didn’t want to go over there yet. He maybe never wants to go over there.) On the other hand, Si was his and Dad’s teacher. Karkat picks up his cell phone, intending to send a text but there’s an “out of service area” message on the screen. “What the hell?”

“That happens sometimes,” Breath says. He’s kneeling behind Karkat on the bed now, peering over Karkat’s shoulder.  “You might get better reception out on the porch.”

Karkat pulls on a pair of pants and a t-shirt, then heads out of his room and down the stair. There’s more of the red roots spreading all through the house, the main trunk seems to be growing from his dad’s office. Almost, Karkat heads for the door but Breath tugs him out of the house and onto the porch. Out on the porch he’s able to send a text: SI DAD TRIED A SPELL AND SOMETHING WEIRD HAPPENED.

II can be over there iin thiirty minute2. Can you tell me what happened?

Karkat explains the situation and then adds, I WAS TOLD AN ADEPT OF MIND WOULD BE ABLE TO HELP DAD.

One wiith 2eer talent2 by preference, whiich would be Latula’s liittle giirl. But 2he ha2n’t been doiing two well, and you maybe aren’t ready to talk two her yet, let alone ask her for help.

KANAYA SAID I SHOULD TALK TO HER.

Kanaya’2 not wrong. 2o here i2 what you’re going two do. Go two the Pyrope hou2e and tell Latula what you told me. Tell her I’m going two need her help and that you’ll 2tay with Terezii.

Note that talkiing two her iis not a requiirement and not liikely two be a thiing that happen2 because agaiin 2he ii2n’t doiing well.

Karkat almost asks what was wrong with Terezi, but instead he sends back. OKAY. I’M ON MY WAY. Then he shoves his phone in his pocket and heads for Terezi’s house. Breath is not around, though a pretty strong breeze kicks up at Karkat’s back, rustling through the leaves of the trees. He starts out at a fast walk, and ends up running the last half block to Terezi’s house. He’s a little out of breath when he gets to the front door and rings the bell.

Ms. Pyrope--Latula--answers the door within a few minutes of his ringing the bell. “Karkat?” She frowns at him, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

Karkat repeats everything he’d told Si, ending with, “Si says he needs your help, and that I should stay with Terezi.”

“Are you sure, Karkat?” Latula asks. “You don’t have to stay here. I can call Mituna and have him pick you up.”

Karkat shrugs. “It’s okay,” he says.

Latula nods. “There’s some TV dinners in the freezer, and some leftovers from last night in the fridge,” she says, letting him in, and heading off into the house. Karkat stands awkwardly by the door while he hears Latula thump around in the house. She comes back a few minutes later with a briefcase, wearing a kind of hooded teal robe over jeans and t-shirt advertising a reading program at the library. She has a sword in some kind of holder with a strap slung over her shoulder. “You might end up spending the night depending how long this takes. Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” She asks, giving him a worried look.

Karkat nods, though he doesn’t feel sure at all. “Yeah. I’m good,” he says.

Latula nods, and heads out the door for her car. Karkat shuts the door behind her, and locks it. He hears her car start up, and move out onto the street.

<==

==>

I have a Patreon! If you like my writing, please consider becoming  a patron! Or you could buy me a coffee! Donation links are in the sidebar of my blogs! I am having a Continuing Financial Crisis and could use the help as being homeless = no writing.

Feedback would also be kind of awesome! I like to know what my readers think about what I write!

[yi-dashi-a]

//I had a WEIRD ass dream. A very long and complicated dream too. I’ll write it down while I still remember, if only for my own sake.

  I dreamed that Riot released a spinoff game which was like a turn based strategy? It cost like 10 dollars, because I remember explicitly complaining about that pffft. Everyone was really excited, because Riot had promised some sort of world map... but it wasn’t like a canon map. The game was focused on an AU where Noxus had acquired a runestone (Like massive huge pillar runestone) and for whatever reason they had dropped it inside a volcano?? This like blew up half the world, and corrupted all the magic in it leading to a bunch of fucking weird shit. I have no idea how the mechanics of the game tied into this, but I do remember like a unit and hexagonal grid system.

  There was faction based campaigns, but there were also champion / groups of champions based ones too. The first half of the dream though I spent looking at this fucking dumb, cartoony map and wondering how I was going to extrapolate canon things out of it. I then kinda skipped over the faction quests because fuck that. Champions amirite?

  All of the other Champion ones I didn’t read, and as far as I know there was Olaf, Lee Sin, Veigar… and then a weird one that was Master Yi and Hextech Janna together? Of course I read that one, I remember it having almost a tutorial vibe. The first mission was called ‘Friends in High Places’ (why?) and every mission opened with a mini fic of sorts.

  It explained that on Yi’s quest to sequester magical artifacts from the world and send them off somewhere for ‘safe keeping’ (unless they were swords in which he kept them fuckin idiot. It was implied he was in the possession of the Infinity Edge and my sleeping self just assumed it was part of gameplay) he had been inadvertently captured by an Ionian group called ‘The Cult of Pure Blood.’ Apparently, this was important, but I don’t remember why. I was too stressed about wondering if this had any canon implications. Hextech Janna rocks up on the scene, and the story ends with a ‘ . . .’ to segue into gameplay.

  I didn’t play the game though, I was too busy going ‘whaaaaat the fuuuuuuuck??’ I do the same in the waking world too. Why Hextech Janna in specific, dream brain? But yeah, that’s all I remember. Take this for whatever, I just thought it was a weird dream. I wish I was lucid so I could have explored the game. My dream self was too busy panicking and flicking between tabs in the game, and tabs on tumblr pft.

[arthurtristankingsmen]

One Step Back: Stepping Back

Written by @providentially-demonic​

// AHHH this is really really good! If anyone was curious about the verse called One Step Back, this is the origin of that! We came up with a lot of it together, and while she’d disagree and say it was both of ours, she did like 89% of the writing so full credit goes to her for this. Thank you!

