#suicide rates are at record levels in the us and it's only going to get worse. theyre pulling telehealth which will take away

[poisonousquinzel]

"a dude in Texas legally changed his name to "Literally Anyone Else" and he's attempting to run for President against Biden & Trump" [source]

okay, but putting aside the comedic aspect of this, it is concerning the amount of people who are prompted to vote for candidates just because it's funny. I'm not the biggest fan of how his policy about the boarder sounds [Site], but I do implore anyone who is able to vote in the 2024 US election to please research other candidates.

The media is only going to continue pushing the idea it's inevitably going to be Trump vs Biden 2.0 and we have no other options, that we have to vote for Biden again because of Project 2025. Is that whole thing terrifying?

Yeah, fucking absolutely.

But voting for Biden will not solidify our safety from that. Biden is exactly like the rest of them. He always has been. You can't make the lesser of two evils argument when they're both just plain evil.

You cannot say that Biden is even mildly a better choice than Trump when he is currently directly involved in a genocide. That is not some little fucking thing. That in and of itself disqualifies him as a lesser evil. Biden is just as bad as him and he will not save us because he doesn't fucking care.

Cornel West [Site] is an Independent candidate running for President in the 2024 Election. [Policies]

Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia [Site] are running for President and Vice-President as the candidates of the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the 2024 Election. [Policies]

There are options.

There are people trying to change the corrupt foundation our system is built on, but we have to help amplify them because the mainstream media will not.

[thecpdiary]

Mental Health Crisis at Terrifying Levels

Stats in England tell us the UK is lagging behind its European counterpart, when it comes to mental health. My blog stats tell me the same thing.

Writing helps minimise and place some of my thoughts brought about through anxiety, but external influences continue to play their part around my mental health, and I am sure I am not the only one.

The NHS is failing to treat 250,000 children with mental health problems. (Source: the guardian, 2023). 1 in 6 adults experience a mental health issue, such as depression and/or anxiety in England. (Source: myndup.com. 2023)

Mental health is hitting the most vulnerable. It's also hitting teens, the young, the cost-of-living crisis is also adding to our mental health problems. "The Rosena Allin-Khan Interview: "There is a mental health crisis and it’s only going to get worse" - (Source: politicshome)

We're not talking about or dealing with Mental Health

We're not talking about or dealing with mental health. Covid-19 has also changed the way we deal with mental health.

The NHS

The NHS is in crisis. In the last few years, the NHS has seen demand increases, while also coping with over a decade of prolonged underfunding. Earlier this year, many hospitals recorded the worst A&E wait times on record, with the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Adrian Boyle, saying that up to 500 people were dying each week as a result of delays in emergency care.

NHS Staff Shortages

"Meanwhile, staff shortages within the NHS are increasing. Figures show that 400 workers leave the NHS every week and around 10% of posts are unfilled. I’ve never done a shift with a full team of staff and, often, we’re covering more than just our own job. This results in being overworked while putting patient safety at risk. Within the NHS, I have found that there is little support for those suffering mental health issues.

In the last 12 months, 52% of doctors have reported suffering poor mental health with burnout affecting more than three quarters of hospital doctors, on the frontline. There is now a National Physician Suicide Awareness Day as doctors are up to four times more likely to die by suicide compared to the general population." - Eloise Hart

The Research

Research has found that many struggling doctors do not seek help due to the stigma within the medical profession, feeling shame and guilt to take on the ‘patient’ role.

A 2-year qualified junior doctor, talks openly about her struggles:

"I know I’ve really struggled returning to work due to fear of how I’ll be perceived. I have to remind myself that healthcare workers are human too and it’s OK to admit when you’re struggling. I am due to return to work next month having been for four months. It will be difficult to return to work, but I am determined to speak openly about my mental health issues, particularly as the majority of us are facing the same." - Eloise Hart

Medical Staff signing off work, sick due to mental health

Eloise had to sign off from work due to mental health issues. Although she knew it would be hard for her to return to work, she was determined to speak openly about her mental health issues, understanding the majority will be experiencing the same. The virus isn't gone and many of us are still there. (Source: https://www.metro.co.uk)

Conclusion

The NHS has been in crisis for years now. In Covid-19 it's moved to critical status. I've been talking about mental health on and off my blog now for 13 years and even in the early days of writing, mental health, although it wasn't always being overlooked and people were reading my blog, I'm not sure how many were being proactive enough to deal with their mental health.

The bounce rate on my blog is very low, which means people are reading 'the blog of the day' but nothing else.

Also, in Covid-19 the world changed and mental health took an even bigger tumble. I wonder now what it's going to take for the world to wake up, for each of us to start dealing with our mental health. The stark reality is cancer rates have gone from 1 in 4 to 1 in 2, which means one in two people will get cancer in their lifetime. That has everything to do with mental health. I wonder just how many people will read this blog.

I've talked about mental health throughout my writing career. My blog spans mental health. I can't stress enough how important it is to start taking care of you, to start being proactive and to deal with your mental health. With 13 years of blogs covered, my website would be a good place to start, or check out and buy one of my books. They all deal with mental health. Our mental health, our lives are literally depending on us taking control and being proactive on mental health.

If you are interested in dealing with your mental health, my books are available to purchase on my website here https://www.thecpdiary.com/my-books/

For more inspirational, life-changing blogs, please check out my site https://www.thecpdiary.com

[jingabitch]

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell - final

SUMMARY: when you were ten, taehyung adopted you and gave you a home. now that you’re eighteen, the sudden change in your scent perplexes and confounds him.

PAIRING: wolf hybrid!tae x human!reader (all bts members are hybrids)

WARNINGS: talk of ownership (reader is tae’s pet human) | daddy long legs syndrome | angst | suicide attempt | smut (finally!) | heat sex | unhealthy relationships

WORD COUNT: 20.5k (lmfao)

RATING: explicit

A/N: yay this massive fic is finally done!! when i first started this i thought it would be like a 15k oneshot and now it’s a g i a n t. thank you to everyone who read this, left lovely comments and feedback, and cheered me on! not quite sure what i’m going to work on next, but nevertheless I hope to have your support for future projects too. :)

also, shoutout to my wonderful betas @knjkitten and @xoxrinaxox for going over this for me! yall are the greatest 💕

btw the last part of this isn’t betaed because google docs sucks and doesn’t sync reliably most of the time lmao. i’ll work on finding a better solution but in the meantime i hope there aren’t glaring mistakes. 

series index

“The only recorded cases where a hybrid was able to move on from an imprint… is when the object of the imprint passed away.”

When the object of the imprint passed away.

You blinked at Namjoon in shock, unsure how to react. You certainly hadn’t been expecting such an extreme solution, and you hesitated audibly.

“Not that I’m suggesting that, of course,” he hastily reassured you. You nodded slowly, your mind still playing catch up. “We’ll figure out another way to manage it, all right? Don’t do anything crazy.”

“Okay.” You agreed, nodding robotically. It felt like your mind had short-circuited when he said that. You didn’t want to die. After all that had happened to you, you just wanted to live normally, safe and secure in your home.

Still, you couldn’t stop thinking about what Namjoon had said. Spring turned to summer, and then to fall, and it almost seemed as though you could forget about it entirely. Things were going well at home – you and Taehyung had settled into a new routine that was, if not ideal, comfortable enough, and you thought that he was coping fairly well with the imprint.

Now that everything was out in the open, it felt like an oppressive air had been lifted from the apartment. You understood now why Taehyung had done that to you, and while you still weren’t thrilled, at least you knew why. He was relentless in his attempts to show you his remorse, too, doting over you almost obsessively.

Gradually, you eased up around him, too. He was always respectful of your need for space. After the first night where you stayed in his room, you’d returned to your own room to think about how you wanted to proceed. All his cards were on the table now, and it was only fair that you figure yourself out. You still weren’t really comfortable being as close to him physically as you’d been before, and you were definitely leery of any sexual contact, both because of your traumatic experiences on the street as well as because of what Taehyung had done.

He handled your attempts to put more distance between the two of you with grace. You didn’t quite know whether he’d hoped to pick up where you’d left off, but you weren’t ready or willing to do that, and he didn’t push. That wasn’t to say that you weren’t acutely aware of the way his eyes would follow you around sometimes, almost predatorily, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Sometimes you could hear him sigh when you went into your own bedroom at night instead of his.

Still, he never made a move, and you understood probably better than anyone else that having an urge and acting on it were two different things. He couldn’t help the way he looked at you, wanted you, but he held it in as best he could to avoid making you uncomfortable. You saw, and you appreciated his effort. Even though he probably didn’t see it, you were trying too, to move past everything that had happened.

For Taehyung, though, this was like purgatory. Having you so close, just out of reach, unable to touch you, was driving him insane. It hadn’t been so bad at first, because his wolf could sense the sour notes of your fear and reacted accordingly, wanting to provide for you and comfort you. It was difficult maintaining his distance even then, of course, since his instincts demanded that he wrap himself around you to keep you warm and protect you from any threats. His wolf had never been the smartest, of course, failing to realize that it was Taehyung who was the threat.

As you started to ease up around him, though, was when the trouble truly began. When you looked at him and smiled, or didn’t flinch away when he accidentally touched you… every sign that you were finally starting to let your guard down around him, no matter how insignificant it seemed, was a win for Taehyung. He celebrated internally every time he noted a milestone, charting your progress silently. The unpleasant scent of your discomfort was slowly replaced by your natural, happy, fruity scent, the one his wolf found so alluring. Which, of course, meant that he was having a hard time keeping his instincts at bay.

If this was what the rest of his life was going to be like, it was going to be torture. He could handle it, though. He was determined to, for your sake – he would grit his teeth and bear anything you threw at him. He would not, under any circumstances, let his imprint ruin his relationship with you more than it already had.

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

Last year, when you were still happy and carefree, you’d noticed immediately when Taehyung went into pre-heat. It had been clear as day to you when you were attuned to him and paying attention – the increased neediness, the voracious appetite, how moody he had been. You’d broken up so many silly arguments between him and the boys, picked purely because Taehyung was in a bad mood.

This year, however, was different. Even though you’d started getting better with time, and Taehyung’s conscientious, careful treatment of you, it was clear you were still affected by your time on the streets. You sometimes avoided Taehyung’s gaze, ate as quickly as you could because you still remembered what it was like to be hungry, and slipped away from the table as soon as you were done with your meal. It was still difficult for you to sit quietly with Taehyung, since it required a level of comfort with him that you hadn’t managed to get back.

Even when you were with him, you were hunched over on yourself, cautious, trying not to do or say anything to anger him. Even though he’d explained why he’d kicked you out and took pains to assure you that it would never happen again, you couldn’t forget the memory of him grabbing your arm and dragging you out of his apartment, throwing you out like garbage. It made sitting with him a far more difficult and uncomfortable endeavor than it had been in the past.

When Taehyung started going into preheat, the boys were on tour, which meant you were too. It was an East Asian tour – a short one, just six weeks, kind of a warm up before the global tour that was going to start next spring. The tour had been, to say the least, stressful. Before, they’d been great fun. Who wouldn’t love the opportunity to travel around the world, getting to eat different things and be spoiled by the boys and their entire crew? While everyone had to work, your life had basically been one giant vacation.

Now, though, things were different. As awkward as you felt around Taehyung, you’d had to act normally in front of all the cameras that were perennially trained on you. That meant giggling, smiling, cuddling up to all the boys, especially Taehyung, and never letting your guard down. Because of the boys’ social media presence, even the hotel rooms weren’t always safe, and it had been exhausting.

Taehyung was equally stressed out, trying to act nonchalant in front of the cameras when you clung onto him and plopped yourself into his lap for cuddles every day the way you used to. He quickly became an expert at shifting you around to avoid making you uncomfortable when his body reacted instinctively, and on not overreacting to your proximity. No stiffening (ha), no sharp inhales, or wide eyes, or anything else that would tip off the fans, who were basically detectives.

Knowing his heat was coming didn’t make dealing with the symptoms of it as it approached easier. This was already shaping up to be the worst heat he’d ever had, and it hadn’t even started yet. His increased sensitivity to scent made it all the more difficult to pretend like he wasn’t affected by you, and as the tour dragged on (and his preheat symptoms intensified) he could also see you withdrawing, the stress of pretending like everything okay evidently too much for you.

When the tour finally ended and you were back at your apartment, you immediately made a beeline for your bedroom and shut the door after you, desperate for time to yourself after spending weeks on end surrounded by the boys. Humans didn’t get their own hotel rooms, after all. It just wasn’t in the budget.

You’d think that spending so much time basically glued to his side would have made it easy for you to realise that he was going into heat, but that wasn’t the case at all. The more time you spent without a break with him and everyone in the crew having to keep up the act, the more it took out of you, until you were barely able to take in anything from being so stressed out all the time. Being so occupied with controlling your own reactions to being so close to Taehyung meant that all your attention was focused on yourself, instead of on your surroundings, and the fact that he was acting weird barely blipped on your radar.

Taehyung looked sadly at the closed door separating the two of you and sighed. Even though things had slowly started to improve, you were still clearly holding yourself away from him, and as much as he understood why and wanted to respect your need for space, his impending heat was making things difficult, bringing his animal side to the forefront and making it harder for him to resist his impulses.

As embarrassing as it was, he steeled himself to have an awkward conversation with you about it tomorrow morning. It was, somewhat surprisingly, the first time he’d ever had to tell you that he was going into heat. In the earlier years that you’d been his pet, all the boys had worked together to keep you from being too exposed to that aspect of their unique biology, and the only difference you noted during his heat was that Taehyung spent a lot of time shut in his own room while the other boys took turns playing with you.

Later on, you figured out fairly quickly what was up, and cottoned on to the symptoms that his heat was approaching easily. By the time you were fifteen, you had established a comfortable pattern and he’d never had to explain to you in words that his heat was coming – you just always knew, based on how differently he acted and the time of year.

It was almost tempting to go back to the way they’d dealt with his heats when you were a child – pawning you off onto his brothers and struggling through it alone without having to have an overly intimate conversation was probably the last painful option. In light of last year’s disastrous heat, though, he figured it was only fair that he let you know what was going on.

He scrubbed his hands down his face with a groan. Why had things gotten so complicated? All he’d wanted had been some companionship, and now there was this huge problem staring the both of you in the face that no one had asked for. Not for the first time since finding out about the imprint, he wished that he hadn’t been born a hybrid.

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

You woke up in the morning in your own bed, relieved to be back in your own space after having to share a hotel room with Taehyung for six weeks straight. You hadn’t shared his bedroom since that night, months ago, when he told you everything, and he never pushed, a fact for which you were grateful.

Still, morning meant you had to get up and prepare breakfast, since Taehyung was all but useless until noon. Feeling rejuvenated from the best night of sleep you’d had in weeks, you pushed the covers away and headed for the bathroom. You’d established a new morning routine with Taehyung now that you weren’t sleeping in the same room anymore, that gave you a little more space in the mornings. You’d use the bathroom and prepare breakfast while he got ready, then he’d eat while you got ready.

Today, however, was different. You’d placed his breakfast on the counter and were going back to your room to get your clothes when Taehyung cleared his throat.

You stopped short right as you were about to round the counter and leave the kitchen, your eyes darting towards Taehyung. Had he made that noise on purpose or was he doing that stupid sleepy grunting thing he did when he didn’t feel like getting up?

He stared back at you, and you couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. Damn. So he’d made the noise on purpose then to get your attention, then.

“Y/n, I have to tell you something.”

That sounded serious. You moved back to where you were so that you were standing directly across the counter from him. “What is it?” you asked curiously.

Cue some more awkward throat-clearing and avoiding eye contact.

“Uhhh… you know it’s autumn now, right?” Taehyung started.

You raised your brow. “Uh, yes…?” Did he just want to talk to you about the weather? That seemed very unlike him, especially this early in the morning.

“So… winter is coming soon?”

“Yes… that is what autumn usually means.” You didn’t mean to get snippy with him, but his wishy-washy attitude was starting to grate on your nerves.

“Right, so, um… I’m going into heat…?” Taehyung mumbled his words directly into his plate, his shoulders hunched over as he cringed, not quite daring to look up and see your expression.

Your mind was racing, panic threatening to overwhelm you when you remembered what had happened during his last heat. You’d almost lost control then and let him have his way with you, and it was what had started this whole thing anyway. As you were freaking out, your heart rate picked up rapidly, and Taehyung could hear it even if he wasn’t looking at you.

“Hey, whoa, what’s happening?” Taehyung asked, holding his hands out placatingly. You took a deep breath and refocused on him.

“Are you okay?” his brow furrowed as he watched an array of emotions cross your face in quick succession.

“Yeah,” you said, though your voice was a little choked. “I’m fine. What do you want to do about your heat?” you asked, trying to calm your racing heart. Wild panic was definitely not the best way to go here.

Still eyeing you suspiciously, Taehyung told you, “Well, I’m sure Suga-hyung wouldn’t mind it if you stayed with him for a week or so…”

The suggestion was so unexpected that it completely wiped out your distress, replacing it with shock instead. You gaped at him, unable to find the words to ask him the question you wanted to ask.

Thankfully, despite everything that had happened between you Taehyung was still fairly good at reading you, and he hurried to reassure you. “Oh, don’t worry about all of that,” he said, referring to the imprint and the fact that during his last heat he’d basically gone feral for you. “I’m sure it won’t be too bad.”

You could see on his face though that even he didn’t believe his own words. Even though you appreciated his attempt to smile and muscle through it for you, you couldn’t help but remember how miserable and out of it he’d been during his last heat when you refused him, and your heart squeezed at the thought of him going through it again.

Seeing your clear doubt, Taehyung smiled at you, though it was a little strained and didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I- I’m not,” you immediately denied, your voice shaky and unconvincing.

“Okay,” Taehyung accepted easily, not believing you for a second. “Go get ready.”

You hesitated then. “Actually… I think I might stay home today.”

“Oh… okay,” Taehyung said, this time slightly dejectedly.

“I just started a new book,” you offered, a lame excuse to try and spare his feelings. He nodded, acknowledging your effort, but it was clear the conversation was over.

“Well… have a good day at work then,” you said, before escaping back into your room.

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

As much as you wished you could say you’d taken on the role of martyr quickly and decisively, the truth couldn’t be any more different. It took days of agonizing over the decision, days in which you stayed mostly alone in your room, pacing up and down despite Taehyung’s repeated pleas from right outside your door to come out and tell him what was bothering you.

You ignored him, knowing there was no way you could tell him. You didn’t know if Namjoon had told Taehyung about the rather radical solution that he’d found to the imprint, but you didn’t want to hear anything Taehyung said about it. The best case scenario would be that he told you insincerely that he didn’t want you to do anything rash, that he could live with it, even though you could see in his eyes and every fiber of his being that he just wanted to be free of the imprint. The worst-case scenario… you shuddered to think about it.

No, this was a decision you had to make alone.

On the one hand, you really didn’t want to die. After everything you’d already been through, why did you have to make the ultimate sacrifice for Taehyung? The injustice made you want to scream in anger at the sky, roll around and pound your fists against the ground. You’d never asked for any of this. All you’d ever wanted was to be a good pet, to love and be loved by your owner.

Then again – Taehyung hadn’t asked for any of it either. He’d gone into all of this with the same hopes as you, just wanting companionship and a cute pet. Instead he’d gotten arguably the short end of the stick, far more affected by the imprint than you were. After all he’d given you over the past nine years, was this the best way you could pay him back? By setting him free?

Even if you stayed alive, what kind of life would this be? Stuck in this uncomfortable situation without any way out, living indefinitely with Taehyung? It was torture for the both of you. Even though he tried to hide it, to show you a brave, unaffected face, and never made you feel bad about anything, you knew he was suffering. You could feel the way his eyes sometimes followed you around hungrily, even if he himself was unaware of the way he was looking at you. During the tour, whenever you’d glomp him in front of the cameras to play the role of an adoring pet human, you could feel him stiffen ever so slightly and hold his breath to avoid inhaling your scent. Was this really the way you wanted to spend the rest of your life, pretending to be a devoted and adorable pet when neither of you enjoyed it?

You’d never felt so trapped before. There were no other options for you – you were too old to be adopted again since everyone wanted babies, and in any case, you were sure Taehyung wouldn’t let you go. Having you somewhere in the world but away from him would be torturous for him given the nature of the imprint, and even in your darkest moments, when you resented him and wanted him to suffer the way you had and were continuing to, you wouldn’t wish that on him.

Why were your only options staying put or death? The unfairness of it all, the feeling that you’d been wronged by the universe, twisted your insides. You wanted to cry, but you’d cried so much over the past few days that your eyes hurt and you didn’t think you had any more tears in you.