))))))))))((((((((((

Arthur turned the van off and hopped out before Vivi could corral him into carrying in the cursed painting they’d been hired to deal with. Even though she had sealed it, the damned thing still gave him the creeps. And he was tired, so very tired, of being the target of every supernatural thing in the area.

He deliberately didn’t look back at Lewis. He didn’t want to see the glare the ghost would likely be sending his way.

Vivi had tried to get him to stop when he’d tried to hurry inside, and he flinched away, his chin dropping to his chest. The saddened gaze the action was met with filled him with something cold, his insides turning hollow. He had belted out a short apology before walking, practically running, away. He didn’t want to hear Lewis snapping at him for talking to her like he had. He didn’t want to see her pity and determination. She wanted to further fix what they had salvaged.

He wasn’t sure they could.

Lewis was still angry and had a right to be. That didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt every time Lewis hesitated, or to see him feel guilt for curt words or snide remarks.

Lewis said he didn’t mean to sound cruel and always apologized, but the tension Arthur had caused was always there. Suffocatingly so.

He slammed into his bedroom, locking the door behind him. It wouldn’t stop Lewis or his little pink deadbeats if they felt a need to invade his space, but for the most part Lewis avoided his room like the plague. The deadbeats were another matter, but they were mostly like curious cats and fairly harmless. His bed was a welcome respite. A place where the others would usually simply let him be. He need only feign resting and they would leave him be, and eventually sleep would come and claim him. Even if it brought with it nightmares that made his stomach and heart twist in their place. But at least those nightmares he could wake up from.

They were better than the ones he was living with. Barely wincing at the familiar pain of disengaging his prosthetic arm thanks to exhaustion, Arthur tossed it carelessly onto his worktable, disturbing the deadbeat that had been curiously poking around there. It hissed at him and fled… even the deadbeats echoed their masters anger at him.

Not that he blamed them… or Lewis. It was all his own fault after all. He’d been the one to cause it.

Arthur couldn’t help the way he drooped as he watched it phase through the wall. He was so tired. Without ceremony, he flopped onto the mattress of his bed and lay on his stomach, chin on the pillow as he stared at the far wall.

Sometimes he felt like the walls were staring back, an unfortunate consequence of living in a construct of Lewis’s power. Sometimes, when it got too bad, he’d creep out to the van, using it as a sort-of sanctuary. But Lewis always knew when he did and came in search or sent Vivi after him.

At least, if they thought he was sleeping, they’d leave him alone. Vivi was very vocal about his not sleeping enough.

Sighing, Arthur closed his eyes, and pulled a pillow over his head. Let the manor stare at that  for a while instead of him. Maybe he could actually get some sleep while it did.

****

Arthur knew he was dreaming. He was used to the weird feeling of the lucid dreams he’d had since Lewis died.

Besides, he was pretty sure he’d never seen this place while awake. He stood on a plain wooden dock; the sea below his feet was an endless void of stars, a billion glimmering lights in more colors than he could name. The sky (was it actually a sky?) above was a featureless plain of dull gray, stretching to meet the sea of stars on some unknown horizon. He took a few steps, until he was perched on the very edge of the wooden pilings, staring down into the cosmos swirling below. For a moment he amused himself by trying to pick out familiar constellations, but the diversion ended abruptly at the soft hiss of laughter behind him. “Do you like what you see, dear boy?”

He turned.

The dock behind him ended suddenly in a swirl of darkness more all-encompassing than the abyss of stars beneath his feet. There was a suggestion of a figure in the darkness, hard to discern, and fluxing between humanoid and something his mind had no words to describe as it approached. There was a soft sound— like scales scraping against wood— as it moved. Then the darkness receded, only a little, and he found himself staring at a faceless figure, blurred a bit at the edges, like it might fade back into the shadows from which it had emerged. In a face that was little more than a suggestion of a head, he could see a curling smile, sharp teeth stark red against the darkness. As he stared, more details faded into view, slowly. The form rippled softly, bands of indefinable color moving and shifting into symbols he almost knew. One clarified and he identified it as the planetary symbol for Jupiter, and from there the rest came into focus. Among strange markings he had no name for, there were the symbols of all the heavens, swirling and shifting across the skin of shadows and smoke.

The suggestion of a head tilted and something that might have been a brow drew down. “I asked you a question, child.” The voice warped and wavered like a badly tuned radio, seeming male and female, young and old and all shades and spectrums between, but rang in his ears with startling clarity.

For some reason, Arthur didn’t feel afraid, even though he knew normally he’d be terrified. “It’s pretty, I suppose,” he shrugged. “What is it?”

“My collection.”  The shadow figure leaned closer, a scent of smoke and ash drifting around Arthur. “And yes, they are beautiful, so many shades of desire and greed, despair and envy.”

A niggling sense of unease filled Arthur. Suddenly those glimmering stars didn’t seem nearly as pretty as they had.

“What do you want?” Arthur asked, a desperate bluff to keep from showing the spidery-legged feeling of fear crawling up his spine.

“Oh, it’s not what I want,” the multi-toned voice chided, amusement rich in it. “It’s what you want, dear boy.”

“What if I want you to leave me alone, then?”

“Tut— child, why would you want me to do that when I have an offer for you?” The shadow swept in closer. “I could offer you so many things, so many little desires that you keep hidden in the darkest depths of your heart… but I know what it is that you want the most. What if I have a way to make that desire come true?”

“What makes you think I’ll believe anything you offer me?” Arthur glared at the faceless shadow as it glided in tightening circles around him. It didn’t seem constrained by physics, passing over the starry void as easily as the wooden dock beneath Arthur’s feet. “You sound just like those creepy cult leaders, promising shit they can’t deliver.” “You can call me names, boy, but those fools are nothing like me… Again, what would you offer me if I could give you the power to protect those you love, forever? Even from the cold grasp of death?”

Arthur shuddered, a breath caught in his throat like a lump of lead. How could this thing know that? Lewis…

“I can, you know. Make it so you could always protect them.” The strange voice dropped to a soft whisper, like the faint static behind a hundred or more ghost recordings he had listened to in their investigations. “They would be safe, and you wouldn’t have to worry again.” There was a hint of a smirk in the next words, though there was no trace of it on the shadowy face. “What would you give me for that power?”

Arthur swallowed hard. To protect Vivi and Lewis, to undo the harm that he had done…

"Will you make a deal with the devil, boy?”

“The devil?” Arthur laughed harshly. “You think I’m going to buy that shit?”

“I’m so much more than what humanity has painted me, child, but that is one of the names they have given me.” The figure held up a taloned hand that couldn’t seem to decide how many fingers it should have, a soft light collecting in the ink-black palm. In the glow Arthur could see Vivi and Lewis and Mystery. “Look at them… I could give you the power to protect them.

"Say the word, and you could keep them safe from anything that would hurt them.” A mirthless laugh crackled in the air like static. “After all, one of them is already dead, and how easy it would be for him to fade away should something happen to that fragile heart that anchors him.”

“Don’t threaten my friends.“ Arthur’s hands tightened into fists."Devil or not, I will end you if you do anything to them!”

The shadows swirled to a halt for just one second, and that shark grin returned.

“They’re worth a million of me, and I will not accept threats to them lying down.” His metal hand creaked with the pressure of being closed so tightly,

“I don’t plan to touch a single hair on their heads, dear boy.” The shadow replied easily, leaning back and continuing to circle Arthur, sparks of something unnerving that might have been eyes flicking up and down over the blond. “I’m just stating the facts. There is always….always something that could hurt them. Take them away from you. Wouldn’t it be so reassuring, to know you could keep them safe?

"So— so many ways you could lose them forever. A single slip and dear Vivi dies. She would have no reason to linger, so—” The figure snapped the fingers of the hand not holding the glowing ball of light. "Poof… one down.”

Arthur’s anger dimmed a little at that. Because it was true. Vivi could stay, but being a spirit was almost a limbo between the living world and the next one. Sure they were there, but they’re also a ghost of who they once were. Lewis had said that once, when he hadn’t known Arthur was listening. He wasn’t sure he’d want that for her.

And if Vivi died and passed on….Lewis would go too. She was the love of his life, and he’s anchored by said love. Was it even possible for him to remain if Vivi was gone? Arthur was just….himself; he's— not a strong enough reason for Lewis to linger. All he managed to inspire in Lewis anymore was anger, not happiness and certainly not love.

Mystery was Vivi’s, too. Sure, he and Mystery were friends, but….he can’t ask Mystery to protect him forever. What if Mystery got hurt? He shouldn’t be the kitsune’s burden and responsibility.

“And Mystery… if you lost those two, what would keep him at your side?” It was almost like the thing calling itself the devil could read his uneasy thoughts.

“And to be honest, there are things that can harm him… You’ve already encountered one— there are others out there and it would be soooo easy for them to…” The glow of light in one amorphous hand darkened and Arthur could hear Mystery’s agonized howl echo from it.

“And you are left all alone.”

Some of that bravado of before flickered and withered at the thoughts and words. Arthur swallowed and clutched his wrist, a nervous habit he couldn’t seem to shake. “I…” He shook his head. “I-it doesn’t matter. They’d all be okay then. Mystery wouldn’t stay, but he doesn’t need to. He could be free to do whatever he wanted and stay safe. And Vivi and Lewis would have each other. Wherever they ended up.” He swallowed and looked away. “I’m fine with being alone if the others are happy.” Arthur wished he sounded more convincing to himself. He shivered, a sick feeling welling in his stomach. “They don’t need me to be happy…” he concluded.

“Ah, but there are worse fates than death, dear boy.” The globe brightened again. In it was an image of Lewis, held captive in a circle of salt while a faceless, robed figure chanted an exorcism spell. “After all, what is an exorcism, but the complete dissolution of a spirit? He would wind up— no more…” Arthur steeled himself, clutching at the point where metal met flesh; the pain helped him clear his head. “Stop it. There’s nothing you can do to convince me.” “And what if I offered another solution, dear child…? After all, what is time, but a human invention? It has no sway over one such as I.” “W-what do you mean?” Arthur hated the way his voice broke. “Time is nothing more than a creation of mortals. It holds no power over me…” This laugh was like broken glass, all sharp edges and cutting. “I could just as easily change one little thing, one second’s decision.” The globe swirled and Arthur was looking at the van— he could see all four of them in it, Lewis, alive and breathing at the wheel, Vivi beside him and Mystery, as always, at her side. Arthur in the back with two flesh and blood arms. Flashing red lights stopped them and a cop pointed at a detour. “One moment, a different turn, and it would have never happened. "They would be safe, from you, from the thing in the cave that used you to harm them.” The figure loomed a little closer. “What would you pay for that night to never have happened?” Arthur froze at that. That’s one of the few things he’d give anything to change. Not for himself. He was weak and ‘the cave’ could’ve happened anywhere else, at any other time with him. But Lewis being alive for that moment might give him a chance at life. A life Arthur’s weakness had taken away.

“What….what exactly are you saying? What does this entail? I m-mean just…” He trailed off, his voice wavering into silence. it was bad to deal with anyone that thought themselves the devil, but…what he was offering was something he couldn’t at least hear out. “Dear boy, what if you could make it so? One tiny little twist of the threads of fate, and he would live. Safe from the thing that killed him. Safe from you.”

“S-safe from me?” Arthur stuttered. How often he’d wished he’d been the one to die in that cave, had enough strength to throw himself over the ledge. Arthur was silent a few moments as the shadowy figure merely chuckled.