The worst part was that you knew this was difficult for Taehyung too. He’d barely left the apartment in the days since his announcement, when he came back from the studio on the first day and found you in your room. Despite your best attempts to cry quietly, his keen hybrid ears picked up the sounds of your muffled sobs and sniffles and he’d been camped outside your bedroom door ever since, begging you to let him in, to tell him what was going on and let him help you.

His heartfelt pleas tore at your heart, and you found yourself sitting on the ground with your back against the door to be close to him even though you needed to be alone, in the same position you’d found yourself in almost a year ago – Taehyung begging to be let in, and you in tears as you refused, for his own good. The irony was not lost on you.

Ultimately, though, you knew the choice had always been clear. Between setting the both of you free and staying trapped in this purgatory, you’d always choose the former.

It didn’t make going through with it any easier, though. Even though you knew rationally that this was the best option, your instincts urged you to cling to life. You could always go back to the streets, hitch a ride out of Seoul and try to eke out an existence by yourself in the countryside. You knew how to grow fruits and vegetables from living with Taehyung’s parents, and you wouldn’t starve. As you lay in bed on what you’d decided would be the last night of your life, you allowed yourself the comfort of dreaming about what such a life might be like. One where you didn’t need to worry about where your next meal was going to come from, or pleasing someone else, where you could live independently, just you and your little garden.

You fell into a restless sleep that night, the tears you’d thought you didn’t have any more streaking your face.

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

When you opened your bedroom door the next morning, Taehyung, who’d been leaning against the door while he slept, fell backwards into your room. He jolted awake before he hit the floor and managed to catch himself, leaving you impressed, as always, with his superior hybrid reflexes.

“Good morning,” you murmured as he blinked up at you sluggishly.

“Y/n…” he said softly, his mind still foggy from sleep. “Good morning,” he replied reflexively.

“Did you stay out here all night?” you asked, squatting to bring your face closer to his.

He cleared his throat and nodded, and your heart squeezed from how cute he was when he’d just woken up. You wished you’d gotten to see more of it, and maybe in a different world, you’d have gotten a shot at a happy ending. Thinking about it too much kind of made you want to cry, so you started to stand up to go brush your teeth.

Quick as a dart, his hand snaked out to capture yours, and you looked down at him in surprise. He rarely initiated physical contact anymore, after learning about your trauma, but since he was still half-asleep, old habits came back to the surface. “What is it, Taehyung-oppa?” you asked, kneeling back down.

“I have to go to the studio today,” he rasped in his deep, early morning voice. You suppressed a shiver – as difficult as you found it to be around him sometimes, your body had never forgotten the initial attraction you’d had towards him a year ago, and when he was sleepy and pliant like this he almost seemed like a different person from the cruel man who’d forced you onto the streets.

“Okay,” you accepted easily. In truth, you didn’t understand why he was telling you this – you knew he had to go in. They were already preparing for the world tour next spring, and you were surprised that he’d spent the last two days camped outside your bedroom door when he should really be at work with the rest of the boys. “I’ll go get your breakfast ready,” you said, looking pointedly down at your hand still enveloped in his. He needed to let go if you were going to help him get ready.

“Wait,” he said, blinking the last of the sleep out of his eyes. Yesterday Namjoon had called him to ream him out for not turning up for practice for two days in a row, and even though he’d been understanding about the whole situation with you, knowing that Taehyung was always worried about you now, he’d still told Taehyung in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t just shirk his responsibilities to his bandmates and fans like he’d been doing for the past few days. Taehyung had wanted to stay home with you because you were so clearly upset about something, but he’d been neglecting his duties at work long enough.

“I- I know you’re upset about something,” Taehyung began haltingly. He didn’t know exactly what it was, since you’d refused to tell him, but since it had started right after he told you about his heat, he could pretty much guess that it was related to that. Approaching it, however, was difficult since he didn’t know how to go about it tactfully, especially in the mornings, since it took so damn long for him to get his act together. He really should have written this down last night.

“Y/n…” He stopped, swallowed, then started again. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

That caught your attention, and you froze, staring at him with wide eyes.

“I know you hate this imprint,” he choked out, and the words felt like sand leaving his mouth because of how difficult it was to express thoughts that went so directly against his instincts. “I don’t like it either, and I promise you that I’ll never force you to do anything you don’t want to do, okay? You’re safe here.” Even though he meant well and was trying to reassure you, his admission that he didn’t want the imprint either made you all the more certain of your decision.

“I understand,” you said, reaching out to pet his ears soothingly. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” he accepted. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Promise. Even if it’s about the imprint.” His gaze searched yours imploringly, like he didn’t quite know how to reassure you of his sincerity.

“I know,” you agreed. You really didn’t agree with that, but you’d say anything to get that hangdog expression off his face.

He stared at you for a couple more seconds, then let you go with a nod. “All right, then,” he said, looking slightly embarrassed as you fled to the bathroom.

You blinked back tears as you made his breakfast for the last time, feeling Taehyung’s gaze boring into the back of your head from where he sat at the counter waiting for you to finish. He was still worried about you, you knew, though he wouldn’t pry anymore since you’d shut him down. You both loved and hated him for that.

When you set his plate down in front of him, you tried not to look at him because you were barely keeping it together as it was. Then you realized that this was probably the last time you would have the opportunity to and swung your gaze from the countertop to his face, taking it all in greedily.

Taehyung was still looking at you, and when you looked back, your eyes met, which you were completely unprepared for. Your jaw dropped slightly in surprise as he stared intently at you, and in that moment, you felt stripped bare for him, like he was looking effortlessly into your soul. It was too much for you, and you averted your gaze out of embarrassment, hating how vulnerable he could make you feel. Before, you hadn’t minded it, had thought it was a sign of your affection and trust for each other, but after your security in this home had been stripped away, it just scared you.

“Do you want to come with me to the studio today?” Taehyung asked. He was still watching you with that unsettling, piercing gaze, and you shook your head without looking back at him.

“Are you sure, Y/n-ie?” Something was off, Taehyung could feel it, and his instincts were ordering him to keep you by his side. Imprinting wasn’t magic, but it meant he was always hyper-attuned to you. With his hybrid senses, he could hear the erratic beating of your heart, smell the salt of the tears you tried so hard to keep at bay, see the distress written clearly across your face. There was clearly something bothering you, and it killed him to know that he was the cause of it and that he’d ruined the trust between the two of you so much that you were too afraid to talk to him about it. He’d always been there for you, and the fact that you weren’t letting him in now cut him up inside.

“Yeah,” you said, forcing a smile as you looked back at him.

His brow furrowed in concern. “Okay, I’ll call Namjoon and tell him that I can’t come in today either then.” He reached for his phone, sitting next to his plate on the counter.

“What? No,” you protested, snatching the phone before he could grab it. “You need to go to work; I know Namjoon-oppa will be mad if you skip again.”

Taehyung’s frown deepened. “I don’t want to leave you alone when you’re like this,” he objected.

“Tae-oppa, I’m fine. Please just go to work,” you begged, using the old nickname you had for him for good measure. You hadn’t called him that since before he kicked you out, and you could see him softening in front of you.

“Are you sure?” he asked, leaning forward slightly to get a better look at you – not that he needed it, with his enhanced wolf vision.

“Yeah.” You nodded, smiling tremulously at him.

“Okay. I’ll see you when I get home then.” Taehyung got up and got ready to leave, and you followed him to the front door. As he was putting his coat on, you sidled up to him and wrapped your arms around him in a hug, the first one you’d voluntarily given him since he’d found you at Hangang Park.

“What’s all this?” he asked, bemused, even as his arms wrapped around you. His wolf just couldn’t resist, and you were so cute, nuzzling into the hollow between his collarbones like you were scenting him. Humming with pleasure, he dropped his head to the top of yours, sniffing your hair.

“Nothing,” you said, your voice slightly muffled. You pulled back a little so you could look up at him, and for a second, your faces were so close that he could have just dipped his head slightly to kiss you. The temptation was overwhelming, especially since you’d initiated the hug, but Taehyung held it together – just barely. You squeezed him a little tighter and it took everything in him to stay still, praying that you wouldn’t notice the erection starting to form in his pants.

Obviously, you did notice it, since it was pressed into your belly, but you graciously ignored it, knowing that he couldn’t help it. Knowledge of your impending mortality made such things seem less significant, anyway.

When you finally released him and took a step back, he blinked for a moment, slightly bereft. Without your warmth pressed against him he felt a little cold, even though he knew it was ridiculous. Still, he had to leave, so he brushed your hair behind your shoulder fondly and asked, “Are you sure you’ll be okay at home?” one last time.

“Yes,” you stressed, pushing him gently out the door. “I’ll be fine, I promise, Tae-oppa.” He still looked a little dubious, but you’d distracted him by calling him that again, and he left with a small smile on his face.

With the door firmly shut behind Taehyung, you leaned against it and sank onto the ground. Just getting him out of the house had been exhausting, and you didn’t know if you actually had the strength to end your own life. Your breath shuddered out of your lungs and you tipped your head back against the door.

Even though you were now alone, you were afraid to give in to your emotions because you didn’t know if you would have the courage to go through with it if you let the fear take over. Instead, you mechanically got on with your morning routine, washing the dishes and tidying up. You avoided the bathroom because you knew what was there.

Since Taehyung had been having trouble sleeping without you in his bed, he’d gotten a prescription for sleeping pills which he kept in the bathroom cabinet. He didn’t use them all the time, you knew, just the nights that were particularly bad. If you thought hard enough, it would be easy to connect the times when he couldn’t sleep to your ovulation cycle, but you were determined to ignore that.

It wasn’t until hours later that you opened the bathroom cabinet and found the pills. You reached into the cabinet, your hands trembling, and closed your fingers around the small bottle. Your legs wouldn’t work properly when you went back to your room and shut the door, and it felt like every muscle in your body was already stiff.

Looking down at the bottle in your palm, you bit your lip to prevent tears from leaking out again. You rolled the container back and forth a little, looking at the sticker with Taehyung’s name on it. The recommended dose was half a pill to one.

Breathing out heavily, you steeled yourself to open the bottle, but you couldn’t do it. With a sigh, you placed it down on your bedside table, staring at it. The little orange bottle with a white cap sat innocently where you’d left it, like it was mocking you.

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

Something had been off all day, Taehyung could feel it. Obviously, there was no supernatural aspect to the imprint, but he’d been living with you for almost ten years now, and you weren’t as good at hiding your emotions as you thought you were. Worrying about you consumed almost all of his focus, and he was a complete mess during dance practice – even Namjoon was doing better than he was.

After the third time Hoseok had stopped practice to yell at him, Namjoon intervened, taking Taehyung aside to talk to him in the hallway.

“Tae, what’s been going on with you recently? You skip out on practice for two days, and now it’s like you’re not even here when you are.”

Taehyung shrugged, averting eye contact. He was ashamed of how he was acting, because he knew it was stressing his brothers out too when they were already freaking out over the comeback tour, but he just couldn’t get you out of his mind. “I’m sorry, hyung. Y/n’s been acting a little strange recently, and I’m just worried about leaving her alone,” he explained.

Namjoon’s expression softened. “Do you need to talk about it?” he offered.

“I don’t know. She’s been acting a little strange since the tour ended, and after I told her that my heat is coming up…” he blushed. Hybrids weren’t shy when talking about their heats – it was a normal bodily function for them, after all – but since Taehyung had the imprint, any mention of the heat implied that he couldn’t stop thinking about the way his pet human smelled and tasted. Even though he was coming to accept that the imprint, and by extension, his desires, were not his fault, it was still awkward and embarrassing for him to talk about it. He hadn’t told anyone about it other than you, so only Namjoon knew.

“Yeah? What’s been going on? Maybe she’s just stressed out about it,” Namjoon tried to reassure his brother. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know…” Taehyung pursed his lips in thought. “She spent the last couple of days locked up in her room and I kept hearing her crying. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, though.”

Namjoon was starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach. Was this related to the conversation he’d had with you so many months ago?

“And she was really weird today, too. You know she gave me a hug?” Try as he might, Taehyung couldn’t stop the dreamy note from entering his voice. As uncharacteristic as it had been for you, he’d missed your physical affection so much that he couldn’t bring himself to complain about it.

“That sounds nice. Why are you worried then?” Namjoon prompted.

“I don’t know. She just seemed really upset even though she was trying to hide it.” Taehyung frowned. “I even offered to stay home again to keep her company, but she basically forced me to leave the house.”

His jaw tightening, Namjoon’s mind raced. “You should go back to check on her if you’re worried,” he told Taehyung.

“What? But practice and everything, I can’t just abandon you guys-” he protested.

“Please, as if you’re helping us out in your current state.” Namjoon rolled his eyes. “Go, I’ll cover for you with the others.”

“Okay. Thank you, hyung,” he said gratefully before running down the hall to the elevator.

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

You picked up the bottle again, shaking it a little and hearing the noise as the pills rattled against the container. “Okay, now or never,” you psyched yourself up with a deep breath. Of course, you’d rather it be never, but you pushed that thought out of your mind. This was for Taehyung, you reminded yourself.

The bottle cap had a child lock on it, which was truly ridiculous when you stopped to think about it, because adult humans were definitely more able to open a stupid bottle cap than a hybrid child was. If they were going to restrict access to prescription medication, a human-proof lock would be better.

Then again, you mused sardonically, most humans were smart enough to know not to break into medicine cabinets and eat whatever they saw, so it was probably seen as redundant.

Opening the bottle easily, you turned it over and emptied the contents into your hand. You dropped the bottle onto the covers next to where you were sitting and reached for the glass of water you’d prepared on your nightstand. Your hand trembled so much, though, that you had to work extra hard to get a good grip on the glass, and even then, you spilled a bit on the bed.

Slowly, you unclenched your hand and stared at the pills. Closing your eyes, you tossed them all into your mouth, then brought the glass of water to your lips. Come on, you thought to yourself. It would all be over soon – all the suffering that you’d experienced in the last year. Just a couple of minutes, and you would slip into blissful sleep. No more nightmares, no more trauma…

Now that you’d decided on this path, the knowledge that you wouldn’t need to continue living such a painful existence was almost a relief to you. Finally, you tipped the glass a little so water filled your mouth and swallowed. You finished the water before setting the glass back on the bedside table, then stretched out so you were lying on your side, facing the door.

Although it was too soon to feel the effects of the sleeping pills, you felt an incredible wave of peace wash over you, and you closed your eyes. Soon, all of this would be over. You’d be free, setting down all your burdens.

Right before you faded out of consciousness, you vaguely registered your phone vibrating against the bedside table, but your eyelids were too heavy to lift, and it felt impossible to raise your hand to pick it up to see who was calling.

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

The sense of dread and discomfort Taehyung felt brewing in the pit of his stomach only intensified as he drove back home, and by the time he parked his car, the unease bordered on panic. He’d been attempting to call you the whole time, but you hadn’t picked up, which was strange for you – you’d not been far from your phone ever since you’d gotten your first. It was just lucky that he hadn’t been pulled over or gotten into an accident from how poorly he’d been driving, his gaze constantly flicking from the road to his phone.

He raced up to his apartment as quickly as possible, bursting through the door like a madman. Every second felt like life or death, and he’d almost broken the elevator buttons from pressing on it so hard so many times. “Y/n?” he called, his voice echoing through the apartment the moment he stepped through the door.

There was no response to break the ominous silence, only the deafening sound of his heart pounding in his ears. Kicking off his shoes, Taehyung walked quickly through the corridor, peeking into the kitchen and living room as he passed them to make sure you weren’t in either of those rooms.

“Y/n?” he called again, his voice starting to sound slightly manic. He hoped more than anything that you would appear from around the corner and laugh at him for getting so worked up over nothing, but there was no sound or movement. Your bedroom door was shut, so he knew you hadn’t left the apartment, because you never shut it after you.

Stopping in front of your room, he knocked on the door. “Y/n, are you there? Can you let me in, please?”

Silence.

“Y/n?” He knocked again, a little more insistently.

When there was still no response, he opened the door hesitantly and peeked in. “Y/n?” When he saw you lying on your bed, he relaxed for a moment, thinking that you were just taking a nap. In fact, you looked so peaceful like that, with all the lines in your face from that tense expression you always wore around him smoothed out.

He stepped into the room and realized only then that something was wrong. You were breathing too slowly, and your heart rate was sluggish. Looking closer, he saw the empty pill bottle lying on its side next to you and his panic rocketed through the roof.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed, rushing to you. “Y/n? Y/n!” he tried to shake you awake, to no avail.

“Shit,” he hissed, wrapping an arm around your shoulders to prop you up. Your head lolled listlessly. “Y/n, please,” he begged, tears pricking at his eyes that he tried to blink away. He had to keep it together, or you wouldn’t make it.

Setting you back down on the bed, he called the ambulance hotline. The moment he heard the click that meant someone had picked up, he started explaining what had happened, the words spilling out of him in his urgency. “My human, she’s swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills, I don’t know what to do, I—” His voice broke on a sob.

“Sir? Please remain calm. I’ll send an ambulance; can you provide your address?” The person manning the hotline’s soothing voice helped Taehyung, and he took a deep breath as he told her the address.

“An ambulance will be there ASAP. In the meantime, it would be helpful if you could induce vomiting to start removing the drug from her system.”

Taehyung tossed his phone onto the covers and pushed his sleeves past his elbows. “Induce vomiting…” he muttered to himself, his hands hovering uncertainly over your face. “Uhhh…”

Gingerly, he slid one hand under your neck to hold your head off the mattress slightly and winced as he stuck two fingers in your mouth, gently probing at the opening of your throat. No response.

“Fuck, come on…” he said, voice strained as he pushed a little harder and felt you gag. Encouraged, he did it again, and it felt like your whole body convulsed as you started throwing up.

“Gross,” he cried, unable to retract his hand fast enough. He tilted your head so you didn’t choke on your own vomit, and it fell onto the floor instead. He wrinkled his nose – the smell was awful, especially to his enhanced hybrid senses – but he could see the pills lying among the mess, and he sagged in relief, bracing his arms against the bed on either side of your prone form as he bowed his head, his forehead just barely touching your stomach.

And then the paramedics arrived, and everything was a blur of motion that Taehyung could barely keep up with. You were lifted onto a stretcher and someone was wiping off his hand, then he was following the paramedics out while answering their questions about you. Turns out, he didn’t know a lot about what you’d been doing before you decided to do this.

On the way to the hospital, he sat in the ambulance clutching your hand, hovering anxiously above you and watching your face for any sign of discomfort or pain. There was none, of course. You were still out cold, but watching you made him feel useful, and reassured him that you were still breathing and okay. His wolf was frantic, and it was difficult to keep his baser instincts under wraps when his control was so frayed by his emotional state, but he had to, for your sake.

It became almost a mantra for him during the traumatic hours when they wheeled you off into the hospital, pumped your stomach and gave you other drugs to get the sleeping pills out of your system. He reminded himself sternly that he could not give in to his animal instincts, rip into the doctors and nurses who were causing you pain and growl at everyone to leave you the fuck alone. It had been easier staying in control of his animal side when there was a task at hand that he needed to focus on to help you, but now that there was nothing to do but sit around, he felt like he was going crazy, the two sides of his psyche at war with each other.

He sat in the corridor right outside the room you were in, listening to the sounds coming from within: the beeping, the yelling from the doctor and nurses as they tried to save your life, and worst of all, the revolting sounds that came with you having your stomach pumped. You regained consciousness briefly during that time, and your cries of distress and pain were agonizing to listen to. Unaware that there was nothing he could do, his wolf side snarled and begged for him to help, to snatch you away from the people who were torturing you. He bowed his head, sat on his hands and cried along with you.

It wasn’t until you were safely in your own room in the hospital, cleaned up and asleep in your bed with an IV drip in, that Taehyung could finally relax, knowing you would be all right. He texted Namjoon to tell him what had happened, then just sat with you, waiting for you to wake up.

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

The room was dark, you noted sluggishly. The door was open, and some light spilled in from the hallway, but the ceiling was barely lit with a dim yellow. It was kind of soothing, you thought as your eyes slid shut again. Everything felt heavy and ached, so you didn’t bother trying to move. It was easier to just go back to sleep.

The next time you woke up, the room was bright again, and when you tried to lift your hand to your face to block out the light, you found that you couldn’t. This was concerning until you turned to see Taehyung, slumped on the bed with his cheek resting against your hand.