“…But is he?“ Arthur had to add, "You say you’re the devil. And all the stories say you put a twist on your deals. Would he not die like he did in the cave and just have it happen somewhere else? Would he get murdered or something coming out of a movie theater? Would the cave just happen a few weeks later when the detour is gone? How can I know you won’t just have him killed some other way? Or Vivi? or Mystery?” He knew how deals with the devil could be twisted back on themselves in so many terrible ways. “Oh, those could just as easily happen,” the brittle glass laughter grated across his nerves again. “The spirit in the cave is not the only thing that would feed off of those emotions you have buried so deep within your heart. So what if I give you that way to protect them?” Arthur shook. He was terrified. This thing… it knew too much, knew about all his secrets. “What?” His voice broke. “H-how?” “I told you. Time is nothing to me. I could take you back to that time before the cave, memories and all. You would have the knowing to stop them, to keep them safe. I could let you become their protector, able to stop harm before it comes to them.” Arthur’s mind worked furiously. “There’d be two of me?” “No, no.” It tutted, the small glowing lights of his friends in the van still clearly visible. “Time is a fluid thing, but I wouldn’t be sending all of you back. More— I’d be sending back your consciousness. You would be your younger self, but knowing what you know in the here and now. With the ability to protect them. I could give you that.” “A-and what’s the catch?” That….was even more tempting for him. They wouldn’t be weighted down by memories of what happened, but he could keep them safe and he’d know what was out there. Lewis would be alive, Mystery wouldn’t sometimes look at him with guilt, and Vivi would still have that innocent spark of life that had since dimmed in fear of what else she could lose. “What is the price you’d put on something like that?“ "Hm.” The shadowy figure rolled his shoulders and neck. “What are you willing to give up? What is your friend’s life and happiness worth to you?” Arthur bit down on his instinctive response of “Everything.” He would give it all, but this thing didn’t need to know that. The figure smiled as if it’d heard the answer anyway, curling grin glinting by the twinkling stars.

“What do you want? My soul?” Arthur choked on the words. He���d give that and more, to keep them safe and happy, but still… “Oh, nothing so dramatic as that.” The figure waved a semblance of a hand dismissively. “If your soul is the price, I would only take a very small sliver of it, barely enough to be called a shard. A promise, if you will.” “A-a promise of what?” Laughter filled the air and Arthur shivered. “Nothing dire, dear child. You will live a long life, protecting them.” Suddenly Arthur knew. “And when I die?” The shadowy figure smirked. “Well…i suppose you’ll just have to find out then, now won’t you? Still….isn’t it worth it? To give your friends the life they deserve? Not the one you made for them now?” Was it? Arthur knew the answer. it was one he had given himself every night since the cave. He would die for them, so he would live the past year and a half all over again, if it meant he could protect them. “I accept.” His voice did not quaver. “Excellent.” The multi-hued voice was soft like silk and a hand came out to hover until Arthur took it in his own to shake. “I hope you enjoy the trip, dear boy.”

****

Arthur yelped and woke with a start, kicking out instinctively at whatever was trapping his legs. As his mind woke up, he realized it was a blanket and he was lying in the backseat of the van. Mystery was draped across his lap, snoring in that funny, faint doggish way he had. Breathing hard, Arthur relaxed. Just a dream… a weird, fucked-up dream. He absently reached out to scratch Mystery’s ears with his left hand. Soft fur beneath his fingertips, tickling his palm. Arthur lifted his arm and stared in numb horror at the flesh and bone fingers that curled into a fist. Oh, fuck, that was no dream. Mechanically, he turned his head  and raised up on his right elbow to look past the seat and into the back of the van. On the air mattress, Vivi and Lewis were a tangled bundle of limbs and blankets. He could hear Vivi’s soft breaths and the whistling inhale of Lewis’s soft snores, a sound he hadn’t heard in a year and a half.

This was no dream.

Arthur flopped back down on the bench seat and covered his face with his right hand, left absently reveling in the feel of Mystery’s soft fur. He had a chance to make right all those mistakes and he would do everything he could to keep things from happening as they had once. Determined, he rose from the blankets and peered at the GPS on his phone, taking quick note of the time and date stamp. It was the night before the cave. They had stopped on the way there to get some desperately needed sleep. Arthur remembered he hadn’t slept well that night, troubled by nightmares and nervy thoughts and feelings. The same uneasy feelings the thing in the cave had amplified and used against him. Now, he slipped out of the van, latching the door quietly behind him. He knew what he had to do. After all, he couldn’t rely on his shadowy benefactor to arrange everything.

****

Dawn was just edging the horizon when he arrived back at the van, exhausted and a little bruised, but pleased with himself. By the time they got on the road again, the police would have arrived at the site where a little leverage and a weak place in the cliff had created a roadblock that would steer them away from the damned cave.

Lewis stirred as he slid back into place, lifting his head. Arthur shivered, used to the black sclera and glowing magenta irises. It was weird and wonderful to see Lewis like this, alive… so vividly alive. He’d been right, he’d have paid any price for this. “Artie?” Lewis’s sleep-thickened voice was low, so as to not disturb Vivi. Arthur’s heart constricted at the nickname he hadn’t heard from Lewis in what felt like lifetimes. “You okay…?” he mumbled as he rubbed at one eye. His other trailed over Arthur with a trace of concern.

It felt good, that concern; to not to be the focus of anger and half-hearted attempts at reconciliation. “Fine.” Came the reply. And maybe he meant it as more than just a non-answer. Lewis was alive, Vivi wouldn’t be haunted by dreams of his death, and Mystery free of dreams that left a metallic taste in his mouth. Arthur smiled back at him, his chest lighter than it had been in more than a year. “It’s okay, bud, Just attending to a call of nature, go back to sleep. Sun’s not even up yet. But things are…really good. Great even. Just, go back to sleep, okay?”