You wriggled your fingers a little, just to check that you still could, and the motion woke him up. He blinked slowly, his vision blurry for a second, until he realized where he was and jolted upright. It was probably the fastest you’d ever seen him wake up, and you wanted to make a dig at his expense about it, but when you tried to speak, you realized how dry your throat was.

“Water,” you croaked, and Taehyung leapt to do your bidding, bringing you a paper cup filled with water. You reached out to take the cup from him, but he refused to hand it over, helping you sit up with one arm while feeding you the water with the other. When the cool liquid touched your lips, you sucked it down eagerly, unaware until that moment how very thirsty you actually were.

“Slowly,” Taehyung cautioned. Ignoring him, you drained the cup and asked for more.

When you’d had three whole cups of water, he helped you find the remote control for the bed so that you could sit up comfortably. The blanket pooled around your hips and Taehyung continued fussing over you, making sure you were comfortable.

“I’m fine, oppa,” you said, batting his hands away gently. He looked up at you, his face so close to yours, and the anguish you saw in his eyes took your breath away. “Oppa… are you okay?” you asked, cradling his face with your hand. You swept your thumb across his cheek as his eyes closed. He was supposed to be okay… that was the whole point.

“I should be asking you that question,” he forced out, his voice thick with emotion as he sat back down heavily. “Y/n… why did you do it?”

Swallowing hard, you looked away from him and refused to say anything.

“Y/n, please…” he begged. “I want to help you. That’s all I want.” He leaned forward, trying to meet your eyes, but you slid your gaze away again. “If you won’t talk to me, will you talk to a psychologist or a therapist?”

Your eyes widened in panic and you turned back to face him so fast he thought he might have heard your neck crack. “I can’t talk to anyone else about this!” you cried out. “You know we can’t tell anyone about the… the…” As you realized what you’d almost blurted out, you clammed up, clutching at your blanket in distress as you lowered your gaze.

“Is this… about the imprint?” Taehyung asked, his voice shaky now. You didn’t reply, but the damage was already done. “Y/n, I’m sorry,” he said quietly, his voice choked. He sniffled and blinked away tears. “I know this has been difficult and unfair for you,” he continued. “If you want to leave me, you only have to ask, okay?”

Fuck. This had never been the plan. Now he thought there was something wrong with you and wanted to get rid of you. Of course he did – who wanted a defective pet who tried to commit suicide? “You want me to go?” you asked in a small voice. “Where- where would I go?”

“Will you be happier if you leave? I just want you to be happy, baby. You can go live with my parents, or I’ll get you your own apartment somewhere, or if you want--” He gulped. “I can see if anyone else wants to adopt you. You’re so cute and pretty, I’m sure lots of hybrids want to adopt a human like you.” The words felt like ground glass, but he was sincere in his offer. If it would help you, he would give you up entirely, despite the personal cost to him. Even saying the words had his wolf going crazy, begging and whining for you to stay, but he remained resolute, refusing to give voice to his feelings. This was about you, and it would remain about you.

Would you be happier if you left? Honestly, you didn’t know. You looked up at him and bit your lip thoughtfully. The imprint had been difficult for you to deal with, yes, and he’d ruined your trust in him by kicking you out. But he’d been trying to make up for it ever since, and it had been about eight months of him reining in his instincts and being patient and kind. You were more than aware that his insomnia was caused by you, and it probably wasn’t the only problem that you were causing in his life, yet he’d never made you feel bad.

And—most importantly, he’d saved you. You were sitting in this hospital bed, well and alive, because of him, and he was still trying to help you. Would you ever find somebody who cared about you as much as Taehyung? Who else would go to the same lengths to make sure that you were safe and happy?

Even now, you could see how difficult it was for him to make you that offer. Taehyung was notoriously bad at hiding his feelings, after all, especially from someone as familiar with him as you were, but even without seeing his distress from his body language, you knew that it wouldn’t be easy for him if you left his life. Yet he’d offered, and he was being sincere about it.

Taehyung was one in a million, and you’d lucked out by having him as your owner. He’d been exemplary other than his one slip, and as awful as that had been, you could sort of understand why he’d done it. Besides, hadn’t he made up for it?

Before you knew it, you were shaking your head. Slowly at first, then increasingly vehemently. You didn’t want to leave him, you realized now. Yes, things had been difficult recently, but he’d done his best to make up for it, was truly remorseful about his mistake, and you could feel how much he cared for you with everything he did. For the most part, you really liked being his pet, and you would miss him if you left.

“I don’t want to leave,” you said in a small voice.

Taehyung sagged in relief. “Okay, baby,” he said, reaching out to stroke your hair. “We’ll figure it out, okay? Trust me. I’ll never let anything bad happen to you ever again.”

His promise made you feel like everything was going to be all right, because you knew Taehyung would move heaven and earth for you.

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

When you were discharged from the hospital a few days later, Taehyung was right there to pick you up, wheeling you out in your wheelchair – despite your protests that you could walk, thank you very much – and attempting to help you into the car. Although you slapped his hands away and got into the car unaided, you couldn’t stop the small smile that stole across your face at how eager he was to coddle you.

Taehyung had barely left your side during the time you’d been in the hospital, and they’d given him special permission to stay past visiting hours because he was your owner. He’d only gone home to shower and change, and to bring you some proper clothes to change into when you were discharged. Your near-death experience had changed your entire outlook on the situation you were in, and you were more open with him now than you’d been in the past months, ever since he rescued you from the streets. Taehyung, for his part, reveled in your new, easier relationship with him, smiling so much at you that you wondered how his cheeks didn’t ache.

You were glad to be home, honestly. Hospital food sucked and you craved the comfort of being back in familiar surroundings. Taehyung looked over at you after pressing the button for the elevator, and you smiled back at him. “You doing okay?” he asked, just to be sure. He’d been doing that a lot over the past couple of days – asking after you periodically, like he just had to make sure that you were still okay.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” you told him, squeezing his arm. You knew it had scared him when you suddenly – or so it seemed to him – decided to take your own life, with very little warning. Since you didn’t have any plans to tell him why you’d done it, not being willing to throw Namjoon under the bus when you knew he’d meant well, you’d made up your mind to reassure him that you didn’t have any plans to try again. You were quite happy being among the living.

When Taehyung opened the front door and let you in, you about leapt out of your skin when you saw the other boys standing in the entrance. “Y/n-ie!” Jimin cried, rushing to give you a hug. Confused, you stood still and let him rub his cheek against your temple, staring with wide eyes at the boys over his shoulder.

“Guys, what are you doing here?” Taehyung grumped, trying to sound irritated but not entirely succeeding.

Hoseok shrugged. “We wanted to come welcome Y/n back,” he explained. “We brought lots of food, too.”

“Aww, thank you guys,” you giggled.

It was easy to not overthink when you were with all seven of the boys. They were rowdy and noisy, as always, yelling at each other and hamming it up to make you laugh. You didn’t need to do much to feel comfortable with them, sliding into old, familiar patterns of interaction as you sat at the table and ate the food they’d brought, giggling at their antics.

Even Taehyung seemed to relax around them, losing the tension you’d seen him carry in his shoulders and the lines around his mouth. As he smiled and laughed with Jungkook and Jimin, you couldn’t help but feel warm inside. This was what you had chosen, and you were happy with your decision.

None of the boys mentioned why you’d been in the hospital to begin with, not wanting to make you uncomfortable, but from the way Namjoon kept staring at you, you knew Taehyung had definitely told at least him. You tried your best to avoid his gaze, feeling awkward, but you could feel his eyes drilling holes into the back of your head.

After lunch, you excused yourself to use the restroom while the others started clearing up. As you were washing your hands, you stared into the mirror as the memory of what had transpired the last time you were in this room happened. Right behind the mirror was the cabinet, and you couldn’t help but recall reaching in to grab the bottle of pills.

Shaken, you quickly dried off your hands and exited the room – only to run into Namjoon, who was leaning against the wall by the bathroom door.

“Oppa,” you greeted him, making to skirt around him and return to the living room, where the rest of the boys had migrated.

“Y/n,” he said urgently, and you looked up at him, surprised. You’d thought he just wanted to use the bathroom too, but apparently you were wrong.

“What is it, oppa?” you asked politely, not wanting to make a scene.

“Y/n, I’m sorry,” he apologized, looking down shamefully.

Your eyes widened. This hadn’t really been what you were expecting. “What for?” you asked cautiously.

“For suggesting that you should… you know,” he gestured at you with his hands, unable to say the words.

“Oh… don’t be sorry. You didn’t force me or anything,” you said, patting his arm.

“Still, I shouldn’t have told you about it,” he persisted. “That was wrong of me, I realise now. It’s not your responsibility to break the imprint.”

“Oppa…” you sighed. “It’s really not your fault, okay? I was the one who made the decision, and I was the one who asked you for the information. I know you were just trying to help.”

He raised his anguished gaze to meet yours, and you were surprised by how truly miserable he looked. This whole time, you’d thought that he only tolerated you, that he resented you because of what you’d done to Taehyung. His attitude towards you had shifted so drastically after finding out about the imprint that you’d gotten whiplash, and it was a huge part of why you ultimately accepted that the imprint was mostly your fault. Seeing him so cut up about your suicide attempt was jarring, to say the least.

“No, it was wrong of me,” he insisted. “I’m so sorry, Y/n. I realise now that it isn’t your fault all of this happened, and I should have known better than to tell you when you were still recovering from your traumatic experience.”

“What did you tell her?” Taehyung’s voice cut rudely into the discussion you were having with Namjoon, and you both whipped around, eyes wide. It would have been almost comical if Taehyung hadn’t been so furious.

“Taehyung-ah—”

“Tae-oppa—”

Both of you tried to placate Taehyung, but he wasn’t having it. “What. Did. You. Tell. Her?” he asked, louder and more forcefully this time.

You wanted to facepalm. You’d been so careful about not letting it slip to Taehyung, trying to prevent this very situation from happening, and he’d caught you at the earliest possible moment.

“Tae-oppa, please—” You ran towards him, grabbing his shirt with your hands and trying to stop him from advancing on Namjoon. “It was nothing, please just let it go,” you begged.

When he looked down tenderly at you, brushing his thumb over your cheek in a manner that was very reminiscent of the way you’d done the same to him in the hospital, you relaxed a little, thinking he was going to do as you asked. Then he looked up at Namjoon over your head, and you sighed. Oh well, you thought. It would have been too easy if you’d been able to defuse the situation just like that.

Namjoon, for his part, wasn’t doing anything to defend himself, standing with his head bowed and hands clasped in front of him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered softly, knowing that Taehyung would be able to hear him anyway.

It didn’t help. Taehyung pushed you out of the way gently and you stared, wide-eyed, as he stalked towards the taller hybrid. Namjoon could probably defend himself if he wanted to, but he didn’t bother, letting Taehyung deck him so hard he fell onto the ground. Unsatisfied, Taehyung straddled him and continued hitting him repeatedly, so hard you could see Namjoon’s eye already swelling shut as blood spattered on the ground.

“Stop, stop!” you screamed, throwing yourself onto your knees behind the and wrapping your arms around Taehyung’s waist. “Stop, please…” you started sobbing, burying your face in his back. The violence reminded you of being out on the streets, watching the various gang fights between the humans that would take place on a near-daily basis.

The commotion had the other boys rushing to see what was going on, gathering in the hallway as they gawked at the scene in front of them. Hoseok was the first one to snap out of it, running forward to haul Taehyung off Namjoon. The fox hybrid wasn’t strong enough to control the incensed wolf, but Jin and Jungkook quickly stepped in to help, and together they managed to separate the two.

Jimin darted forward to fuss over Namjoon, helping him up while Taehyung strained against his brothers and continued yelling and swearing.

“Tae-oppa, please,” you begged, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Please stop.”

The proximity to you seemed to help, as he relaxed slightly in your hold. “You’d better go,” you said to Namjoon, and he nodded. The rest of the boys filed out with him, leaving you alone with your owner.

“Tae-oppa, are you okay?” you asked worriedly once the door closed behind the others. You pulled away from him and grabbed his hands, examining them to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself.

“Is that why you did it?” he asked. He didn’t sound like himself, and you looked up at him with concern. His bangs hung over his eyes, which were still sparking with rage. He’d never seemed more like an animal than in that moment, and this was including the last time he’d been in heat.

“Taehyung-oppa…” You didn’t know what to say.

“Is it?!” he raised his voice, and you jumped in fright. Your nerves were already shot to hell from the bathroom and then the confrontation with Namjoon, and you broke down in tears.

“I’m sorry,” you blubbered between sobs. “He said it was the only way to break the imprint, and then you said you didn’t want it, and I thought—”

“Hey, hey.” Your distress snapped Taehyung out of his anger, and he immediately turned his attention to comforting you. “I wasn’t blaming you, please don’t cry,” he said, his tone a lot softer now as he rubbed his hands up and down your arms. “You don’t need to apologize, ever, okay? It was my fault for being thoughtless,” he said, ducking a little so he could look you in the eye when you were stubbornly looking downward.

“I don’t ever want you to think that the imprint is a problem for you to solve, okay? It’s not your fault, and I should never have made you think that you had any obligation to seek out a solution, especially one like that.” The strength and conviction with which he spoke the words made it difficult to do anything other than nod, and you finally felt the weight you’d been carrying on your shoulders ever since Namjoon told you about what he thought was the only way to break the bond.

“And I’m sorry for yelling.” He sighed as you hugged him, wrapping his own arms around you and stroking your hair as you sobbed into his shirtfront. “Next time, if you have any problems, I don’t want you to think you have to hide them from me, okay? Even if they’re about us.” He might have imprinted on you, but he was still your owner and he was still responsible for you. He’d been paying for his slip-up for almost a year now, and he was determined to be more mindful from now on. The image of your body, looking so small and fragile, in your bed still haunted him.

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

Being back in your room was difficult, you realized once you’d washed up and gotten ready for bed. Even getting into bed made you think of your suicide attempt, and there was also that ugly stain on the carpet from where you’d thrown up. Taehyung had tried to clean it, but he hadn’t been able to get the stain out, and looking at it bothered you.

There was no way you’d be able to fall asleep in the room, so you hesitantly walked over to Taehyung’s intending to bunk in with him. However, the moment you reached the door, you chickened out and paused with your fist raised. Would it be okay if you slept with him tonight? Taehyung would never say no, but you knew it would probably be difficult for him to get any rest with you in his bed. The last time you’d slept in the same room with him had been the night he found out about your experience on the street, and you still remembered waking up to his hard-on pressing into your back.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, you thought. You could always stay on the couch tonight, you decided and turned to do just that. Before you could take a step, however, the bedroom door opened behind you and you turned back around to see Taehyung standing in front of you wearing just pajama pants.

“H-hey,” you said awkwardly.

“Do you want to come in?” he asked. You didn’t ask how he knew you were there – of course he heard you coming down the hall. You bit your lip uncertainly, but sleeping with him did sound like a much better option than the couch, so you said yes and scurried into his room, climbing back into your side of the bed and burrowing under the sheets.

“Are you all right?” Taehyung asked as he got back into bed.

You hummed noncommittally. “I guess,” you said cagily, and he turned onto his side to look at you more fully. The intimacy of this position made your heart race, and you weren’t sure if it was discomfort or something else. His quirked brow was all it took to make you come clean. “Being in my room reminds me of… you know,” you mumbled, feeling guilty for some reason.

“It’s okay,” Taehyung soothed, though he didn’t initiate any physical contact. “You can stay here tonight, and tomorrow we can go stay with my parents for a while, okay? Would you like that?”

Your eyes lit up at the prospect. “We can visit Yeontan?” you asked, your voice lilting with delight.

“Of course we can,” Taehyung said, smiling at you. Your affection for the little dog knew no bounds, and he really should have done this sooner, he realized as he watched you snuggle more deeply into the sheets and shut your eyes. You were asleep within minutes, which he envied, knowing it would probably be a sleepless night for him.

Thankfully, he was wrong, although he thought maybe it would have been better if he’d stayed awake when he woke up and realized that he was wrapped around you again. He was really working on remembering to limit physical contact with you, but it was difficult not to give in to habit (and his wolf instincts) when you seemed more open and comfortable around him than you had in months. Your brush with death had really changed your attitude towards him, it seemed, and though he didn’t really understand why, he was just pleased that you didn’t seem to shy away from his touch as much anymore.

Carefully disentangling himself from you, he slipped out of bed with his phone in his hand and hobbled awkwardly towards the bathroom. Sharing a bed with his imprint was hard (pun intended). Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, he called his parents to ask if it was okay if the two of you stayed with them for a little while. They were more than pleased to have you.

The next call he made was considerably harder. Since he wasn’t exactly on talking terms with Namjoon, he called Hoseok to let him know that he would be taking a couple of weeks off to spend time with you and his family. He felt bad about it, and apologized repeatedly, but right now he had to make you his priority.

Hoseok was understanding enough, explaining that he too thought it was best if Taehyung and Namjoon didn’t see each other for a little bit. They were already going to have to push promotions back by a couple of weeks because Namjoon’s face was messed up, so it would be fine if he skipped practice.

When he hung up the phone, he took a moment to bury his face in his hands. God, everything was a mess, but at least you were healthy and seemed to be in high spirits. Shaken up by your near brush with death, sure, but overall doing way better than expected. Thank God for small blessings, he supposed. And big blessings too, like that he’d decided to come home early and found you before it was too late.

You woke up to an empty bed, but that didn’t really faze you. When you peeked out the bedroom door, you saw the bathroom door was closed, and figured Taehyung was in there. Shrugging, you skipped over to your room to start packing. You couldn’t be more excited about going back to Geochang and seeing Yeontan and Kai and everyone else.

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

Being back on the farm was great, you thought. Yeontan came running up to the car as soon as it pulled up in front of the house, and you leapt out to pick up your furry little friend. “I missed you so much,” you cooed, rubbing your face in his fur as he wriggled around excitedly, trying to lick your face. Taehyung’s parents came out to greet you, hugging their son and then you. Yeontan was now panting happily from his perch in your arms, and you cuddled him as Taehyung brought your bags in.

Distractions abounded on the farm, and you kept yourself well-entertained with Taehyung’s siblings, nephews and nieces, and hanging out with your old friends. It made it easy to avoid thinking about everything that had transpired, and every night when it was time for bed, you were so exhausted that you weren’t able to lie there thinking and worrying, falling asleep almost immediately.

Taehyung was enjoying the break too. He loved the city and his work, but being back in the countryside, with the clean air and the family he rarely got to see was a welcome respite. He spent his days mostly in the house, hanging out with his family while you ran around doing whatever. It was nice to see you happy again, he thought one afternoon as you took a nap on the couch, snuggled up with Yeontan. He was still a baby, but he was getting on in age and wasn’t as spry as he once was, something you didn’t mind as you carried him around so he wouldn’t strain his little joints walking.

Still, you could only distract yourself for so long before everything caught up with you, and you found yourself huddled in a shed late one morning crying over everything you’d lost. As healing as being on the farm was, it reminded you of the last time you’d lived here, while Taehyung had been serving in the military. It had been so much easier, everything uncomplicated and simple. You hadn’t had to battle these complicated feelings for Taehyung, knowing that he was struggling with his own turmoil – you’d just been secure in the fact that he loved you the way he should love a pet.

Yeontan, concerned, propped his front paws on your knees and tried to lick your tears away, but you just pulled him close as you continued to sob. Why had everything become so difficult? What had you done to deserve all of this?

As you were having your little breakdown, Taehyung was looking for you. It was almost lunchtime, which you were never late for because you loved his mom’s cooking, so he got concerned when you didn’t pop up with Yeontan in tow. It seemed like the dog liked you better than everyone else, including Taehyung himself, which didn’t seem fair, but he’d gotten over sulking about it when he saw how happy you two made each other.

“Mom, have you seen Y/n? She’s usually never late for lunch, I’m getting worried,” Taehyung finally asked after checking every room in the house and the spots around the farm he thought she’d be.

“Oh, try looking in that old shed on the far corner of the orchard, sweetie,” his mother replied carelessly, plating up the dishes. “She likes to hang out there for quiet time; thinks we don’t know about it.”

With that helpful tip, Taehyung jogged through the orchard to the shed in question, knowing he’d hit the jackpot even before opening the door because of the sound of your sobs coming through the door.

“Y/n?” he called, knocking on the door. “You in there?”

Sniffling, you hastily tried to wipe away your tears with the sleeve of your shirt. “Yeah,” you called out.

“Hey,” he greeted you as he walked in, coming to take a seat next to you. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” you said, looking down at your hands, half-covered by your oversized sleeves. Only your fingers peeked out, making you look smaller and more vulnerable than usual.