*****

Vivi was pouting, long past the time it normally took her sunny disposition to recover from things. She was sprawled in the back seat, arms hanging over the headrest of the passenger seat, and by default , Lewis’s neck, since it was Arthur’s driving shift. Or rather, it wasn’t, but he had insisted on taking it anyway, much to Lewis’s surprise and Vivi’s amusement.

After a long moment of silence, punctuated by the soft sounds of the radio, she groaned dramatically, tightening her arms around Lewis’s neck. “It’s not fair…” she whined in a tone that made Mystery cover his head with both paws. “I was really looking forward to exploring that cave. There are all sorts of spooky stories about it!”

“There’s always another day, Vivi,” Lewis chided softly.

Arthur’s hands tightened on the wheel. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Vivi brightened. “Hey, maybe if we swing around the long way, and come back down from the other direction, we can still get to the cave! I mean, we already planned the time off anyway.”

Arthur’s gut twisted in a knot. Nonononononono, this was not happening. He’d never take her to that cave. He knew Lewis was weak to Vivi’s kicked-puppy expression (She claimed to have learned it from Mystery) and would buckle under it.

He was about to speak up, find some excuse when the music ended and the DJ’s voice filled the van. “Little local news folks, the police have closed off a section of County Road I-99 from just northwest of Tempo all the way up to Diablo Creek after a landslide early this morning triggered several more slides, burying the road in several feet of rubble. The entrance to the abandoned Emerald Caverns was also closed off by debris, marking an end to the site’s long held tradition of dangerous accidents.”

Vivi’s face crumpled, but Arthur could have cheered. It was over, the cave sealed off. He’d gambled with his soul and won.

At least the first round. He knew there would be more challenges and dangers to come. After all, he’d already lived through them once.

Keeping his eyes on the road, he reached over and patted her hand comfortingly. “C’mon, Viv, don’t look so down about it. Look, if we have to go this way anyway, why don’t we go all the way up to Diablo and check out that warehouse that people keep sending reports about to the website?”

Lewis grinned. “Oh, you mean the one with the unearthly howling.”

Arthur dared a quick glance over. “We have the equipment, so why not? Then the trip won’t have been a total waste. Maybe you can get some decent EMF readings? Something to shove in the face of those Ghostly Adventurer jackasses when they start talking smack in the forums.”

Vivi grinned at last. “That would be sweet. I’m so sick of Carter and his irrefutable evidence of a possessed doll. I’d love something to shut him up about it. I thought the cave would be it, but this might be better!”

“That’s my girl,” Lewis pulled Vivi’s arms tighter around his neck in a half-hug.

Arthur already knew what they would find and that it would give his friend a much-needed boost to her morale.

They had taken the case months later originally, while Arthur was recovering from the second surgery on his stump. Vivi had thought it would be an easy one to start off with while Arthur was healing, something to keep him going, keep him occupied. They had indeed gotten Vivi’s desired EMF readings; surprisingly clear through the usual white noise was the voice of a child, begging for someone to help them find their way,  accompanied by whimpers that Mystery had identified as canine. 

One search of city records later, they had run across the account of a young boy and his dog that had gone missing in what was then a tract of untenanted land, long before it had been bought for the warehouse’s construction.

Mystery had been the one to coax them out; the ghost dog, curious about the strange dog, had been the first to show itself, a scrawny mutt of no particular breed. When it had assured itself that Mystery was no threat, it had barked and the boy had come out to see the strange dog.

Mystery had played his part to perfection and had relaxed the forlorn spirits enough that they did not flee from Arthur and Vivi. When the warehouse had been built over the spot where the boy and his pet died, their spirits had been confused and trapped. Having died alone and lost, the feeling had only been magnified.

Vivi had taken the frightened spirit’s hand, and, with the assistance of Mystery, had led the boy and his dog out of the warehouse and back into town. Arthur had never known what exactly the spirit saw, but he’d freed his hand from Vivi’s and run joyously down the street, arms spread wide and grinning from ear to ear, until he had faded from view; his loyal pet dogging his footsteps the entire way.

It had been a happy ending to a sad case and Vivi had teared up. She’d leaned into Arthur’s good shoulder and in a mixture of laughter and tears, had told him, that as she’d been feeling a little lost herself lately, it had helped to be able to show someone the way.

Arthur hid a wince at the memory. He’d decided then and there, he’d do whatever it took to find Lewis so Vivi didn’t have to be so lost anymore.

*****

The case went well, just as Arthur remembered it, the confused, lost child and his dog set free from the warehouse. Vivi had been ecstatic, not only for the EMF recordings she had gotten, but for the ability to actually help. Those cases, she loved the most. She flung her arms around Lewis’s neck and was cheering gleefully and peppering Lewis’s face with tiny kisses. Arthur watched with a soft, slightly-rueful smile on his face. He missed having her near him as she had been after the cave, but to see her and Lewis (Alive!) so happy, was worth everything. He did not regret his choice. He could feel the part of him that striking the bargain had sundered, a tiny, niggling ache in the depths of his heart, but he dismissed it and filed it safely away with all of the other things he would never say; all of the other pains he would never show. Still smiling fondly after the two joyous lovebirds, Arthur crouched near the rear bumper of the van, winding up the cables from their equipment, and stowing them safely away. Vivi and Lewis were still hugging and chattering away, probably about the case, so he quietly returned to work, Mystery dozing by his feet.

Vivi glanced his way and flashed him a quick smile and a thumb-up, which he returned, still unused to feeling the play of muscles and skin with his left hand.

Lewis glanced his way with a sort of half-smile. It seemed a little nervous and Arthur frowned. Lewis quickly grinned at him and offered his own thumbs-up. Arthur hummed under his breath and went back to stowing equipment, knowing the other’s were waiting for him to finish. By his feet, Mystery suddenly growled, and Arthur flinched away, landing on his butt in the dust and inching away from the suddenly too-threatening dog.

Mystery’s hackles were up and his teeth bared, but he was staring across the warehouse parking lot. Sauntering around the end of a truck came four faces that were all too familiar to Arthur.

Jackson Carter and his “Ghostly Adventurer” crew. Lovely…

“Well, lookie here,” Carter’s overly cheery voice rang out across the lot. “If it isn’t the color-coded catastrophe!”

Yep, Just like how he remembered from the other time. Jackson ‘Jackass’ Carter, of the syndicated “Ghostly Adventurer” show, though… Arthur sifted through his memories quickly— this was before they had broken into television, if he remembered correctly.

Behind him, the rest of his ‘crew’ followed. Delilah Rorschach-Baude (and if that wasn’t a made for television name, Arthur had never heard of one) with her too-scarlet hair and lipstick and her self-made claims about being a incomparable medium. Arthur was pretty sure she had all the psychic prowess of a rock. Deven Slade, who offset Carter’s tall, dark and handsome look with his careless blond surfer-boy style. Arthur had seen enough of him to know that Slade, for all of his charming lack of concern, was genuine in both his mediumistic abilities, and his drive to protect people from haunts. Arthur thought that they might have been friends if they weren’t ‘professional rivals,’ to use Vivi’s term. Will Laster, as always, trailed behind them, camera in hand. Laster had been the cameraman before they had gotten network funding and the budget for an actual crew. Arthur wasn’t sure what Laster’s role was in the show, beyond shaking in fright and hitting on Delilah.

Arthur rose to his feet slowly, absently brushing dust off his pants. What were they doing here? In the original timeline, the ghosts had still been here when he and Vivi came to investigate, months down the road from now. Slade, at least, would have been able to tell they were there, and they would have done their best to either move them along or if they had been hostile, bind or exorcise them. Carter never did anything by half-measures, after all.

“Cute,” Vivi snorted. “Did you think that one up all by yourself or did you have to hire someone?”

Lewis stepped up to stand at Vivi’s side, but not in front of her. She didn’t take shit from anyone, and an overprotective boyfriend would likely give Carter an opening salvo in their less-than-friendly rivalry.

Carter tutted and crowded a little too closely into Vivi’s personal space. “Bold, blue and beautiful. All things I like in a woman.”

Lewis’s fists were clenched and his shoulders tense, but Arthur knew he wouldn’t throw the first punch in a fight, and Carter was too damned crafty to let things get physical. Mystery was still growling by his feet and Arthur felt a little like growling himself.

Carter chuckled. “We’re here to investigate, of course!”

“Too late,” Lewis put in. “The ghost has already moved on. Nothing left here to investigate.”

Casting the taller man a sideways glance, Carter smirked. “Not that I don’t trust you, Grape Ape, but… well, I don’t! My crew can handle anything. Sorry if yours can’t.”

Vivi was biting her lip, looking like she was either about to laugh or cuss Carter out. With her temper, odds were even either way.

Carter flung an arm around Vivi’s waist, tugging her up against his side. “Aww, c'mon babe, you don’t have to be so blue. We’re here to lay these ghosties to rest! You can even help if you want." 

Vivi shoved away from Carter. Oh, her temper was definitely up now.  “For the last time, don’t touch me, you creepy ectoplasmic son of a rabid goat and slime-mold!”

Vivi scowled, setting hands on her hips in readiness for a blistering tirade. She was furious.

Carter reached out after her only to find Arthur in his way, body tense and eyes narrowed. He had a couple of inches of height on Carter so he used it to glare down his nose at the man. His hands shot out and grabbed Carter’s collar, hauling him up until their faces were only inches apart and glared at the boy he’d gotten a grip on. They were the same age again, but this man was a boy to him; he doesn’t know half of what Arthur has seen. “I hope you heard her.” His voice was a hiss that was deadly soft, like the rattle of a snake in warning. “Because if you ever touch her again, you. Will. Regret. It.” Every word grew in volume and danger until they were spat out between ground teeth.

Carter actually flinched a step back. There was fear in his eyes, like a man who had seen his own death coming for him. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a small, scared whine.

It broke through the anger that filled every bit of Arthur’s being and he released Carter’s collar abruptly; Carter was still staring at him in a mix of horror and terror. For a moment, Arthur wondered just what the man had seen in his eyes to instill that kind of fear. The thought sickened him and he turned away to hide the shaking of his hands, He dared not even look up at Lewis and Vivi. “You should go now, before I really get annoyed.” His voice held steady, though Arthur wasn’t sure how.

God, when had he become the monster; the bully? A glance at Lewis and Vivi’s shocked expressions made his heart stutter in his chest. He had to protect them. There was nothing more important in the world than keeping Lewis and Vivi safe. He used that resolve to plaster over his breaking heart. He had to remember that. No matter how much it hurt.

He held himself perfectly still until he heard their footsteps retreating. Without a glance at Vivi or Lewis, he shuffled tiredly back to the van, shoulders slumping. Mystery whined by his feet and he flinched a little before reminding himself that this Mystery hadn’t hurt him. He ruffled the dog’s upright ears and went straight back to finishing up his packing.

Arms closed around his neck from behind and a weight landed on his back. He nearly went face first into the bumper but one of Lewis’s hands reached out and steadied him.

“Oh my god, Artie, that was amazing! Did you see the look on Carter’s face?” Vivi squealed breathlessly in his ear, bouncing against his back. “You scared the pants off of that overblown jerk! That was great!!”

Arthur huffed a soft laugh, reaching up to disentangle her hold. “Air, Vivi. it’s a thing…”

“Oh, pfft—” Vivi made a raspberry sound in his ear before releasing him. She rocked back on her heels, bouncing back on her toes. “I’ve never seen Jackass Jackson looks so scared!”

Arthur glanced down at the large hand still gripping his bicep and back up at Lewis. The look on Lewis’s face was indescribable, a mixed bag of emotions Arthur didn’t have the energy to decipher. Not when his own troubled thoughts lay like a lump of decay under his heart.