“Come on,” Taehyung coaxed, knocking his shoulder into yours gently. “You know you can trust me with anything, right? I’ll always support you.”

You clenched your hands into fists, hiding them in your sleeves. Yeontan hopped from your lap to Taehyung’s, and you felt the loss of his warm little body immediately, curling closer into Taehyung in response.

“It’s just… it’s a lot,” you said vaguely, unsure of how to put your thoughts into words.

Thankfully, Taehyung understood without you needing to say anything. “I’m sure it is,” he empathized quietly. His giant frame radiated heat that you soaked up eagerly. As a human, you weren’t quite as resistant to the cold as he was. “If you want to talk about it, though, I’m always here for you, okay? It can be now or any time.”

“I know.” You nodded. Taehyung had definitely demonstrated his commitment to you. Whether it was because he was a responsible pet owner or because of the imprint you weren’t sure, but you knew now that there was no stronger force on this earth than Taehyung’s determination to keep you safe.

It was that sense of security that had you opening up to him. Resting your head on his shoulder, you started speaking. “Being here just reminded me of a simpler time, is all.”

“I get that,” Taehyung said quietly, leaning his head against yours. “Being here reminds me of my childhood too.” He ignored the way his heart seemed to skip at your proximity, determined to be there for you. You’d always enjoyed physical comfort in the past, and it wasn’t anything more than that. What kind of owner would he be if he couldn’t even cuddle his pet?

He looked down at Yeontan, sitting on his lap and panting up at him happily. That’s right, he tried to convince himself. You were just like Yeontan. Pesky imprint aside, he shouldn’t see or treat you any differently.

Thankfully, you didn’t notice any of his inner turmoil since you were so absorbed in your own thoughts. Looping your arm around his, you continued speaking, feeling like now that the dam had been broken the words were spilling out of you almost too fast, without any control. “I know none of this is your fault – well, except for kicking me out, that most definitely was—” Taehyung nodded, accepting your censure with grace, “—but it just feels like a lot of pressure, you know?”

Taehyung stiffened. “If I’ve ever made you feel obligated to do anything—” he began, but you cut him off, shaking your head.

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Your brow furrowed as you thought about the best way to phrase it. “It’s just that…” you paused to think for a moment, before continuing. “Knowing how much you’re struggling makes me feel like I should be doing more to help you,” you explained.

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to, really, you shouldn’t worry about this at all,” he stressed, and meant it.

“That’s not how caring about someone works, Tae-oppa,” you countered. “Besides, isn’t your heat coming up soon? If we don’t go back soon you’re going to have to go through it here and it’ll be super awkward and—” You stopped when Taehyung abruptly lifted his head off yours and stared down at you.

“What is it?” you asked, looking up at him. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. “Oppa? You okay?”

“My heat,” he murmured. “I forgot about that.”

Your face scrunched up in confusion. “You forgot? How is that even possible?” The symptoms of his preheat were so disruptive that all his daily activities were affected by them.

“I don’t know, the symptoms just… disappeared.”

Blinking at him, you tried to put the pieces together. “Okaaaay…” you said slowly. “When did this happen?” If there was a problem with his health, you had to go back to Seoul ASAP so he could see a doctor. You’d never heard of this happening before, although granted, you’d never been seeking this information out.

“Uhh, I remember eating way more than usual for breakfast the morning that you, uh…” he paused awkwardly, then continued, skipping over any mention of your suicide attempt altogether. “Then you were in the hospital and I was so worried I was barely eating, so I guess it was then?”

You frowned. That didn’t make sense – his heat cycle had never been disrupted by stress before. Even when there’d been deaths in his family his heat had still passed without incident. Yet it had to be that, since the timing lined up so perfectly.

Taehyung’s lips pressed together to avoid smiling at how cute you were when you were deep in thought, trying to figure the puzzle out. “Come on,” he said, standing up and dusting his pants off. “It’s lunchtime.”

“Oh, okay,” you said quietly, jolted out of your train of thought, as you let him help you up. By the time you got back to the house, lunch was almost over and as you exclaimed your disappointment over your favourite stew being gone, you forgot entirely about the strange mystery of Taehyung’s heat.

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

Being back in Geochang meant hanging out with Kai again. Your reunion with your ex-boyfriend was something you’d been looking forward to since Taehyung even floated the idea of going back to visit his parents. You hadn’t broken up because you were incompatible in any way, of course, but because it was just impossible to be together, since your life was with Taehyung’s in Seoul, and Kai’s family was very happy living in the countryside.

Still, when you went to visit him, his owners just let you into the house, telling you that Kai was upstairs in his room. After thanking them politely, you ran up to his bedroom, bursting in and jumping on his bed, where he was still sleeping.

“Kai! Wake up, you lazy sack!” you giggled as you shook him awake.

He batted you away irritably. “I haven’t seen you in over a year and you’re still just as annoying as ever,” he grumbled, but since he glomped you while he was saying it, you ignored his annoying whining.

You bullied him into going to brush his teeth and sat on the edge of the bathtub watching him as he did so. He was just as handsome as ever, if not more so, but somehow you didn’t feel any attraction towards him. Was it because of the time you’d spent on the streets? Oh God, what if you didn’t like men anymore? Or sex in general? That would be a real tragedy, you thought, pressing your lips together.

Despite your confusion about Kai, the two of you still had a good time together, riding bikes around the countryside the way you used to. It was cold now, since it was winter, but you didn’t let that stop the two of you, even though you were both freezing with red drippy noses. Eventually you ended up in the community greenhouse, setting up a picnic in a cozy corner and shucking your coats. Being with Kai was easy and familiar, and you found yourself slipping into a younger state of mind, feeling lighter and happier. Still no lust, though.

Kai, on the other hand, seemed to have no such compunction – you felt his hand sliding along your lower back, clearly trying to get under your shirt, and you bit back a smile. Even if you didn’t reciprocate, there was something so therapeutic about the predictability of your ex-boyfriend trying to hit on you after all the chaos in your life over the past year.

“Kai,” you rebuked, brushing his hand away from you.

“No?” he asked, pouting at you.

Instead of answering verbally, you just shook your head with a smile.

“Okay,” he accepted, lying back. “I had my doubts anyway.”

“Yeah?” You turned onto your stomach and lay down next to him, propping yourself up with your elbows so you could look down at him easily. “How come?”

He shrugged. “Your whole vibe just seems different,” he said vaguely. “Can you move over a little, please? The sun is getting in my eyes.”

You rolled your eyes but acquiesced so that your shadow blocked out the sun. “What do you mean by that, though?”

“You seem… quieter, and your eyes are different. Like you’re keeping secrets, or you have a burden.”

Well, that much was certainly true, you thought as you hummed in acknowledgement.

“You’re still hot, though,” was his conclusion. You rolled your eyes as you laughed. Kai would be Kai, you supposed.

“Don’t worry, everything’s going to work out,” he said unexpectedly, and you looked at him with wide eyes. He’d always been perceptive, so you shouldn’t have been surprised though. He just smiled sweetly at you in response, and your heart squeezed with affection for him.

“Kai,” you sighed, snuggling close to him and resting your head on his chest. His arm came up around you, and it was nice and secure and warm. Still, you couldn’t shake the thought that Taehyung gave warmer hugs and was altogether better at making you feel like nothing in this world could touch you.

The both of you fell asleep in the greenhouse and only woke up when the sun was starting to set. Kai dropped you off at your place, just like old times, and you smiled fondly at his departing figure on his bicycle before turning around to enter the house.

You almost tripped over Taehyung on your way back into the house.

“Where were you all day?” he demanded.

“Jeez, oppa!” you screamed, pressing your hand over your pounding heart. “I was hanging out with Kai today, don’t worry,” you said dismissively, walking into the house. “Mom, I’m home!” you called out, unwinding your scarf and shucking your coat.

Taehyung came in after you, right on your heels. “You smell just like him,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, we fell asleep after lunch,” you explained with a shrug. This wasn’t necessarily uncommon behavior – even when you were just hanging around the house, you often napped in the afternoon.

His face still looked like a thundercloud, though. “What’s wrong, Taehyung-oppa?” you asked, your brow starting to furrow in concern. Had you missed something important today?

“Nothing,” he sulked. “You just really smell like him,” he repeated.

“All right,” you accepted, though you gave him another strange look before going to the dining room.

Jealousy was inappropriate and ridiculous, Taehyung reminded himself sternly as he ran his hands through his hair. He glanced towards the dining room where you’d gone, and tugged on the fluffy strands hard, hoping the pain would help him ground himself. You’d done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve this weird attitude from him.

Still, he had to admit that he absolutely hated having to smell another man’s scent on you, especially because Kai was human. He knew that you hadn’t done anything with Kai, but still, even if you had, who could blame you? Certainly not his mother, who was asking you about your day with your fellow human.

He needed to get a grip, he decided as he went to rejoin his family. This silly possessiveness over you was because of the imprint. He’d promised you that the imprint wasn’t going to be a problem because he could control it, and he intended to keep that promise.

Although, he thought as he looked over at you again, helping his mother set the table, these days he wasn’t quite sure where he ended and the imprint began.

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

By the time you headed back to Seoul with Taehyung two weeks later, your relationship with him was much stronger, and you were happier than you’d been since before his last heat. Being in Geochang was like magic for you, the change in your surroundings making it so much easier to talk to Taehyung about all the doubts and insecurities that you’d been battling with for the past year. You’d even confessed your long-held guilt about taking advantage of him during his last heat, which he’d been horrified by.

Taehyung was driving, and he thought you were asleep in the front seat, so you took the opportunity to open your eyes just a crack to peek at him. He looked so good today, his large hands handling the steering wheel with ease, and you never felt safer than you did with him at the wheel.

“Tae-oppa?” you asked hesitantly as he got into the other side of the bed.

He hummed in acknowledgement, letting you know he was listening.

“About your heat…”

At that, he turned around to face you more fully, showing that you had his full attention.

“Can you go through your heat with another woman?”

“Uhhh…” Taehyung blinked at you. The question had come out of nowhere, and it took him a few seconds to digest it. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s not like there’s a manual for the imprint. It was thought to be obsolete technology, remember?”

You scooched further down into the sheets as you contemplated your response. “So what happened during your last heat… will it happen again?” It was kind of embarrassing talking about this, but you needed to be prepared. You weren’t going to end up in the same position as last year, caught off guard and unable to protect Taehyung from himself and you.

Unbeknownst to you, Taehyung was thinking the same thing. “It won’t,” he rushed to reassure you. “Now that I know what’s going to happen, we can make preparations, okay? You’ll stay with Yoongi or one of the others during my heat. You don’t have to worry that I’ll, uh…” He didn’t want to use the word ‘attack’, but that was what came to mind. “Anyway, yeah,” he concluded lamely.

“But you’ll be miserable, won’t you?” you asked, your eyes filled with concern.

“You don’t have to worry about that, sweetie,” he reassured you. “I can handle myself.”

“But I already feel bad about what I let happen last year,” you protested. “Are you sure you can’t go through your heat with someone else?”

His nose wrinkled in distaste at the mere thought of another woman, but he was more focused on what you’d accidentally let slip. “What do you mean what you let happen?” he asked.

Oops. You hadn’t really meant to say that. “You know,” you equivocated, gesturing helplessly with your hands. “You were clearly indisposed,” you tiptoed around it delicately, “and I should have known better than to reciprocate.” God, this was embarrassing. Your hands itched to bring the duvet up over your head.

“Y/n… what are you talking about?” Taehyung, completely flummoxed, had nothing else to say.

Okay, screw this. You burrowed further under the sheets, hiding your head under the covers. You were officially leaving this conversation.

“Y/n, what happened wasn’t your fault at all,” Taehyung said strongly, patting the head-shaped lump under the covers. “I basically attacked you like an animal, and you were the one who stopped it from getting out of hand. Thank you for that, by the way.”

Your head popped back out. “’Thank you’?” you echoed disbelievingly.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t have wanted anything to happen, especially when we hadn’t talked about it before. You took charge when I wasn’t able to control myself, and I know it was difficult for you.”

Your eyes started to sting, and you willed your tears away. The relief of knowing, after all this time, that he didn’t blame you and you didn’t need to keep carrying this burden silently was overwhelming, making your throat close. You couldn’t have said anything in response to him, and Taehyung didn’t push you, just smiling down at you before he turned over and went to sleep, leaving you with your own emotions.

You’d thought about that night almost obsessively since, and you were replaying the events that had occurred in your mind again. Ever since then, you couldn’t stop the way your heart sped up a little when Taehyung was around, and you didn’t quite know what to make of it. He just made you feel so safe and cherished, and he’d so easily helped you set down all the emotional baggage you’d been accumulating for the past year. Was it gratitude or was it something more?

You opened your eyes fully and blinked at Taehyung, and he took his eyes off the road for just a second to smile at you. “Did you have a good nap?” he asked, returning his gaze to the front.

“Yeah,” you replied, smiling back at him. It was true – ever since you’d told him everything, you’d been sleeping so much easier. You still had occasional nightmares about your time on the streets, but Taehyung was always there when you woke up to comfort you, and you were starting to move past it.

“That’s good,” he said, the sincerity radiating off him.

Yeah, you thought to yourself. It was good.

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

The return of his preheat symptoms didn’t particularly surprise Taehyung, but it definitely complicated things a little. Now that you were less distracted by everything and getting the space you needed from being home, without cameras constantly trained on you, you noticed almost immediately, increasing the amount of groceries you bought and making other small adjustments to make it easier for him.

These days you accompanied him to the studio more often than not, and somewhat ironically, it was Namjoon who was the most grateful to see you there. Even though you still seemed a little uncomfortable around him, refusing to make eye contact and getting jumpy whenever he walked past your chair or came too close, you were also careful to keep an eye on Taehyung, intervening whenever it looked like Taehyung was getting too hostile. Without your presence, he was sure that the comeback prep would have fallen apart ages ago. It wasn’t the first time you’d mediated fights between the boys, but Taehyung had never been so angry for so long before.

As Taehyung stormed out of the studio where they were practicing the choreography, citing his frustration with Namjoon’s inability to get the dance moves right as the reason he needed a break, you winced as you stood up and bowed deeply to the others in apology. “His preheat is making him irritable,” you explained. “I’m so sorry, I’ll talk to him after his heat passes and he’s more level-headed.”

The others made various noises of assent and/or irritation, but they all accepted that Taehyung’s behavior was just going to get more irrational until his heat was over. As hybrids themselves, they were more than familiar with the havoc that the heat wreaked on their emotions.

Turning, you ran after Taehyung, finally finding him in the empty recording booth. He was seated on the couch, his elbows propped on his thighs and his face buried in his hands. When he heard you come in, he didn’t even react.

“Hey,” you said softly, coming to sit next to him. “You doing okay there?”

“No,” Taehyung grumped. “And you probably shouldn’t sit this close to me, either.” Your scent had been distracting him all day, and the sexual frustration added to his existing anger towards Namjoon. He probably shouldn’t have snapped, but he was still so angry at the older man for meddling.

Ignoring him, you rubbed his back soothingly. You’d gotten a lot better about physical contact, and while he was grateful that you seemed to be moving past your trauma quite well, it really wasn’t helping. One consequence of the delayed heat seemed to be that the heat symptoms were coming on a lot faster and more intense, and he didn’t really trust himself around you anymore. Even your comforting touch was making heat coil in his belly.

“Do you want to talk about it?” you suggested.

“I’m just mad at Namjoon-hyung, that’s all,” Taehyung explained sulkily. “I don’t know why you aren’t more upset with him. He literally told you to kill yourself.”

“Okay, first of all, no he didn’t,” you said firmly. “He just said that was the only way he’d found to break the imprint, and he told me explicitly not to do it.” You might not be pleased with Namjoon for what he’d said to you when you were in a fragile state, but still, you didn’t want Taehyung to get the wrong idea. Namjoon had meant well, after all, and besides, Taehyung still had to work with him, and they were brothers.

“Secondly, I was the one who sought him out and asked him. And you know he’s just looking out for you. You weren’t happy about the imprint either and he thought he was being helpful.”

“I guess,” Taehyung grunted. He hated how much sense you were making. He still wanted to be angry with Namjoon, especially since it was giving him another outlet for all the nervous, pent-up energy he had inside him.

“Besides, he gave you information when you asked for it, right? It would have been unfair for him to not tell me when I asked too.” Seeing him start to cave, you snuggled closer and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “I’m not saying you have to forgive him or anything. You’re allowed to feel how you want to feel. Just be a little more patient with him, okay? He was just trying to look out for you, and he made a mistake. It happens to all of us.”

With your scent in his head and your body pressed up against his, Taehyung lost all sense of reason as he turned his head, caught your chin in his hand, and kissed you. His lips were soft as they moved against yours, but you were completely frozen, your mind blanking at the unexpected kiss. It was only when Taehyung brought his other hand up to cradle your face as he started to deepen the kiss that you regained your senses, pushing him away by his shoulders.

You stared at each other for a second, neither of you sure of what to say. You were sure the shock was written across your face clearly, while Taehyung just looked slightly confused, his eyes still heavy-lidded. Then you could see the awareness trickle back into Taehyung’s gaze and his ears started turning red.

“Fuck!” he exploded, standing up. “Fuck, Y/n, I’m so sorry, I—” For a second longer, he just stood there, then he made an abrupt turn and ran out of the room.

Damn. You ran your fingers over your lower lip thoughtfully. You hadn’t been kissed for a long time – the Big Bang boys hadn’t been big on that – and it seemed you’d missed it. There’d been some initial anxiety when he kissed you, and your mind had short-circuited for a second, but right before you pushed him away… you’d started to enjoy it, just a little.

Huh.

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

“Hey, Y/n?” Taehyung said suddenly, breaking the silence that the two of you had been stuck in since leaving the studio. That had been one of the most awkward car rides you’d ever experienced, but every time you wanted to say something, you looked over at Taehyung and his troubled frown stopped you. He really was awful at hiding his feelings.

You looked up from your dinner, happy that he was finally talking to you again. “Yeah?”

“Maybe it would be a good idea for you to go stay with Yoongi until my heat is over,” Taehyung said, fiddling with his stew and refusing to look up at you. He’d been castigating himself about what he’d allowed to happen ever since he left you behind in the recording booth, and feeling lower and lower the more he thought about it. This was the only way to make sure you were safe from him, he figured. He’d promised to protect you, and that included from himself.

You frowned. “But your heat isn’t here yet, is it?”

Some awkward throat-clearing and foot-shuffling later, he admitted, “It’s coming on really strong this time, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I’m sorry about earlier, but I can’t guarantee that it won’t happen again if you stay here.”

Here it was. You swallowed and put down your chopsticks, lining them up with your thumb on the edge to buy some time. You’d been thinking about this ever since he left, and you weren’t quite sure whether this was the right decision to make, but you wanted to anyway. Taehyung had been there for you every step of the way, not just throughout this whole year-long nightmare, but before that too, and remembering how amazing he’d been throughout it all, even though it had to have hurt him to know how much trouble you were having because of him made something flutter in your tummy.

“I don’t want to go.” Now that the words were out in the open, you looked up through your lashes, sneaking a peek at Taehyung’s reaction. Would he be happy? Excited? Turned on? The anticipation made your stomach clench.

“Y/n…” Taehyung sounded slightly irritated now, and that wasn’t what you’d been hoping for. “Thank you for your trust in my restraint, but please go. I don’t want to do anything you don’t want,” he begged.

“Maybe… I do want it,” you suggested. Your voice was barely a whisper and the words had come out so fast a normal human would never have been able to make it out, but you knew Taehyung would have no problem with that.

As he gaped helplessly at you, you felt a thrill of satisfaction. There it was, the reaction you’d been hoping for. “A-are you sure?” he asked, and you felt a pang of fondness for him. He was always doing his best to look out for you, even at his own expense. If anything, it made you more certain of your decision.

“I’m sure, Tae-oppa.” Then you realized that he might not be willing to do this with a human and quickly backtracked. “I mean, only if you want to too! If you don’t want to be with a human—”

“No,” Taehyung interrupted. “I do, I…” Emotion seemed to overwhelm him for a second, before he composed himself. “Do you know what you’re agreeing to?” he asked, just to be sure. He didn’t think he would be able to restrain himself if you were here with him during his heat.

You smiled at him and reached across the table to scratch his ears. “I do,” you told him with a soft smile, as his eyes closed in enjoyment. He’d always enjoyed this, you thought fondly, and he was so handsome like this, with his features relaxed. He’d spent a lot of time frowning in the past year.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and when he opened his eyes, you saw such profound gratefulness shining in them. You wondered if he saw the same thing in your gaze.