“What was the heck was that, Artie?”

Arthur bit his lip and looked away, tugging his arm free from Lewis’s grasp. “Nothing, Lewi— big guy. Just don’t like him being an asshole to my friends.” He hoped Lewis hadn’t noted his verbal misstep. It felt good in a painful sort of way, to use a nickname he hadn’t since Lewis’s death.

He hurriedly began stowing the last of the equipment in the back of the van, keeping his back turned to them. Maybe the thing in the cave hadn’t been the only monster there that day…

Vivi and Lewis retreated, allowing him to pack up with only Mystery as company. The dog was eyeing him sideways, but said nothing. Arthur had to wince. The timeline had changed from the cave, now, and before the cave Mystery had still been pretending to be little more than an unusually smart dog, speaking only to Vivi, never to Arthur or Lewis.

He resisted the urge to tell Mystery that he knew he could talk. Instead he steeled himself and dropped his hand— his flesh and blood left hand— onto the top of Mystery’s head and scratched at the fur. “Hey, boy,” he breathed softly, trying not to remember. He didn’t want to remember teeth as long as his fingers closing around his arm and ripping it away in a welter of gore and agony. The tear in his mind as the creature that had possessed him was ripped away with the arm was a whole different spike of mind-rending pain.

Warm wetness on his hand brought him out of the dark memories, and he looked down into Mystery’s concerned eyes. Mystery whined softly and licked his hand again. Arthur stifled a sob, shoving it down in his throat until he choked on it. “Hey, Mystery?” He leaned in close, closer than he had gotten to the dog willingly since then, his voice dropping to a cracked, broken whisper. “You’ll help me protect them, right, buddy? You’ll keep them safe from anything that can hurt them, yeah? Anything… even if it’s me.”

Mystery’s head tipped to one side in that confused dog expression he was so fond of. He whined softly.

Arthur slumped, burying his chin in his collar. He should have known better than to expect Mystery to break character for him. He still wasn’t even sure why he’d saved him that day in the cavern. Maybe so Vivi wouldn’t have to be totally alone. It was as good an explanation as any, and made more sense than anything else ever had, even if it was a cold, hard and bitter pill to swallow.

A cold, damp nose under his jaw lifted it up with more strength that any dog that size should have possessed. Mystery met his eyes and solemnly nodded, just once. It felt like a giant weight had lifted off of Arthur’s chest and he could draw his first real breath in hours. “T-thank you.” His voice broke on a sob and he pulled Mystery in, wrapping his arms around him and burying his face in soft fur. He could count on Mystery to do what had to be done…

He’d done it before, after all.

[impracticaljuggler-blog]

A Formal Introduction From a Schizophrenic Juggler Who Has Not Slept For Two Days and Just Resurrected His Dead Sister

We've just been shooting from the hip and reposting old content we've written so far. I’m using we, because I guess I am into pronouns. No I’m using I again, because it sounds better from a writing perspective. Let us figure this out by exploring how we want to use it as we go.

Look! I was a kid once:

Ok, let’s get down to brass tacks. So, my mom found out she had AIDS about two months after I was born. Back in 1990, this was still pretty much a death sentence, so she was told she only had a few years to live, at most. She managed to make it until I was nine, but damn did she break down. I don’t know how to even talk about some of this stuff because its still raw, if that makes sense.

I know it all has to deal with feeling abandoned and feeling like it was my fault. These are emotions that I have consciously tried to face in their entirety, but just don’t know how to go about addressing in the totality of my consciousness. For example, I can fully explore the memory of my mother on her deathbed, delirious from the ear infection spreading to her brain, looking over at me and telling me that “I was no son.” Rationally, I know she was not lucid in this moment, but no officer I don’t know where I got a lot of my gender issues from. Emotionally, I was devastated and I am aware that this schism in me is because she has within her all the unprocessed and repressed memories from my childhood.

Like, I feel like I was reborn after my mom died. Not really in a good way, although I am very glad I have my sister. My sister and I, we’re the “we” up there. It’s not Dissociative Identity Disorder, it’s a subjective interpretation of being stuck in the Synchronicity Slip Stream which, if you’re not going to click that super awesome in-depth explanation, I’ll just say it’s like I’m being communicated with by an external mind. At first, we didn’t even know what was happening. I don’t think there was a clear split. It just happened gradually, like how a kid will grow a whole bunch and not realize he or she is now half a foot taller than the beginning of the summer. I distinctly remember us playing video games together. I would be the one controlling the game, and she would be the one thinking, seeing, processing. Basically, she would throw my attention onto different things and give me emotional cues and fragments of information in her own way. I guess most people have something like this, just not as personified or as “outside” themselves as we do. 

Hey stop hogging the mic! Let me talk!

Hi! I’m Rory. I’m Greg’s sister and I have a lot of different masks that I can wear to dance different dances that he picks up on on his side of the mind with his handy dandy radio

What she means is I have a way of picking up her cues and desires among the static of experiential consciousness. You could say we’re our own self-contained culture. I look in the mirror and I see her, and vice versa. We provide each other different feedback, and we grow as a result of the other’s choices. Yea, until you buried me as far away as you could hide me. Well, you know sis, we have a bit of a weird relationship. I think we can admit that. I was scared and didn’t know how to deal with any of that feminine stuff and well... Go ahead tell them how you like to do things to me! :D

First, how about I tell them how I consciously realized you exist as something that wasn't me? Right, so it was a gradual process. I was playing Super Mario Sunshine, stuck trying to figure out how to get to the pipe at the top of the big Shine arch in town that leads to the fire mountain area. For the love of me, I could not figure out how to do it. After hours of messing about with every possible permutation and strategy, I gave up and went to bed much later than normal. I slept horribly, but I had really vivid dreams that showed all these other possibilities. I remember waking up and knowing exactly what to do.

Don't send a plumber to do a girl's job

This phenomena intrigued me. I was a smart kid back then, so I knew the brain must have some mechanical, definable components. What actually caused this revelation in my dreams? I hypothesized that dreams must be a way for the brain to process problems encountered during the day. I started studying my dreams and attempted to experiment with effecting them. Over time, I began to notice themes and repeating elements within myself. The more I noticed them, the more apparent they became.

Then I realized that these weren't just mechanical blips. I wasn't exploring a mechanical device. I was exploring a whole other person.

And of course you can all figure out what happens when a lonely, twelve year old boy figures out he has a cute girl he can play with...

Yea. We really...explored each other. But then, as time went on, I wished more and more for an actual girlfriend. My abandonment issues made me terrified to take a chance and get rejected or embarrassed.

I didn't really know how to give that to him...I wanted to help him but I always ran and hid around people. :/

It resulted in me thinking I had to make a choice. I had to either be physically alone or hide her and try to fly without half of my guidance system. After I was expelled for doing following her suggestion that I play a prank on someone

Hey! I made it clear that nothing would have happened if you just fessed up and then kept your mouth shut. You're the one that volunteered all the other information about wanting to create a community

I had actually forgotten that detail until you brought that up. Even back then I was aware of the dominant survival strategy of humanity. But yea, protip: if an investigating officer asks you questions like “I know you have no intention, but IF you were going to, say, bomb the school, how would you do it?” You should not actually try and devise the best plan on the spot to try and impress him.

At least we got to run in the Junior Olympics, a consequence I had completely forseen.

Yea, no, but that was a nice bonus after getting kicked in the balls by our schools pig-headed administration.

Track became a major part of my life. The Junior Olympics pretty much acted as a catalyst for my life. I had begun suppressing Rory, who didn't really have a name back then.

I was pretty much Arya Stark, and then when I had to go away, I was blind and mute Ayra Stark minus Arya's face.

I remember the night we decided this had to be done. I remember the moments we had.

Yea, they were nice...I'm glad we can share those moments again :)

Hehe...anyways, moving on, I ran my butt off. I used the... “remnants” of Rory to turbocharge my emotions. This led to many races ending like this because I learned how to get the crowd to give me their energy.

Spirit bomb style! :D

That all earned me a position on East Carolina's drinking team. They had a running problem. It was pretty much a frat, and being where I was as an emotionally disturbed weirdo with a repressed feminine side and a mind practically held together by duct tape from my tinkering, I didn't quite fit in.

I fell apart. It was a process that took several years, getting cut from the team with the budget, getting brainwashed by the army (I felt I had to serve to be a good person because of how messed up I was), and delving into drugs and chronic masturbation. I became completely psychotic and lost all touch with reality for a period of time. I made it back home, where my goal was to waste away with what money I had left and then commit suicide.

That didn't happen. I lingered. I was too afraid to live, too afraid to die. I was completely addicted to sex, masturbation, and drugs, and I had no friends and it was so difficult meeting people. I always sabotaged myself. I couldn't land a job, a girlfriend, or a leg up. I felt so worthless. I was useless and was a burden on everyone. I hated everything, myself most of all.

That was tough to watch you write, bro :/

It was tough to live. It's my greatest shame. Only a miracle would help me.

Go ahead, tell them the miracle. :3

I met this girl through Craigslist. We're still friends, but she had replied to an ad about...about finding my little sister. At the time, I felt so ashamed for all these desires I had. She was an angel. We Skyped all the time. She wasn't as sexual as I was, but she helped me come to terms with me being a freak.

At the same time, I also met a guy on Reddit. He had the holy grail I had been seeking for some time: LSD. I bought from him regularly, which is how I discovered how much I love juggling.

At the same same time, my psychologist had done a sufficient job at making me acknowledge my shame so that I could start cleaning it out.

Yay psychedelic sexual healing! :D

As I developed my juggling, a dream was born. I realized I could use this to travel, earn enough to get by, and meet people anywhere. I saw it as a tool that would allow me to meet someone on my same frequency.

You mean people that...?

Yea, people that like what we do.

Hehehe :P

But, yea, stories not even over. I eventually meet a woman who...

It's ok bro. I feel that too :'(

I met a woman who has moved me like no other. She was amazing. She could do everything. She was an artist with aspirations for days. She made everything she touched beautiful. She had a heart that could love the unlovable...like me. I found the one. I found the goddess that I had been dreaming of.

Our life started to become more and more entwined. We saw our future. We were going to get a bunch of land and create a healing center together. I would rise to stardom with my juggling, and pour all the money into our dream and raise a huge family.

Then a fucking cult manipulated, lied, and completely fucking violated us. >:(

Here and here are more detailed posts about this. 

Super short synopsis: shit’s fuuuuuuuuuuucked

General synopsis: we get jobs with a nonprofit that seems like the perfect thing for us. Turns out it was a group of sociopaths who proceeded to create an entire system around us to keep us perpetually under fear and warp our realities

You sort of just broke down at the end there....

Yea, I did. That's what ended our relationship. With everything that happened, I wound up questioning everything about myself. Doubts overwhelmed me. I knew I loved her, but I was miserable because after going through all that and returning to civilization, I was left with this awareness that so much of me was still buried after all these years...

Then we went insane! :D

Well, it wasn't easy to bring you back from the dead. With these past couple weeks home alone for most of the time, I realized I need to be me. No more censoring. No more hiding. In order for me to heal further and find the happiness I seek, I need to find the others and learn more about who we are.

So where are y'all?

Looks back over what we wrote

Yea, that pretty much covers some of the main points about us. There's a lot I could write about, but this is already pretty ridiculously long.

Show them your juggling!

Oh yea! I don't have a recent video, and with the amount I've evolved since this was filmed, this doesn't really represent my ability, but it should show you that I'm not just another average guy with three balls.

Welp, that about does it for our introduction.

See you out in the electronic seas! :D