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

Now that he had permission, it was like a switch had flipped in Taehyung. He insisted on helping you do the dishes that night, which was usual, but he decided that he absolutely had to stand shoulder to shoulder with you in front of the sink, helping you rinse the dishes and place them on the drying rack after you’d scrubbed them with dishwashing liquid. When you were done, he stood behind you as you rinsed your hands off and wrapped his arms around your waist, burying his nose in your hair.

When you went to bed with him, he snuggled up to you like he used to before everything happened, dragging his nose across the pulse point in your neck to scent you as he wrapped himself around you. It didn’t take you long to realise just how restrained he’d been in terms of physical contact, letting you initiate more often than not and only touching you casually and fleetingly when he did reach out to you.

Still, you could tell that he was holding himself back, not wanting to overwhelm you with the sheer extent of his heat-driven desire for you. In the mornings, though you could feel his boner pressing into your ass, he just rolled away when he woke up without you saying anything. Neither of you quite talked about the inevitability of his approaching heat and what it meant that you’d agreed to spend it with him, but the tension between you was thick enough to cut with a knife. Taehyung still tried his best to be respectful of your need for distance, though, keeping all physical contact – well, if not platonic, at least affectionate more than overtly sexual.

You could tell it was taking a toll on him, though, and now that you were aware and looking out for the signs, you wondered how it was that you’d been so oblivious last year when he’d been struggling through his preheat. You had to stop going to the studio with him because he was having a hard time focusing on anything when you were around and would often just stare at you instead, which had earned him a few questioning looks from the other boys.

Now that you’d agreed to spend his heat with him, Taehyung’s wolf was finally satisfied after over a year of being in conflict with his rational side, and it felt indescribably good, like puzzle pieces falling into place. He hadn’t even realized how agonizing it had been to hold himself apart from you, like trying to tear the two halves of his psyche apart. His wolf reveled in every touch, every flirtatious look and smile that you sent his way, puffing up proudly every time he saw you. It was a little embarrassing, since Taehyung knew that it was ridiculous to feel that way, but he couldn’t help it. Now that he didn’t have to fight the imprint, it settled into place in his chest warmly, making him feel like he could take on the world. For the first time in years, he actually found himself looking forward to his heat.

As his heat drew ever closer, Taehyung, ruled by his baser instincts, allowed himself to indulge in you. Casual cuddling on the couch while watching TV turned into lazy makeout sessions, which inevitably ended with him lying on top of you, your tongues sliding against each other lewdly while he tried his best not to grind against you. More than once, he’d had to excuse himself abruptly while you lay, dazed and flushed, on the couch, trying to recover and feeling bereft from the loss of his warmth.

This time, Taehyung was well-prepared for his heat, taking time off instead of going to work like a fool like he had last year, so when he woke up one morning and felt the familiar full-body ache that meant his heat was coming, he didn’t have to do anything but pull you closer to him. He knew you were awake from the sharp intake of breath you’d taken when you felt his erection rubbing against your ass, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel all that embarrassed about the way he was basically grinding against you.

“Y/n…” he groaned, his hands sliding up your shirt greedily to feel you up.

“Tae-oppa,” you gasped, and he made a noise low in his throat in response. He liked that, he decided. In his heat-addled state, he wasn’t capable of much complex thought, but he was definitely more than capable of making you scream his name.

However, your priorities were very different from Taehyung’s. As you gradually gained consciousness to Taehyung manhandling you, it occurred to you how nasty your breath was – and how bad his was as well, probably. Knowing that you might not have a chance to brush your teeth for hours if you let him start now, you tried your best to wriggle away from him to get to the bathroom.

“No,” he whined against your neck. “What are you doing?”

“I wanna brush my teeth,” you complained. Thankfully, his heat had just started and he hadn’t lost all sense of reason yet, so he let you go, though he was sulky when you turned back to look at him.

“Come on,” you coaxed with your hand out for him to take, rolling your eyes at his pouty expression. He looked just like a child that had had his favourite toy taken away. Still, he was pliant and obedient, and you even managed to convince him to brush his own teeth too.

“Do you want breakfast?” you asked as Taehyung was rinsing his mouth out. The bathroom door was open, and you were leaning against the wall right outside the door. He wasn’t very vocal this morning, but then he usually wasn’t a morning person anyway, so you didn’t think too much of it.

At your question, his entire demeanor changed. “No,” he growled. “I don’t want fucking breakfast.” He took the couple of steps to you, his long legs eating up the distance, then he was on you, pushing you back into the wall as his mouth descended on yours.

You’d been kissed like this only once before, a year ago during Taehyung’s last heat. He was ravenous, one hand cupping your cheek as his other gripped your hip urgently, sliding around your back to press you closer to him. As his tongue slid against your bottom lip, you let out a small moan as heat rushed through your lower belly. The sound only spurred him to deepen the kiss further. All those makeout sessions on the couch had nothing on this.

Taehyung’s urgency was contagious, and you hooked your fingers in his pajama pants to pull his hips closer to you, reveling in the feel of his erection prodding at your belly. He started grinding it against you, detaching his lips from yours to pant. “Fuck,” he gasped, shuddering. “You smell so fucking good.” Then his lips were back on yours again, his hand diving into your pants.

As much as you were enjoying this, you didn’t particularly want to be fucked against a wall, at least not for your first time. (You decided to put a pin in it to revisit later.) “Tae-oppa,” you gasped as his fingers ghosted over your clit through your panties. “We should go back to the bedroom.”

He pulled back, clearly displeased with the idea of any more delays, but couldn’t fault your logic, so he lifted you off the ground and carried you back to his room. The casual display of strength was more arousing than you could have imagined, and you felt the wetness slipping out of you as you wrapped your legs around his waist.

“Fuck,” Taehyung said again, gripping you more tightly. He couldn’t get back to the bed fast enough now, and one hand slid down to your ass to hold you close to him as he sped up.

Unwilling to part from you for even a second, he fell with you onto the bed, almost crushing you beneath his weight as he kissed you again, a filthy mess of lips and tongues that made both of you moan. He separated from you for just long enough to pull your camisole over your head, although you definitely heard it rip – not that you were overly concerned about it, however, when he was sliding his big hands over your body to grope your tits.

In retaliation, you stuck your hand down his pants. He wasn’t wearing underwear, which was very typical of him, and you smiled against his lips as you wrapped your hand around his dick and he shuddered in response. It felt so good to finally have a cock in your hand again, all warm and hard and throbbing.

Bracing his knees on the bed on either side of your hips, Taehyung lifted himself off you to tug your remaining clothes off, taking your panties and sweatpants in one fell swoop. You continued jerking him off almost lazily, looking up at him with half-lidded eyes.

With you now naked, the scent of your arousal permeated the air, driving Taehyung crazy. He had to have more of it, and it was that thought that guided him to shift so that he was between your legs, pushing them further apart to reveal your soft, wet pussy, all shiny from how turned on you were. It made his mouth water and his cock throb between his legs.

“Shit,” he breathed quietly, his eyes completely fixated on what lay between your legs. His unabashed scrutiny was starting to make you feel a little self-conscious, and you started to bring your legs together, but he stopped you with his hands on your inner thighs and a warning look.

“Tae-oppa,” you whined, throwing an arm over your eyes to hide. “Stop staring.”

“Okay,” he agreed absently. It wasn’t a difficult promise to make, he thought as he lowered his head. There was so much more he wanted to do to you.

The first swipe of his tongue across your slit had you shivering. “Fuck, you taste so good,” he groaned before he dove back in with gusto, using broad strokes of his tongue to scoop up all the juices leaking from you before circling your clit. He teased you with light, kittenish licks that you honestly wouldn’t have expected from someone clearly so wrecked, and he moaned like you were doing him a favour by letting him eat you out.

It was all too easy for him to build you up to the brink of orgasm, his heightened senses allowing him to take note of every sigh, whimper and moan that you emitted as he found all your best spots. With his fingers in you rubbing against your g-spot and his lips suckling on your clit, it wasn’t long before you were lifting your hips off the bed, thrashing as you came ever closer to the edge.

“Please, Tae, pleasepleaseplease—” you moaned, cutting yourself off with a choked cry as you felt the tension in your lower belly snap beautifully. You clenched hard on his fingers as you came, your slick dripping out of you and down his hand. When the waves of pleasure buffeting your entire system stopped, you opened your eyes and blinked at him lazily with a small smile.

Taehyung, on the other hand, stared down at you with intense bedroom eyes as he lifted his hand – the one that just been inside you – to his mouth and cleaned your juices off with his tongue, keeping eye contact the entire time. You couldn’t help but feel a frisson of arousal snake through your core again at the clear intent in his gaze.

“Tae…” you held your arms out for him invitingly, and he groaned as he bent to kiss you, one hand planted into the mattress next to your head for balance while he worked his way out of his pajama pants with the other. Too impatient to take them off fully, he left them bunched around his knees as he shuffled closer to you, stroking his erection with his hand.

“’m gonna fuck you now,” he mumbled against your lips as he lined the tip of his cock up with your folds. You held your breath in anticipation – despite everything that had happened, including your brief dalliance earlier this year, the two of you had never actually done this before. You found yourself tensing up as he started pushing his way into you, making him groan at the increased tightness and friction.

“Relax for me, love,” he mumbled, his breath washing against your temple. You whimpered, locking your arms and legs around him and clinging on for dear life. Slowly, biting your lip, you concentrated on doing what he said, and he huffed in pleasure as he sank further into you. You were wet enough that even though you were tight around him, it didn’t really burn, the stretch and fullness teetering on the edge between pleasure and pain.

“Good girl, such a good girl for me,” Taehyung praised, stopping to kiss you. Compared to what you were currently in the midst of, this kiss was gentle and chaste, intended to comfort you. It was somewhat surprising – based on what he’d told you and what you’d observed, you’d expected him to be out of control, unable to focus on anything other than his own pleasure. This considerate, gentle side of Taehyung wasn’t one you’d expected to see until the initial wave had subsided and he could think more coherently.

That wasn’t to say, of course, that you didn’t notice the strain this slow pace was taking on him – he was sucking marks almost viciously into your neck, his teeth catching on your skin almost threateningly, and his whole frame was wound so tight that he was almost trembling. You felt the tension in his shoulders and back, and you stroked his side soothingly, although from the way the muscles under your hand jumped, he didn’t appreciate the meaning behind the gesture.

When he finally bottomed out, you let out the breath you’d been holding as he groaned, holding himself painfully still. He could feel every ripple as you clenched and fidgeted under him, trying to get used to having him inside of you, and it was sorely testing his control. “Y/n, please,” he finally groaned. “Please stay still.”

Instead of doing as he said, you clenched as hard as you could around him, delighting in the shaky groan he let out as he dropped his head, his forehead brushing against your collarbone. “Fuck,” he huffed, reaching down to hook his arms behind your thighs and draping your legs over his shoulders. “I tried to be nice,” he grumbled as he pulled his hips back.

“Fuck being nice,” you purred as you hooked your arms around his neck, one hand finding its way into his hair.

That was the last straw, and all the impressive control Taehyung had been showing up till now shattered spectacularly as he started a brisk pace with his hips, folding you almost in half with his frame. You really didn’t have any clue just how much he was holding back until he stopped, but you couldn’t bring yourself to regret it as he plowed into you with everything he had.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he huffed, his breath making the baby hairs by your temple flutter. The bedsprings were creaking and the headboard thumping against the wall, but neither of you could bring yourself to care. All of Taehyung’s energy was being channeled into fucking you as hard and as fast as he could, his mind solely focused on the race to the finish. He was going to fill you up so good, you’d be dripping with his cum for days, finally getting those vile human men’s scent out of you…

The thought was endlessly titillating to him, and when he looked down to where you were joined, putting a visual image to the filthy thoughts swirling in his head, he bared his teeth in a snarl. The sight of his cock splitting you in half, shiny from your juices was almost too much for him, but he couldn’t look away.

Taehyung had never looked more like an animal than he did right now, completely focused on fucking your brains out, but instead of being afraid, his fucked out expression sent a shiver through you – the good kind, of course. You wanted to cum with him, but in his current state, he wasn’t focusing on your pleasure, so you snuck a hand between your joined bodies to rub at your clit.

As close as he was to orgasm, the sight of you pleasuring yourself filled him with irrational fury. His wolf howled, demanding that he take care of his mate, and completely under its sway now, he batted your hand away with a growl. “You’re mine,” he snapped as he took over, rubbing your clit with the rough pad of his thumb.

“Cum with me,” he groaned into your ear before he kissed you. He was too far gone to do it properly, of course, basically just pressing his open mouth against yours in a filthy imitation of a kiss, but he still managed to retain the presence of mind to tilt his hips slightly to adjust the angle with which he was pounding into you so that he could brush against your g-spot. The increased stimulation made you wail as you tried your best to move with him despite your limited leverage.

“Fuck, Taehyung,” you huffed, trying to warn him as your hips jerked slightly, pressing your clit harder against his thumb to get that little bit more that you needed to cum. And then it was happening, your mind blanking out as you squeezed his cock tightly, clenching rhythmically as you worked through the waves of your orgasm.

As he heard and felt you cum around him, Taehyung groaned like he was dying and redoubled his efforts, his hips now basically a blur with how fast and hard he was thrusting into you. “Fuck, Y/n, yes,” he groaned breathlessly as he finally came, pushing himself as deep as he could and grinding against you for that extra bit of friction to make his orgasm last just a little longer.

When it was over, he slumped down over your body, letting go of your legs so that you could wriggle them out from under him to wrap them around his hips, a far more comfortable position for you. He felt boneless, so utterly satisfied that he would never need anything again, although he knew that was definitely not true. In about ten minutes, he’d be ready to go again.

For now, though, he was happy to just fuss over you, nuzzling into your cheek and brushing your sweaty, matted hair away from your face. “You’re so pretty,” he sighed blissfully, bracing himself over you with his elbows as he leaned down to kiss you. The urgency was temporarily gone now, and he traded soft, slow kisses with you, feeling so happy his heart could burst.

“I love you,” he blurted out unintentionally, and your eyes widened in surprise. He didn’t know where it had come from either, but now that it was out there, he realized that he meant it. No one had ever made him feel so good – not just physically, of course, but so at peace with the world. When he was with you, everything felt so right, so perfect, like you’d been made for him and he’d been made for you. If that wasn’t love, what was?

You raised your hand to cup his face, brushing your thumb across his lips. The way he looked at you, searching, hopeful, made your heart clench. Taehyung always made you feel so safe, so protected, like nothing could ever touch you. Being with him felt like being free from the difficulties of life that lay outside his bubble of protection. If that wasn’t love, what was?

Smiling back at him, you told him, “I love you too.”

[neokad]

Phantasy Star II - The 1989 JRPG that could

(This post is dedicated to @kuukigajan, my best friend, whom motivated me to post here again, so... I hope you'll enjoy this!)

This game. This freaking game.

I'm gonna say it right now: this post will contain massive spoilers about pretty much everything in Phantasy Star 2's story, so if you do plan on experiencing this game fresh, I strongly advise you to not read this post at all beyond the first paragraph, but... here's the gist of it: Phantasy Star II is one of the most important and groundbreaking JRPGs of its time, and I just did not believe this game was from 1989, at ALL. For that and a few other reasons, it has become one of my new favourite games of all time <3 

In fact, I do want to start with the one big flaw of this adventure so that I can just gush about everything else that's brilliant about PSII. I have to be honest: the dungeon design in this game is horrible. Now to be fair, it does make the many places you visit more memorable, but well... there's a rumor floating around that an actual trainee made the layouts for the dungeons - and since this game was a bit rushed for the Genesis's launch, the devs just didn't have time to replace the... stuff he submitted. And let me tell you, this rumor makes sense: PSII's dungeons are too big, too maze-like, too confusing and also FILLED with strong enemies. And in a game where you don't get a way to save anywhere until the midway point, it can make your adventure very frustrating and potentially grindy because of that... Now I wouldn't say that PSII's nearly as bad in this area as say, the original version of Dragon Warrior or ironically the first Phantasy Star, but the dungeons can totally make you feel like the game's harder than it actually is, at least without a map.

Thankfully, you should never feel bad for using any maps or guides with this game! The execs at SEGA at the time made the very smart decision to include a walkthrough with each copy of the game, including maps, tips, secrets and more! Said guide does encourage youto not look at it as much as possible but... it's totally fair to just use this, without any shame!

And that is a great thing, because... with you armed with this piece of paper, Phantasy Star II can finally show you its actual brilliance.

The game's plot starts off a thousand years after the events of the first Phantasy Star game. Since Alis and her party defeated Dark Force, the inhabitants of the Algol solar system - and its three planets of Palma, Motavia and Dezolis - have enjoyed relative peace. However, at a (to my knowledge) unknown point in time, a computer entity known as Mother Brain has started imposing itself onto mostly Motavia. This, over time, has actually given many benefits to the region: the once deserted wasteland was given rain, water and crops, so that it could finally host viable, comfortable civilizations. The citizens that lived here could finally ditch their (arguably) nomadic, harsh lives in favor of comfort, pleasant weather and more. And most importantly, Mother Brain allowed its citizens, save for a few, to ditch their current jobs and live a life of laziness, without any obligations or pressure to do anything other than well, existence. This is reflected many times during the game through NPC dialogue, too!

It is on such a setting that our protagonist, Rolf, wakes up from a strange nightmare. In it, we see Alis batting Dark Force and struggling in doing so, but as soon as he realizes this, Rolf wakes up in cold sweat. He then proceeds to calm his nerves, realizing that no such dramatic events could possible happen to him - after all, he and many others have been under the universal protection and care of Mother Brain, whom at this point, has provided all of their needs for centuries. He then gets out of bed and goes to the central tower, where we works as an agent in case some things do go wrong.

And gone wrong things have! His superior informs him that biological monsters, which had been created and bred in the Mota biosystems laboratory, have gone rogue and infected the regions of Motavia at a rapid rate. Because of this, Rolf is asked to investigate the cause of this phenomenon. Once he gets home to prepare for his journey, he is ambushed by best girl Nei, who has been rescued by him many months ago from the clutches of a serial killer. She does not want to be left alone anymore, and since she is also worried for Rolf's sefety, asks him to accompany him on the mission. Naturally, Rolf accepts.

Here, I do want to bring up Nei in more detail! She's in fact, the first of PSII's brilliant story-gameplay interactions, and here's why! Nei is in fact, a crossbreed experiment between a human and an unknown animal with cat-like features, but here's the thing: this said experiment was a failure. Because of this, Nei is only one years old, and yet her physical and mental age are progressing way more rapidly than they should. And you can feel this effect on the game itself: she needs way less EXP than any other party member in the game to level up, and because of this she will skyrocket in levels way beyond the rest of your crew... with a catch. Because of the nature of the experiment, the genetic code inside of her is slowly being messed up and corrupted, which not only causes her level ups to be less valuable than anyone else's, but it also becomes an important plot point later...  Unfortunately, despite her absolute cuteness, her status as a half-half made her a victim of bullying, racism and so much more, which is... pretty messed up to bring up at the time not gonna lie o_o

Starting up the journey, the party discovers that rogues have destroyed a neighboring city, and it just so happens that their base is situed at Shure, the first dungeon of the game . One assumption I like to make from this scene is that life has become so easy and careless on Motavia that people just went and did crime out of pure boredom, because life just wasn't thrilling enough anymore with Mother Brain doing everything it could for its inhabitants...

However, upon climbing said tower, Rolf and Nei find out multiple dead rogue bodies, whom have been presumably murdered by the many biomonsters roaming the place. They do, however, manage to find some dynamite and most importantly, a letter. This piece of paper informs our heroes that the daughter of a Darum, the very same person that tried to murder Nei months ago, is held captive in another tower, which explains why he turned to crime in the first place. They then decide to do the obvious, which is to rescue daughter Teim in her captivity location. Once they meet up with her, she explains her desire to talk to her father to set things straight and sway him from the life he's been getting into, as well as hide her from the surviving rogue members with the help of a veil. Our group manages to meet up with Darum, but... her daughter asks the party to stay put, as she does not want them to interfere with her as she explains things to her father. However, in the heat of the moment, she forgets to remove her veil, which causes Darum to not recognize her. In his confusion, he murders her own flesh and blood and sits there, stunned, as he watches the reason he caused many untold atrocities... wither away below him. Shocked and going insane by this situation, he sees no other way out... but to commit suicide with the help of a bomb.

It gets worse.

While this scene was tragic and brutal to say the least, it does allow Rolf to cross the previously guarded bridge where Darum was always located, which allows him to investigate his mission further.

I do want to make a sidenote here actually! Phantasy Star II does include eight playable characters, but unlike Rolf and Nei they do not join you at fixed intervals - instead, they will become available in your home town of Paseo once conditions are met. Sadly while they do have a recruitment quote, a few lines and a backstory, they do not have an impact on the main story in any way. This does blow as this means PSII does not have much in character development and interaction, but I did want to mention that there’s more to this game than just Rolf and Nei :P 

Upon exploring the regions of Motavia, the party manages to make its way to the Biosystems lab, and what they find here is horrifying to say the least. The lab is in horrible shape, with cracked floors everywhere. On top of that, there is no one inside the lab anymore, it being completely deserted, save for some horrible-looking creatures being kept insides tubes, decorating the now sinister looking building... Because of this, Rolf deems it safe to pick up the recorder inside the lab, to analyze it and try to find out just what exactly went wrong - if anything at all - to hopefully figure out why the world has been sacked by biomonsters. And sure enough, the gang make its way back to Paseo.  After handing over the recorder to the library located in Paseo’s Central Tower, it is now made clear: the biomonsters were caused by a large amount of energy used in a very short amount of time in those labs, causing them to mutate extremely rapidly. This had the predictable but unfortunate effect of ruining the natural order of the ecosystem, which is why these species are wrecking havoc without control. The librarian giving this information also makes the following connection: this outpour of energy must have come from Climatrol - another lab which regulates the weather of the terraformed planet so that it can sustain its new shape. Following this, Rolf and co. take a few steps to reach Climatrol - and I want to highlight a specific one!

The story somewhat pauses until then, but one of the dungeons you’ll go through is a garbage dump... and one of the treasures is a jet scooter you can use! Sounds cool, right? Well it is, but even such a cool object has been abandoned by the lazy society, since teleportation is much more convenient to them. I just thought it was a really neat detail, that’s all ^_^

Once making their way through the relatively normal Climatrol, something does wait for them at the top of the building... something... unsettling...

This is Neifirst. She was another failed experiment just like Nei, sharing the same biological data as her. However, unlike her sister, her creators tried to kill her on the spot due to her status. This made her enraged against the species that gave her life, and as an act of revenge, decided to unleash this bio catastrophy to slowly wipe us out. This is where another truth is revealed: Nei did not come with Rolf just to protect him, she actually wanted to put a stop to her sister, because while she did dislike being treated like a freak or a monster, she never wanted to hate her species as a whole... It remains that she still wants to stop her sister’s plans, and despite Rolf’s protests, the two engages in a fight. However, due to Neifirst being much stronger, Nei sustains heavy damage and is incapacitated. But, this is where the rest of the party comes in, and thus they finish the job and kill off Neifirst dead in her tracks, Rolf then quickly rushes in to his dear friend’s side, but as he does... it’s too late... Nei is dead.

This is yet another reason why Phantasy Star II is such an important game: it is, to my knowledge, the very first JRPG in which a major playable character dies permanently. Heck, Rolf even tries to bring her back through the local Clone Lab - because yes, citizens have access to eternal life by cloning their bodies until the end of time - but... since Nei’s genetic code was degenerating rapidly, they could not clone her body anymore. And, since Neifirst was also defeated, it is also impossible to get a fresh code back from anywhere in the world. Nei is dead. And you cannot do anything about it.

But don’t worry! It still gets worse!

But just as you’re about to find a way to fix this, it turns out that Climatrol has collapsed, which caused an immense flood all over the world. Since the government - and by extension, Mother Brain - isn’t happy about this, you are now considered a fugitive, a criminal. You are now the bad guy, and you are wanted for treason. 1989, anyone??

This is where the second brilliant story-gameplay integration of Phantasy Star II happens. Where until now you’ve only fought mutated monsters due to the outbreak, the government has now sent thousands of carious cyborgs and robots against you - and lo and behold, this is now the only thing you are fighting in both the overworld and dungeons, and the previous creatures are now nowhere to be seen. THAT’S REALLY SMART. Now sure, even if you are considered evil to many, you still task yourself with the task of unflooding the planet, and to do so you simply reactivate all four colored dams in the continent. However, upon reactivating the fourth one, your party is suddenly ambushed by a trio of robots sent by the cops, and this time? They succeed in capturing you. Your party is now sent in chains on a hovering satellite, as you are sentenced to slowly wither away and die in there without any trial of any sort, simply because you went against Mother Brain’s dear wishes...

But, something goes amiss. The sattelite starts to malfunction, and is now set to crash on one of the three planets of the Algol system. And despite you all trying to alter its course, it is too late. The satellite crashes onto Palma - the planet of the first Phantasy Star game - and it is gone.

That’s right! The planet in which many players took the time to save with Alis’s gang, to have a huge dungeon crawling adventure, the planet where you defeated Lassic in a glorious fashion. GONE. In only a few seconds. But... what about yourself? Well, you actually died! But a space pirate wandering close to the crash site pulled out your remains and cloned everyone’s body back to life... which makes you technically not yourself, and also dead, for the remainder of the game! ...May I remind you this game was developed in 1989?

Tyler the space pirate then escorts the zombie party back to Paseo, but not for long - you see, your commander, who hasn’t truly approved of Mother Brain’s actions against your group, allows you access to a spaceship. This is a big deal, because space travel as a whole has been banned ten years ago due to a major accident in which Rolf had lost his parents, and thus, the one stationed in Paseo is the last one remaining on the planet. But sure enough, Rolf takes the opportunity and travels to the ice planet of Dezolis, or Dezo.

And honestly? Even though this next part has nothing to do with the main story, it’s probably one of my favourites in the entire game. In this section, you simply must make your way through an abandoned space station, which has not seen use in years. At first, you’d think it was somewhat related to the spaceship incident, but as you explore this space station, you find a bunch of animals and newspapers lying around. You not only find some irrelevant ads about various products, but also news flash about a horrible gas spreading throughout the station, begging every inhabitant to evacuate immediately, which... definitively implies a very bleak fate to the place and its inhabitants o_o 

And on top of this unsettling setting, this is the first time you get to hear “Silent Zone”, my favourite track in the game. While the rest of the soundtrack is very upbeat, catchy and all around excellent, this track in particular is very... sad, desolate, lonely, in spite of it being just as catchy! It all combines for a brilliant example of “show, don’t tell” that really sets the mood perfectly to me <3

Either way, upon exploring more of Dezo - a frigid wasteland with few inhabitants - the party gets to meet up with Noah, a party member from Phantasy Star I! After reawakening from a cryogenic sleep, he then reveals that unlike Paseo and Motavia, Dezo basically never submitted with Mother Brain’s control and benefits simply because they did not want to live a life without any struggles. Unfortunately, this is also where you learn that Paseo came to terms with this *after* being to MB’s whims and as such, you can connect the dots and realize that the satellite crash was no accident after all... it was all planned.

Noah, however, knows about how deeply MB has ruined everything for the inhabitants of Motavia and thus tasks Rolf with collecting eight legendary ancient weapons all throughout Dezo, located within some ruinous, empty, cold dungeons which make for stunning atmosphere and presence, believe me!

Once that’s done, he then entrusts Rolf with the ultimate Sword and, thanks to kinetic abilities, sends him and his troupe to the space station housing Mother Brain. And once there, for the first time in centuries, a human being has met with Mother Brain.

And of course, the computer scoffs at those rebelling against her. She laughs at how they think they’d want a life with struggles, wtihout comfort, without anyone providing their needs, when work and hardship seems so uninviting on a desert wasteland like Motavia, or a frigid hell like Dezo. And yet, after a (pretty difficult!) battle, you emerge victorious! Or do you?

After the victorious outcome, Noah senses some additional presences beyond Mother Brain’s spot, and urges the party to investigate. And then... I don’t think I’ll even explain it in words. Please watch what happens. It is disturbing.

Yeah. We, the humans, were destroying our planet, Earth. Thus, we escaped through this spaceship to avoid extinction, and found the Algo system. It then, to our species, only seemed logical with so few numbers, to instead slowly weaken the population of all three planets with Mother Brain, making it then easy (although a very long process) to get rid of the population and start anew, even if it meant genocide. What I love about this twist ending is not only how it’s presented: the creepy music, the way you did *not* expect it at all, the number of humans on the screen at once, and so on... but also, how you don’t even know for sure how it ends. You don’t know if Rolf, Rudo, Amy, Kain, Hugh, Shir, Anna... if any of them survived. But it looks grim. It looks like we lost. And it looks like everyone we fought and tried to save... will rot until the final days anyway... Phantasy Star II... is important. Sure, I could talk about how the game is challenging due to how both your party members AND the enemies are very capable in battle or the stellar, catchy, memorable soundtrack...   but its story... is stunning. In 1989, we were still used to princesses being saved by armored heroes from dark dragons. We were used to things going all well in the end. But in 1989, Phantasy Star II taught us many things that would become staples in the future of JRPGs:  Yes, your cherished ones may die with you not being able to do anything about it No, you may not be able to save everyone you’d like to. Yes, your actions might make things worse for yourself and everyone else. No, things aren’t quite as black or white as they seem. And no, you might not always win. Phantasy Star II is a masterpiece. It’s a bit hard to approach this game today, but with a guide, this game is a must play. It’s unique. It’s ambitious. It’s chilling. And I adore this game to pieces. Thank you for reading, somehow <3

[justonecitizenoftheearth]

Why the ending of Supernatural is problematic - the meaning of storytelling

Originally, I wanted to write a full essay on this and I still might, but since the university libraries are closed and I have three other big writing projects at hand, one of which is my final thesis, this might take a while. I still want to share my thoughts about this. A lot of this has been said before, but not yet by everyone. Trigger warning for mentions of suicide and homophobia.

The thing that bugs me most about the whole discussion about the ending of Supernatural is people saying “why do you care so much? It´s just a story.” Storytelling has been a part of human culture for thousands of years, it is something that everyone does and to think that telling stories doesn´t have a function in society that goes beyond entertainment is just plain wrong. Every part of storytelling, be it the actions shown, the words used, the characters involved or the connotations connected with any of the above, have the power to influence the way that the recipients of the story perceive reality. Now let that sink in for a moment. 

To borrow some words from a text about gendered narration: “Narration is understood as a cultural practice that spans genres and media and it is of great significance for gender constructions and gender relations, because stories don´t simply reflect on the perception or imagination of ´gender´, but they create them. From this perspective, storytelling seems to be one of the performative acts that produce and establish identities and gender constructs in the first place.” (Nünning/Nünning (2006): Making gendered selves; translated from german). The important thing to take from this quote is the last bit: Storytelling is an act that produces and establishes identities. And from here, we jump directly into the ending of Supernatural.

I don´t think I have to explain a lot about what happens in the last two episodes of Supernatural. But I want to go into the potential impact. So, in the ending of episode 15x18, we see a male presenting character, Castiel, declare his love to another male presenting character, Dean Winchester. It is made very clear, both by the actual show and the comments of Misha Collins, who plays Castiel, right afterwards, that this is in fact meant to be romantic. Right after that scene, Castiel dies. He not only dies by coincidence, but confessing his love is the thing that makes him happy and therefore, because of a deal he made with the empty, is the thing that kills him. It is not explicitly said if Dean loves him back. In the next episode, this confession is never mentioned, but Dean shows some signs of wanting Castiel back desperately (begging Chuck to bring him back, running up the stairs because he thinks that Cas will be there), but these signs just stop at some point during the episode. In the series finale, Castiel is mentioned twice, but not once by Dean and always in a fleeting manner. It never becomes clear if Dean loves him back and life apparently just went on without him. Not to mention that death has never been a permanent or undefeatable state in the show. But Castiel never comes back, his feelings are never mentioned and neither are Dean´s, although it has been clear in previous seasons that he usually takes it very, very hard to lose Castiel, to a point where he becomes reckless and suicidal (see early season 13). 

There are a few things to address here, but the main thing for me is that it seems like Castiel loses his status as a friend who will be dearly missed as soon as he comes out as in love with Dean Winchester, which is perceived by the audience as being gay (angelic gender discourse aside). And this is a bad message. It´s a really bad message both for people who struggle with their sexuality and see all their fears come true, and for people who have prejudices about LGBTQI+ people and get the message that they are less valuable as human beings. Which is not true, but again: Storytelling is an act that produces and establishes identities. The death of Castiel was only one of the problematic messages. Dean Winchester, who has been coded and perceived as bisexual and who has been a beacon of light for many who struggle with mental illnesses, dies too. Worse, he basically chooses death, which completely destroys the hopeful message of never giving up. Eileen Leahy, a deaf character who represents a group of people who are seldomly represented in media in a positive and empowering way, disappeares from the narrative, too, without an explanation and takes that empowerment with her. There are more examples, but the general idea is clear.

And this is, for me, the main problem with the Supernatural finale. The ending of Supernatural helps to establish hurtful tropes and assumptions. It transports messages that can be very harmful both for people who identify with those characters and see their own very real and important hopes and dreams fall to pieces, and for people who could use to see good representation of diverse characters to question their own values and opinions. 

I hear you asking: “Okay, so bad media representation is bad in an abstract, cultural context. But how big can the impact of such media representation actually be for individual people? And how do you prove that?” So let me ask back: “Have you ever heard of the Werther effect?”

In 1774, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published the novel “The sorrows of Young Werther”. In this book the main character kills himself after being rejected by the woman he´s in love with. After the novel had been published, a number of young men committed suicide, following the example of the book character Werther. This is not the only case where the depiction of the suicide of a character inspired people who strongly identify themselves with the character commit suicide: “There have been other such “epidemics” [meaning suicides in imitation], such as the rash of suicides in young Jewish females after the publication of Otto Weininger´s Sex and Character in 1903. However, an earlier recorded epidemic occurred in the early 1700s in Japan.” (Krysinka/Lester (2006): Comment on the Werther effect. S.100). 

Long story short, it is a known phenomenon that media has a huge influence on the lives of recipients, especially if they can identify strongly with the characters, all the way to existential decisions like suicide. And in the case of Supernatural, that´s an extraordinarily relevant question.

The character Dean Winchester has battled depression, trauma and suicidal thoughts and tendencies in his journey. Many people who battled the same issues could identify themselves with this character, which is a known fact in the fandom and has been said multiple times on conventions and on social media. Showing that this character accepts death, even though it is questionable if that was necessary, and implying that the only way that he can find peace is by dying is highly problematic. Combined with the number of people who identify as LGBTQI+ and who have a strong connection to the character Dean Winchester, and considering the high suicide rate among LGBTQ+ individuals, death as the conclusion of his character arc is a dangerous message.

To summarize my point, storytelling is an insanely powerful instrument to shape the collective social memory of a culture and it has direct influence on how we perceive the world and other humans. Bad media representation causes real life issues and can be very harmful, both on a personal level and in society, for those who are affected. It lets hypocrites, homophobes and racists stay in their bubble of righteousness and fails to call them out on their bullshit. It is a lethal threat to some. Bad media representation and thoughtless storytelling is dangerous. And this is why I care so much. Because it´s not just about a story.

So, that´s it for now. I would love to hear your thoughts about it! 

And I send love to all of my mutuals, everyone who loves Supernatural and hates the finale because of it, all of my rainbow siblings and everyone who needs it! <3 

[chayacat]

Devil’s Sweet Star (32)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Ghostface x Female Reader  

Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut  

***

When you make a deal, you have to make sure that both parties respect their share. usually that’s the case, but sometimes some people decide to... play differently. And when it starts to play differently, to play personal ... The finality is never good. Often, the one who wants to betray the other ends badly, sometimes it’s the one who respects who ends badly and sometimes both suffer. In Danny's case, he knows that the deal will be respected between the two of you.

He knows perfectly well that you will respect your share of the deal. And he's going to respect his own. He would have liked to wait a little longer before revealing everything to you but... it seems that fate has speed things up. It doesn't bother him that much, it's just a shame that it happens so early. With what he told you once your deal was made... You will not dare to betray him.

* I didn't have, and I don't really want to know YOUR world. * You said with disgust.  

* No one wants to enter in it sweetheart. But one day or another, you end up getting into it, one way or another. But on the other hand, if I may say so, it would be better for both of us if Jed were not aware of it. Imagine the disappointment he would have, if he learned that his little treasure collaborated with a murderer! Me in addition, the assassin of Roseville. * Danny said tragically ironic.

* He'll know! I cannot lie to him and betray all the trust he has in me! He knows it when I'm not well, he...*

*Listen, Honey. You have an interest, that your nerdy boyfriend doesn’t know anything about what’s happening between us. Because if he ever learns it, not only does your little couple stop before it has really started... but in addition your two lives will stop too. For I would no longer keep my promise to leave him alive. And so do you. Did I make myself understood correctly? * Replied Danny, taking your face by the chin with one hand. He released you when you nod. *Good. You have all the cards in hand, and two lives. Let's see if you get to the end of the game. *

If with this you dare not keep your word, either you be stupid or suicidal. Or both. Today, you will both visit the apartment that is above yours. The perspective to share the same roof with you, delights him and annoys him a little. He is delighted to be able to live with you, to no longer be forced to go to your apartment, even if you are right next door, to see you. And at least, no more problem knowing who will end up in the other's bed, you will have your room for both of you.

But it also annoys him because necessarily, who says to live together ... means that you could, driven by curiosity, enter his office, and discover everything. Oh of course you'll know, when he will tell you everything, when he will finally show his face, but if you could wait until Hoggins is dead... it would suit him. He's going to have to work out a couple of things with you. Just like you will surely do with him! But apart from leave you a little privacy and don’t dig into your wardrobe ... He doesn’t know what you could ask him.

He was waiting for you outside the door of the apartment, Mr Lawson having given the keys to visit while waiting for him to arrive. The poor man had to take care of his wife who was bedridden because of a flu. Poor woman. She was always kind to Danny, always worried about whether he had everything he needed to not get sick, and to treat himself if needed. She was a kind of maternal figure for Danny involuntarily. The mom he wished he had... When he saw you arrive, he displayed his angelic smile, and took you in his arms to kiss you.

“Mr Lawson will be there in a few minutes, his wife is sick so he takes care of her a little, but he gave me the keys to visit the apartment already. We'll see for the work after when he’ll be there.” he said, looking at you softly.  

“Poor woman...I hope she’ll be better soon.” you simply said.  

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah! It’s just... I'm a little stressed with everything that's happening to me right now... the festival, the fact that we move in together. I feel like I'm going to have a hard time managing all of this all at once.”

“That’s why I'm here, sweety. think of the festival, I will take care of the apartment. And don't worry, it doesn't bother me. Ready?”

You nod and Danny opened the door to the apartment. He let you pass so that you would not see the sneaky little smile that was looming on his lips. When you want, you know how to lie. Just give you some motivation for. The apartment was rather comfortable, it will be even more so when the furniture will be there, but it’s comfortable. There were quite a few pieces, including one that could serve as an office for Danny. That he will lock of course. He will have to think about scotching his boxes well too... The bedroom was a little larger than the others, two wardrobes being on either side of the wall where the bed will be.  

“It's pretty here... I don’t see any particular problem at the level of the works apart from redoing the paintings to our tastes.” You said, looking all around the room.  

“For now. But it’s better to look carefully. You never know, there can be electrical problems... or water leaks.” responds Danny, before noticing a few holes in the wall of one of the wardrobes. “See?”  

“OK. we're going to do each room and we're going to write down what's wrong.”

Together you inspect all the rooms of the apartment and gradually write down everything that was wrong. There were the holes in one of the wardrobes in the bedroom, a plug that does not work in the living room and another in the kitchen, a slight water leak in the bathroom at the sink and finally a slightly damaged floor in Danny's future office. Mr. Lawson arrived a few minutes later, his wife took a nap after eating a little. Danny explained all the problems there were, the old man assuring him that every problem will be solved and that you can move in safely.

You all leave the apartment and Mr. Lawson warns Danny that he will start work as soon as his wife is better. Danny replied that if he had to, he would take care of the work, he would just need the equipment. Once Mr. Lawson left, Danny turned to you to take you in his arms.

“Do you have something planned for today? We could take the opportunity to take a little tour …" asks Danny.

“We could... But I had planned to see with Corey and Amy to start making this cake for the city festival.” you respond.

“You’ve got two weeks for that...”

“And I've got all my life for you.”  

Danny smiled before hearing his phone ringing. It was Wilhelm. What did he want from him?

“Inspector?” said Danny.

“Olsen. We caught the man who was talking with Hoggins. It’s better for you if you’re there for the interrogation. That way, you will have the info directly at the source.” responds Wilhelm.  

“I arrive immediately inspector.” replied Danny before hanging up. “Sorry love. I've to go. Wilhelm stopped the man who was with Hoggins three days before his argument with McKellan. He wants me to be there to record the news.”

“Good luck then. This kind of guy doesn't speak so easily. And there's a good chance he'll say anything.” you said with a smile.  

“You know Wilhelm is maybe an asshole... but he is very good at making someone speak during an interrogation. He has.... very good arguments. See you later honey.”

Danny set out for the police station. It’s still surprising that Wilhelm called him. In a sense, it will actually be able to collect the information directly at the source. And in the other, Wilhelm will not have to tell him. Surely that’s why he called. So that he doesn't bother repeating everything to Danny. What a lazy ass. Danny arrived at the police station, presented himself to the policeman of the reception who pointed to him the interrogation room where Wilhelm and the man were. He knocked on the door and entered when the inspector gave him permission.

“Wilhelm.” said Danny.

“Olsen." Responds Wilhelm.

“He said something?”

“We haven’t started the interrogation. But you can already take notes on his file. We know him. This is not the first time he has been arrested.”

“it's surprising that you called me by the way. Knowing that we can't stand each other.”

“True. But it's... urgh, it’s thanks to you that we managed to catch this guy. So, I give you back the device by allowing you to attend the interrogation for your newspaper article. But I warn you Olsen. This is the first and last time. Don’t hope that this happens again.”

“You are too kind. I can't wait to see what I can get out of it.”

Wilhelm sighed before heading to the other part of the interrogation room, where the man was. He had everything from a notorious drug dealer. He looked elsewhere, swinging a little back and forth, a typical symptom of a slight lack of drugs.

“Devon. What a surprise. It’s...the fifth time maybe from the beginning of the month? You try to beat a record?” said Wilhelm, sitting in front of the man.

“Shut up Wilhelm.” Responds Devon.  

“Oh. Usually, you are more... aggressive with me from the start. Sometimes I don't even have time to sit down that I'm already on the verge of breaking your mouth. What happens to you, are you sick?”

“Go straight to the point, dirty cop asshole, why am I here? I have not sold any drugs today. And I made no one shit.”

“Ah, there I find my Devon.” replied Wilhelm before showing the picture Danny took. “Surely you're aware that Horace McKellan is dead huh? You surely also know that Hoggins threatened him 3 days before his death. Well, this little picture was taken a few days before the threats. You're very photogenic tell me, I love your profile face.”

“What’s the report?” asks coldly Devon.  

“I want to know what you were talking about with Hoggins on the day of this photo. And I advise you not to play asshole with me. Because if I ever find the slightest trace of your passage at McKellan's house, it’s life imprisonment that you will take as a sentence. I am sure that your mother will be heartbroken.”

“Leave my mom f***ing alone!”  

“So tell me everything you know! And I assure you that we will try to arrange your sentence according to your participation in this crime.”  

Devon looks at the photo, slightly biting his tongue before blowing and facing Wilhelm.

“Hoggins was furious on the phone. He asked me to come and see him that day. He thought that his associate had betrayed him in relation to this scandal to save himself the balls. He wanted... He wanted to hire me to take care of him. He said to me, and I quote: This bastard is going to fuck everything up! He MUST disappear! and YOU will take care of it. He was willing to pay me $2,000,000 for it. I refused. ” he explains.

“With such a price you refused to kill? You will understand that I find it hard to believe.” said Wilhelm looking at Danny on the other side of the tinted glass.

“You may think what you want from me Wilhelm, drugged, failed, waste of society, but I'm not a f***ing killer. I left, telling him that I couldn’t kill a man who did nothing to me. He told me nothing. And 6 days later I learn that McKellan is dead. I told myself that he had finally found a guy crazy enough to do the job.”

Danny carefully noted everything Devon was saying, holding back from smiling. That's exactly what he needed to hear. And this will make the rest of his plan even more delectable. Hoggins is good for prison... unless Danny kills him before. Which, of course, is going to be the case in 2 weeks. Your name is going to be cursed over several generations Hoggins, you're screwed.

“He contacted you again after that?” asks Wilhelm.

“No. I didn't hear from him... until recently. He contacted me because he wanted to offer me another job. But when I arrived, he was irritated.” responds Devon.  

“Why?”  

“Two journalists from the Roseville Gazette, including one whose name was...how did he tell me already? Olsen, I think, came to interview him in relation to all this.”

Danny suddenly raised his head. Devon was therefore the famous important appointment that Hoggins had and that pushed him to shorten the interview. Why strangely it didn't shock him?

“What did he say?” Continues Wilhelm.

“At first, when I got him on the phone, he wanted us to discuss the drug business. But when I arrived, he got upset because this Olsen had provoked him on a bunch of stuff. I told him that it was the journalists, that it was normal for them to do this kind of practice. But he was so irritated that he didn't even hear that. What he made him shit the most was that this guy, Olsen, was dating a girl that Hoggins called "his bird of paradise". That it was out of the question for a "parasite" like Olsen to put his dirty paws on her. He told me that the girl in question was the boss of Nebula, the café that opened recently.”

Danny's blood only made one turn. Being called parasite, he didn’t care completely. But this dirty big pig, dares to consider you as HIS property? It's too much. You are only HIS and His ALONE.

“He told you something else?” Wilhelm said.

“He wanted me to go and scare this girl to leave Olsen. Nothing very nasty in itself. But here too I refused. I just want to do my business quietly, that's all.”

Wilhelm nod and leave the room to discuss with the other officers. Danny had stood back, pretending to reread his notes. With rage in his stomach, he thought of only one thing; Kill Hoggins. And it could happen faster than he had anticipated.

If Hoggins wants to play this game, if Hoggins is looking for war... He found it.

Unfortunately for him, he attacks the wrong person.

And he’s gonna pay for it.  

***

(And it’s done! Summer Vacation is coming and I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as you can! In this period of pandemic which unfortunately forced us to deprive ourselves of some things such as outings with friends and others, it’s time for all of us to enjoy this summer while remaining alert, hoping that it is finally over. I hope you’ll like this chapter like the others ones! Well, it's time for my brain to rest! Have a great weekend to you all!  See ya!)

[comrade-meow]

'Puberty Blockers' and the Medical Abuse of Women

On Friday, September 17, the UK Court of Appeal overturned a judgement ruling that children under the age of 16 are unable to consent to taking drugs euphemistically referred to as ‘puberty blockers’, which halt a child’s natural growth process. The decision was made in favor of the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust, which runs England’s only gender identity development service (GIDS) for children, and was brought forward last year by Keira Bell, who was prescribed puberty blocking drugs at the age of 16 and has since detransitioned.

Bell describes in detail how she suffered from depression as a teenager, and how she “had never had a positive association with the term ‘lesbian’ or the idea that two girls could be in a relationship,” leading to her confusion about her body that led her towards transitioning. At 15, she was referred to the Gender Identity Development Service, at the Tavistock, and after a few conversations was placed on ‘puberty blockers’ when she was 16.

These drugs called ‘puberty blockers’ are technically better described as endocrine disruptors, and there is little evidence to support activists’ claims that they are not only safe and reversible but also ‘life-saving’, as they are frequently described by media outlets and lobbying organisations; however, there is ample evidence to the contrary.

The Tavistock released information from a report at the beginning of 2021 which concluded that “puberty blockers do not alleviate negative thoughts in children with dysphoria”. Children aged 12 - 15 who were administered the drugs as a treatment for severe and persistent gender dysphoria experienced no significant improvement in their psychological function, thoughts of self-harm, or body image. However, the children did experience decreased bone strength by the age of 16, and data showed that some of the children taking the drugs reported an increase in thoughts of suicide and self-harm.

In addition, a Swedish study showed that after transition, patients had a 19x higher rate of suicide than matched controls: “The overall mortality for sex-reassigned persons was higher during follow-up than for controls of the same birth sex, particularly death from suicide. Sex-reassigned persons also had an increased risk for suicide attempts and psychiatric inpatient care.”

Endocrinologist Dr. Will Malone, who is one of several doctors raising the alarm on this issue, said, “It is misleading to state as fact that ‘puberty blockers are reversible’. No one knows if the physical and psychological impacts of halting normal puberty are reversible.”

Research conducted by Dr. Malone and Dr. Michael Laidlaw found that after two years of pubertal suppression, up to a third of children aged 12 - 15 years old were found to have abnormally low bone density. Moreover, further research conducted by Dr. Michael Biggs found that after two years of ‘puberty blocking’ medications, bone density in a significant number of children “declined to a level that should trigger clinical concern”. In the study, Biggs cites an example of a patient at the Tavistock clinic who began taking endocrine disruptors at the age of 12 and experienced four broken bones by the age of 16.

‘Puberty Blockers’ and Women’s Health

One of the drugs most commonly prescribed as a ‘puberty blocker’ is Lupron, manufactured by AbbVie (formerly Takeda-Abbott Pharmaceuticals, or TAP). Lupron was developed for the treatment of prostate cancer in men and the US FDA approved it for this use in 1985. In 1990, the FDA approved Lupron for the treatment of endometriosis in women.

However, the drug is “so toxic it is not recommended for more than 12 months in a lifetime,” according to a 2019 investigation by KTNV News, which reported on complaints made by women who had been prescribed Lupron for endometriosis. “The FDA currently has over 25,000 adverse event reports for Lupron products including more than 1500 deaths. Reactions include suicidal thoughts, stroke, muscle atrophy and debilitating bone and joint pain,” the investigation found, and women reported that they were not properly warned of its risks and side effects.

The investigation was a follow-up to a previous news report by KTNV conducted nearly a decade earlier, in 2010, after which Lupron��s warning label was updated to include risks of thromboembolism, convulsions, and loss of bone density. In 2009, Lupron’s manufacturers were reprimanded by the FDA, saying that the company’s promotional materials for an HIV drug “minimize the serious risks… while overstating its efficacy and including unsubstantiated claims.”

In 2001, Lupron manufacturer TAP settled for a then-record £639 million for fraud. The lawsuit found that high-level employees, including TAP’s president, were bribing doctors to prescribe Lupron by providing kickbacks, including vacation trips, medical equipment and money offered in the form of educational grants.

A similar local news report from WXYZ-TV Detroit documented the testimonies of women who consider themselves Lupron victims, including Georgia woman Terry Paulsen, who filed a federal lawsuit claiming the pharmaceutical company failed to warn her and other women about its crippling side effects. “Her immune system began to attack her own bones. She got osteopenia and osteoporosis and now she’s got terrible osteoporosis,” said Dr. Alan Levin, an immunologist and Paulsen’s attorney. Of the 24,000 reports of adverse reactions filed with the FDA, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 60 percent of those were filed by women, and more than half of them were deemed to be serious cases.

“Lupron lawyers convinced a federal judge to seal the results from several clinical trials, but not before an expert witness disclosed evidence that even after a year off the drug, 62 percent of women did not regain normal estrogen levels. AbbVie refused to comment on the studies or on Terry Paulsen.”

Women who were given Lupron for ‘precocious puberty’ have also spoken out, detailing horrific and ongoing side effects. “It feels like I have 80-year-old bones,” said 22-year-old Brooklyn Harbin, one of the women who has filed an adverse reaction report. Harbin was prescribed Lupron at 10 years old, to pause the onset of her menstrual cycle. “The back pain became very, very severe. It got very, very depressing having to be in a wheelchair in the fifth grade,” Harbin told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In 2017, PBS interviewed women who had been treated with Lupron for precocious puberty, and found, “A 20-year-old from South Carolina was diagnosed with osteopenia, a thinning of the bones, while a 25 year-old from Pennsylvania has osteoporosis and a cracked spine. A 26 year-old in Massachusetts needed a total hip replacement. A 25-year-old in Wisconsin… has chronic pain and degenerative disc disease.”

One woman who agreed to go on the record, Sharissa Derricott, said that at the age of 21, a surgeon had to replace her deteriorated jaw joint. In addition to being diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, her teeth were breaking apart in her mouth.

“It just feels like I’m being punished for basically being experimented on when I was a child,” Derricott told PBS. “I’d hate for a child to be put on Lupron, get to my age and go through the things I have been through.”

So often in the debate over drugs referred to as ‘puberty blockers’, advocates and critics alike neglect to mention that before these drugs were marketed to gender non-conforming children, it was women who suffered, and continue to suffer, from their intense side effects. These women are the canaries in the coal mine, whose voices are continuously sidelined and ignored, despite the impact on their health so closely mirroring the reports implicating loss of bone density in children who are given endrocrine disruptors as a purported ‘treatment’ for body dysmorphia.

There is no reason to turn a healthy child or adolescent into a perpetual patient, dependent for a lifetime on surgeries and wrong-sex hormones. We ignore the harms inflicted on women’s health by leading ‘puberty-blocker’ Lupron at our own peril. These women, Keira Bell, and all detransitioners deserve better. Children ought to be protected from those who seek to exploit their distress for profit while damaging their health in the process.

[poisonousquinzel]

"Harley Quinn is a criminal, a villain!!! she needs to pay for her crimes! she can't just have a redemption arc without being punished for her misdeeds and murders!"

oh  so  are we just forgetting the bargaining chip that the government/Waller uses for the Suicide Squad? :)

Cause news flash, Harley has done her time.

She's served her sentence in Belle Reve prison.

She worked off her years by going on actual suicidal missions for years.

She. Did. Her. Time.

And She's Cleared Her Record.

Suicide Squad: Blaze #1

“You’ve been selected for a special task. I know you’ve all served on Suicide Squads before, so--”

“So you can skip the details, bosslady-- we know the score. Go out there, face certain death, coupla creepy laughs, maybe a dance number-” 

“In return for which state-sponsored violence we gain access to certain off-list privileges-- and a bloody massive reduction in our sentences.” 

Suicide Squad: Blaze #2

“You are sitting among the Suicide Squad. They are not nice people. They’re not here for your emotional support. They’re here because--should you feel a little hesitant about my polite requests?-- 

--They will murder you before you’ve finished saying “No.” For this I will reward them handsomely.”

Harley Quinn (2021 - ) #1

“It’s time I make amends for everythin’ I did when... Back before... 

Well, you know. 

After The Joker War... I can’t help but feel responsible. I’ve hurt this city. Enabled that clown prince of ***** for a long time. 

My records are officially clean thanks to that Suicide Squad business, but I figure I got a lot to make up for.”

And a redemption arc isn't always going to look like Zuko's arc in the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

We need to stop holding every single "redemption" arc to that standard alone because characters aren't all the same, and frankly, at this point, it's getting really damn frustrating.

Character can be, and are, nuanced, multilayered people that come from vastly different circumstances & backgrounds, various forms of medias, and have differing levels of trauma that have led to their criminal actions.

They have different writers and creative teams, and depending on the company in change, those writers may or may not be equipped to probably handle the more sensitive and serious aspects of that character.

And some of them come from (or have later appeared in) media types that have a much, much higher rating than Avatar did. The creators are free to go to more extreme levels with that trauma and showing the audience the full extent of things like domestic abuse.

But in the end redemption is when the person themselves wants to change and realizes the wrongs they've committed. It's when they want to make amends and atone for their actions.

It doesn't necessarily mean the world forgives them. A redemption arc isn’t earned when the in universe world decides to forgive that character.

It means they've decided to try. They're putting in effort. They're putting that part of their life behind them and they're trying to be a better person.

They’re trying to change for the better.

Not all redemption arcs are clean and easy. And not of all them only have to make amends for a handful of wrongdoings. 

But it is in the very core of her character to feel guilt and remorse once she’s free from The Joker’s manipulation and love bombing.

This is still a redemption arc because she is fundamentally trying to be a better person and is putting in the effort. And it is an arc that’s been building for almost 30 years. 

It was her saying No when that voice is telling her

"You're a villain, remember? Time to nasty up and act like one."

Trying to convince her to leave one of her teammates behind to succumb to the effects of the Joker Toxin invading their system.

Suicide Squad (2016 - ) #4

She's immune to the toxin. She hears and sees him, just like she hears and sees Harleen, which makes it all the more powerful that she's working through fighting against those urges when she's got a literal devil manifested in front of her encouraging said villainous urges.

And later, it's taking accountability when confronted by a victim who was wrong by her and Joker. Going so far that she fully ready to let herself die at the hands of said victim to right that wrong.

Batman (2016) #105

“I wanted to be strong, and he was able to manipulate me and control me and make me feel loved enough that I was willing to help him do really terrible things. Because I wanted to feel strong too. 

I wanted to be the one with all the power. I wanted to be the one people were afraid of. 

And now... I’m gonna be dealing with the consequences of that for my entire life. I’m always going to be Harley Quinn. And I’m trying my damnedest to make the most of it. 

I’m gonna try to save as many people as I tried to hurt, back in the day. I want to be a better version of me. 

But if you want to kill me, you can. I deserve it.”

“Harley...”

“Stand back, Bats. It’s the kid’s choice.”

Shadow War Zone (2022 - ) #1

“...And, most shocking of all, her recent encounter with Hugo Strange indicates she genuinely wants to make amends for her past.” 

It's the dozens of little, important moments over the years that's shown she's been developing, she's been growing.

We’re just seeing it come full circle now.

And that's a fucking good thing. 

She’s saving people, she’s helping people in multiple ways. She’s making more friends, she runs a support group for people like her and Kevin, putting her therapist skills to use. 

This is good for her. She’s healing.

And that’s what we want from characters because they’re nuanced, multilayered creations that shine best when they’re not boxed into a one dimensional Bad Guy trope. 

[lady-divine-writes]

Good Omens - I Was Given Four Rules to Follow ... I Broke Every One: Chapter 1/3 (Rated PG13)

Summary: When Warlock Dowling is summoned to the old South Downs cottage of Aziraphale and Crowley to help clean out their attic, presumably after their deaths, he is given four rules to follow.

... He breaks every single one.

Notes: For @silver-colour

Written for the @tricketyboo2020 prompt "Creepypasta format story (like a found footage or witness statement kind of thing)" by silver-colour. It is a mild reworking of an older fanfic of mine, but that goes tongue in cheek with the ending of this story sort of. XD I would put this between Spooky Level 2 and 3, with 3 being "major and minor character death, disturbing images or concepts, major dark themes, major violence, etc." But there's only minor mentions of blood/body horror. But the whole undead thing is a trigger for some people and I lean into that imagery a bit. I wanted this to be a sort of leveled up Goosebumps tale. Tl;dr proceed with caution <3

Chapter 1

 I am going to die.

I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die.

I have to keep repeating it because I have to come to grips with it.

I am going to die.

Not in sixty years.

More like sixty minutes.

Oh, Amanda. I am sorry.

If you ever hear this … I never meant for this to happen.

My name is Warlock Dowling and I am 34 years-old. Devoted son and husband, I’ve spent over a decade working towards achieving my dream of following in my father’s footsteps and entering politics one day.

It’s a dream I don’t think I’ll be seeing through to the end.

I am telling you this because after reading what I’ve just read … and hearing what I’ve just heard … I am not certain I’m going to make it through the night.

I broke the rules.

There were four. Only four. And I broke them.

I didn’t break them by accident. I absolutely did it on purpose. I’m not suicidal or anything, but you only live once - am I right?

For the record, I don’t regret a single thing.

…

That’s not entirely true.

I’ll regret dying before morning if that’s the way things play out.

Today happens to be October 31st - Halloween night. I’d been tasked with clearing out the attic above a cottage in The South Downs which once belonged to a pair of old family friends. Technically, they were ex-employees of my parents from back when I was young, but I thought of them as surrogates. They practically raised me, educated me, taught me everything I know about coping in this cruel, pathetic world.

I held them in the highest regard.

They were the only people in my life who treated me as if I could become more than what I had been born into, that fate had something else in store for me. Because of them, I met the best friends a boy could ever have.

I will forever be grateful for that.

Cleaning out this attic was the least I could do to repay them, but to be honest, I don’t know who summoned me here. I assumed it was the executor of their estate, but now I’m not so sure. Looking over the letter in my hands, there is no legible signature. And the gold embossed emblem at the top that I took for granted as belonging to some upscale legal firm is, on closer inspection, gibberish - a mess of fleur-de-lis underscored by Latin words that roughly translate to “the cows shall rise”.

Ludicrous, right?

How did I miss that?

But more ludicrous - and confusing - are the rules.

I had been given rules about cleaning this attic.

The first rule on the list was to touch only what I could see. Under no circumstances was I to open any of the boxes or chests.

So, naturally, I opened every single one.

The second rule was not to put anything on. Fine by me. The only clothes up here are old lady outfits and a pair of white satin shoes.

But …

There was an awesome vintage leather jacket hanging on a dressmaker’s dummy in the corner and … well … it had my name written all over it! I had to try it on, see if it fit.

And it does.

Rule number three - keep to my torch. Don’t light any candles.

Nuh-uh! It’s Halloween! And torches are lame. So on the candles went. Jeez, there are a lot of them. Enough to burn down the whole place if I’m not careful. It actually seems like they’ve multiplied since I’ve been up here.

I won’t lie - it’s unsettling.

But according to the list, rule number four is the most important:

Don’t read any books I find. And definitely not out loud.

The first thing I saw when I entered the attic was a stack of leather-bound books. I scoffed at the sight of them, piled up to my chin, right inside the entryway. Isn’t that a bit like putting a huge bowl of candy front and center on your dining room table in the middle of dinner with a huge sign saying, “Do not eat?” If the most important rule about going into the attic is, “Don’t read anything!” why not put all the books on a high shelf?

Or the moon?

I’m not a book lover. I read hundreds of pages a day for work. I definitely don’t do it for fun. So this shouldn’t have been a hard one for me to follow.

But they looked like diaries.

And diaries hold secrets.

That made them a different matter all together.

I couldn’t resist.

But once I opened the top one, I knew I’d made a mistake.

These weren’t just any diaries.

They were the diaries of my two friends - Aziraphale and Crowley.

There had always been something odd about those two. I didn’t believe for a second that they were a proper nanny or gardener, not even when I was a young, impressionable child. But they were funny - a distraction from the dull as dishwater life of an attache’s son.

Yes, I was a spoiled little rich kid with everything I could ever ask for handed to me and, on top of that, diplomatic immunity.

Woe was me.

I realize how much of a douche whining about that makes me sound.

My life was still dull.

I was still lonely.

I never knew for sure what happened to them after they left us. I made assumptions - erroneous assumptions. I thought they lived happily ever after at least.

Now I know … that wasn’t the case.

I’m recording this in the hopes that someone will find it, so that you might know the true story of what happened to them …

… and why you might not be hearing from me again.

***

The Diary of Aziraphale Fell - Reluctant Widower

January 14th-

“Please, sir,” the decrepit woman hissed, but not unkindly. She came about her speech impediment by a mixture of symptoms - her thick accent coupled with her indeterminable old age caused her to talk that way. “Please, reconsider this decision.”

I glared at her regardless. I knew my eyes were bloodshot; my hair a mass of tangled, wayward strands; my lips quivered from constant, unrelenting crying.

“You said you had it!” I screamed, bypassing her arguments. “You said you would sell it to me! Wh---why else would I come here!?”

“You need to understand,” the woman implored, opening her hands in a pleading gesture. She fixed me with one clear blue eye, the other eye clouded – a useless, milky white lump of tissue bulging inside its socket, “what you ask for … it is unnatural.”

“But your granddaughter said it was a done deal!” I persisted, shooting a steely glare at the simpering young woman who ducked behind her grandmother to hide from my volatile stare. I wasn’t about to leave without the item I came for. At this point, I was willing to tear the place apart and everything inside - including the two of them - to get it.

They must have sensed that.

Even as the woman continued to defy me, she looked slightly more afraid than she had a minute ago.

“My granddaughter is foolish!” The woman directed the comment over her shoulder to the girl cowering there. “But she means well. We need the money. She was thinking with her head and not her heart.”

“I can pay you twice what you’re asking!” I reached into my back pocket for my wallet. “Three times! I’ll give you whatever you want!”

The girl, intrigued by my proposal, peeked over her grandmother’s shoulder, but the woman turned and barked sharply at her in a language I could not understand.

That was when I began to think I might be in danger.

I’d spent my entire life studying languages, so hearing one I didn’t comprehend, not even an inch, sent a shiver down my spine.

“Mr. Fell …” The old woman reached out, I presumed to comfort me, and took my shaking hand in hers “… your husband is dead. And I am more sorry than I can ever express at your loss. You carry your love for him like a beacon. I see it in your eyes. It shines from every part of you. With him gone, it is up to you to carry it. It will never fade as long as you remember him.”

Those were, without a doubt, the kindest words anyone had said to me since my husband passed. I crumbled, new tears falling hot down my cheeks. But regardless of her sympathy, sincere though it might be, I refused to relent.

I refused!

“I don’t want to remember him!” I whimpered, my anger renewed at the sound of my voice fracturing. “I want him here with me! I need you to help me bring him back!”

The woman sighed in pity but shook her head.

“The effects of life are varied, Mr. Fell. Our fate … it changes every day, with every choice that we make. But the effects of death should remain permanent.”

I flinched at that word as if she’d struck me across the face.

Permanent.

Crowley dead … my husband gone … and nothing for me to look forward to in life but emptiness. We’d had every moment of our lives planned together.

One arsehole drunk driver later and now I was alone.

I literally had no one.

I had lost contact with my mum early in life, never knew my father, didn’t have children of my own. My boss and mentor was an abusive prick who tormented me throughout the span of my career until I found a way out from under his thumb.

Until Crowley helped me discover a life where I didn’t need the man’s guidance or control.

But now I was going to lose him!? The only one who had stuck by me, who defended me, loved me through thick and thin!?

No! That was beyond cruel! And I wasn’t going to roll over and accept it!

I let the sorrow within me curdle, turn sour as I yanked my hand out of the old woman’s grasp.

“Your granddaughter said there are other methods of getting what I want!” I snarled. “Dangerous methods. Methods that might require payment in sacrifice … even blood. And not necessarily my blood. Innocent blood, if you catch my meaning.”

Both women gasped.

Despite the conversation at hand, I smiled.

Good, I thought. We were finally all on the same page.

Up until a few days ago, I never considered violence to be the answer to anything. But I had since come to a crossroads where an exception had made itself clear.

I was prepared to annihilate my humanity to get my husband back.

The old woman snapped her head over her shoulder, scolding her granddaughter in a harsh, guttural voice. The girl, who had started to brave coming out of hiding, shrank down once again.

“Be reasonable,” the woman begged, “please, and think about what you are saying. What you are willing to do.”

“No,” I said, my calm more potent than my anger … or so my husband used to say. “The time for me being reasonable is over. I will get what I want, no matter what the cost. The question is whether or not you will be the one to give it to me.”

The woman looked down at her gnarled hands and sighed a long, exhausted sigh. “Alright, Mr. Fell. I will sell the potion to you at the promised price.”

I stared at her for a moment in shock. I was relieved, of course. I hadn’t thought I would get this far. It frightened me how much I had begun looking forward to throttling her with my bare hands, imagined her neck snapping within my grasp, effortlessly like a twig.

That couldn’t be me though. I wasn’t that kind of person. It was this place - this shop and all of its trinkets, their age and professed magical abilities amplifying my grief, turning every rational thought I had into rage.

I had to get out of here and fast before I did something I might regret.

I opened my wallet with the onset of happier tears and thumbed through the bills, pulling out extra for the joy of getting what I wanted. I handed the money over, but the woman refused to touch it. She waved it away, her granddaughter popping up long enough to grab the money and then scurry off again. The woman reached into the folds of her skirts and retrieved a leather pouch that hung from a thin belt around her waist. From it she fished out a tiny blue bottle with a cork stopper sealing the mouth. She gave it a long, troubled look, then handed it to me.

For the first time, her hand trembled.

“Pour the contents of this bottle into your husband’s mouth, Mr. Fell,” she instructed, “and your husband will return.”

I held the bottle up to the dim candlelight of the musty Soho shop. The blue glass glimmered, a thick liquid inside swaying back and forth, shimmering like sun-tossed sparkles across a dark, foreboding sea.

“There are some rules that go along with that potion,” the woman said, her voice weeding into my head, summoning me back from my momentary trance, “and a few warnings you must heed as well.”

I sighed. I had hoped it would be a simple matter of giving my husband the liquid and living happily ever after, but I knew in my heart that nothing was ever that simple.

“Okay,” I said, slipping the bottle carefully into my pocket and patting over it twice to ensure its safety. “Tell me. What are the rules?”

“First of all, you will give that to your husband, but what will come back …” she paused, swallowed hard “… will not entirely be your husband.”

I nodded. I had expected her to say something along those lines, like a scene straight from an old time-y horror movie.

The woman locked both eyes, one clear and one clouded, on my face as I waited for her to finish her speech, eager to go back home and get on with my life. She realized, with regret, that I had every intention of going through with this, and took on the heavy burden of allowing this to continue.

“Be there to look into his eyes when he wakes,” she said.

I hadn’t dreamed of leaving his side, but since the woman made such a point of it, I asked, “Why?”

“He is being reborn, in a sense. And like other simple-minded creatures, he will imprint on the first person he sees.” She took my hands and squeezed them. “That person needs to be you!”

My gulp was audible, the weight of her words and of my plan suddenly settling within me. They pressed in on me, like that moment when the police came to my door. Their words – “Mr. Fell? I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but … it’s about your husband …” had turned me inside out, left my heart out in the cold.

I felt that cold now.

“Once the potion absorbs into his tissues, it will restart his heart,” she continued. “Then the potion will replicate. It will begin to take the place of his blood. It will make him calm, easier for you to control.”

I nodded again. I wanted to say something, assure the woman that I understood, but she didn’t pause long enough for me to speak. It wouldn’t have mattered. I saw the trepidation in her one, clear eye. I had no clue what to say to make this better.

“It will be a slow process, and you must learn to be a patient man!” She raised her voice, letting go of one hand to waggle an emphatic finger in front of my face. “You will be teaching him, raising him as you would a child. Remember, even if only a small portion of his soul returns, that soul belongs to your husband, and you must love him or this will not work!”

The woman stepped back, out of breath from her outburst, and her granddaughter (whom I had forgotten about) returned, pushing forward an ornate but dusty antique chair to catch her in. I held the woman’s arms gently and helped her into it, feeling strangely protective. The woman sat and waved us both off, not wanting us to make a fuss when she still had more to say.

“But most importantly,” she labored on, barely missing a beat in her speech, “do not let him taste blood.” I knelt down so that she didn’t feel the need to yell for her words to reach me. “He cannot eat meat, but most of all, don’t let him bite you or lick your wounds. Or anyone else’s – human or animal.”

“Will … will I become a zombie? If he does bite me?”

I’m not quite sure why the word ‘zombie’ leapt to my mind. In every interaction I had had with the woman’s granddaughter before tonight, she had been so careful not to use that term. She used other, more romantic euphemisms such as ‘bring back to the land of the living’, ‘re-associate with life’, and the most used - ‘rebirth’. But that’s what he would be, right? When we moved past the flowery vernacular and got right down to it? This potion I had pocketed would turn my husband into the walking dead, - a simple-minded creature that was once deposed from this Earth.

And that meant ‘zombie’.

As if I had nothing more pressing at hand, I suddenly recalled the Walking Dead marathon Crowley had convinced me to watch (against my better judgement). Crowley thought the show was hilarious, but I could barely make it to the middle of the first season. I had started watching with my hands over my eyes, then with my arm locked around Crowley’s, anxiously smacking his shoulder, and finally with most of my body lying over his lap and my face buried in his shirt.

It wasn’t just the gore in the show that skewered me, made me nauseous, unable to breathe. It was the fear and the pain those characters felt, being chased by a relentless enemy that needed no rest, constantly running into people they couldn’t trust, people who were so out for themselves they no longer believed in the sanctity of life, with nowhere to hide, nowhere safe at all, even behind thick, concrete and metal walls.

Watching your loved ones get turned into soulless monsters - still there, but everything about them that you had once loved out of reach.

And this ‘illness’ or whatever these people had - it spared no one. Even children had become zombies. And in the game that was survival for the remaining uninfected, children had become pawns.

Everything about it seemed so horrendous.

And while I suffered through my existential crisis, Crowley laughed at my antics.

I fought not to smile at the sound of his teasing voice.

“Uh … a little squeamish there, are you, angel?”

Angel.

From the first day we met, that’s what he called me.

Oh, what I wouldn’t give to hear him call me that again!

The old woman chuckled, bringing me reluctantly back from my daydream. “No. Not in this case. That’s not the nature of this spell. No, blood will give him back his memories.”

I looked at the woman, bug-eyed, and shook my head. “I … I don’t …”

“It will ignite his brain. He will begin to feel. In many ways, he will become more the man you married than in any other.”

“Wha---?“ I stuttered, baffled as to how that could be a bad thing. If drinking blood could make Crowley more Crowley, I’d set up an IV drip the minute I got home! I would serve him cups of blood with every meal! I’d make donating blood a requirement for entrance into my bookshop! (That one would definitely kill two birds with one stone. In fact, I might consider doing that anyhow.) “And why wouldn’t I want that again?” I asked, trying not to sound like turning my husband into a blood-sipping fiend was the greatest idea in known history.

The old woman smiled, but it wasn’t fond. It was shrewd, as if she could read every one of my thoughts.

And she didn’t approve.

“Once he has his memories back, he will start to crave it. Soon, drinking blood won’t be enough for him. It won’t work as well. It won’t keep the memories as fresh. He will have to go further, do more. He will become a killer.”

My face must have gone as green as I felt because the woman laughed again, this time with a touch of wickedness. A killer? My Crowley? My sweet, kind, compassionate Crowley?

Okay, maybe I was going too far with the endearments. He’d been a bit of a bastard, after all. Which was why I could picture Crowley becoming a full-fledged bad boy. With that leather jacket he wore like a second skin and his gleaming classic car, he’d been well on his way.

But a killer? No.

Then again, I was willing to become one myself a second ago, so maybe I wasn’t in the best position to judge.

“You are playing with the laws of nature, Mr. Fell,” she said, patting me on the cheek. “You are responsible not only for your own life, but for the lives of those around you.” The woman leaned in close, those eyes – one alive, one dead - more menacing than when I had walked into the shop; her face no longer that of a frail old woman but of a powerful witch.

This time, it was my turn to feel afraid.

“So don’t fuck it up.”

[brightbeautifulthings]

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

"'What if sometimes there is no choice about what to love? What if the temple comes to Mohammed? What if you just love? without deciding? You just do: you see her and in that instant are lost to sober account-keeping and cannot choose but to love?'"

Year Read: 2014, 2020

Rating: 5/5

Context: It's hard to know where to begin writing a review for this book. I read it for the first time in graduate school in about five weeks (alongside everything else I had to do in grad school, so I don't recommend that), and it basically blew my mind. At the same time, it's hard to imagine tackling it any other way for the first time. Despite its difficulty, there are things obsessive and immersive and, appropriately, even addictive about it. Full immersion might be the only way to read it for the first time, and I obsessed about it for months afterward. Since I'm not on any deadlines, I took it more slowly this time (21 weeks) so I could enjoy the writing and the nuances without the pressure to finish. For my less coherent weekly updates in real time, see my blog posts. Trigger warnings: Everything, everything. Death (on-page), child death, animal death, suicide, suicidal ideation, rape, pedophilia, possible incest, child abuse/abusive households, graphic violence/gore, eye horror, severe injury, drug use, addiction, alcoholism, mental illness, depression, OCD, grief, racism, ableism, transphobia, sexism, inexplicable hostility toward Canadians.

About: If it's difficult to know how to write a review, it's equally hard to describe what Infinite Jest is about. It's about so many things, tennis, addiction, communication (failures), and entertainment among them, but I'll do my best. Beneath all the numerous characters, timelines, and subplots, the main plot is about a film so entertaining that it kills anyone who watches it, robs them of all desire to do anything but watch it until they die, and what a faction of Canadian assassins will do to possess it. The auteur is James Incandenza, a suicide whose son, Hal, is a prodigy at Enfield Tennis Academy. Next door to E.T.A. is Ennet House, a drug rehabilitation center where Don Gately, former thief and Demerol addict, is taking it day by day to stay sober. Though they don't know it, Hal and Gately are connected, and the deadly Entertainment and those who seek it draw their paths closer and closer together.

Thoughts: It's rare to find a book that is actually as smart as it claims to be, but IJ is--certainly much smarter than I am, despite all my attempts to make sense of it. It starts off strong and doesn't let up for several hundred pages, which is a huge achievement all by itself. Wallace excels at writing extremely polished sections that could almost function alone as short stories, and the first chapter is one of my favorites in all fiction. It's reassuring, I think, to start the book off on a strong note, in case we worried we were in for a thousand pages of tedious slog. It can be both, but it's often heartfelt, insightful, and funny as well, and the payoff is well worth the effort. I don’t know how Wallace manages to pack every page with so much meaning. Anybody can put tedious lists in their books or make reading purposely difficult (and I have attitude about writers who do this for no reason), but there’s nothing haphazard about this book, despite its size and varied focus. Everything seems utterly intentional. The conversations are really top-tier; Wallace has a great ear for how people talk, and it's a fascinating look at how communication works and doesn't work.

Thematically, I think the book succeeds on more than any other level, including plot or structure. If we could say this book is "about" anything, we would almost certainly start with the themes and not the plot, which is often secondary to whatever point Wallace is trying to make at the moment. It takes an in-depth looks at things like addiction, depression, loneliness, failed communication, sincerity v. irony, critiques of postmodernism and metafiction (while being very meta itself, at times), and the very specific selfishness of an American culture that insists on freedom even to the point of self-destruction. At times, it feels a little heavy-handed or like it was yanked right out of an intro to philosophy course, but I suppose something in a thousand pages has to be obvious if we're ever going to pick up on it. A lot of these themes resurface in his other work, from "This is Water" and "E Unibus Pluram" to Orin Incandenza's Brief Interview style Q and A (and he would be a perfectly fitting character in that book).

The characters are some of my favorites in literary fiction as well, particularly the Incandenza family and Don Gately, and to a lesser extent Joelle Van Dyne (although Wallace typically doesn’t write female characters very well, and she comes with some issues). Hal and Gately couldn't be more different; Hal excels at everything he's ever done, and Gately has a record that includes accidental homicide on it. Hal is the hero of non-action, since little that happens in the book is engineered by him, while Gately is closer to the more typical hero of action, who defends the undeserving at great cost to himself. Yet their struggles with addiction are similar, and they both manage to be incredibly sympathetic characters. In my opinion, the book is always at its best when we’re with Hal or Gately, but I’m strongly driven by good characters. Despite being dead, James Incandenza's presence is also felt all over the book, from the Entertainment he created to his haunting ETA and sticking beds to the ceiling (probably the weirdest ghost I've ever seen in fiction). He's a tragic character in a book full of tragic characters. The others are too numerous to name, from the other tennis players at ETA and recovering addicts at Enfield, to the various bystanders populating Boston. We get brief glimpses into almost all of them, and while they may not all feel relevant at the time, most are memorable or heart-wrenching or slapstick funny, or all three. It's a book that contains multitudes.

That's not to say it's always on point though, and it isn't. There are a number of very serious problems with representation in this novel, and they're as bad as its detractors claim. A lot of the 90s humor aged very poorly, but that's not an excuse for some of the unabashedly racist depictions of African Americans, the uncharitable descriptions of Steeply's and Poor Tony's cross-dressing, or--however much I love him as a character--the fact that Mario Incandenza’s descriptions are ableist in just about every possible way. Wallace thinks he's capturing "voice" when he's really encouraging harmful stereotypes. The humor of the novel often doesn’t depend at all on these stereotypes and would in fact, be a lot more funny if I wasn’t spending so much energy cringing at it. So many of the little racist and ableist asides could have easily been edited out of the entire novel to make it less offensive. There are also sections where he seems at pains to be as gross as possible for its own sake. There are plenty of things grim or uncomfortable or flat out distasteful about this book, but sometimes the graphic violence kind of jumps out and stabs you in the eye, say, with a railroad spike.

If there are times when I was totally absorbed in the little tragedies of the Incandenza family or Gately's struggles, there are plenty more where it's like pushing something heavy up a hill. No lie, some of it is slogging through tedious minutiae and various experimental writing styles (some more successful and less offensive than others). Wallace has a gift for purposeful tedium; it’s at its peak in The Pale King, but he gives it a nice warm-up round here. The novel is difficult and meant to be, since Wallace maintained that some of the best pleasures are the ones we have to work for, and he's not totally off base. There's something very satisfying about living, for a time, in a book that spans a thousand pages, that demands focus and perseverance, and manages to give back (almost) as much as it takes. The book is always structurally interesting, but it starts to get more complicated toward the end as various characters and plots begin to almost slide into one another. I forgot how frustrating it was to near the end and realize--again--that it wasn't going to wrap up with any kind of satisfaction; the various plots slide, but they don’t meet. I thought if I paid closer attention on a second read that I would pick up more of the plot things I’d missed on my first, but I think the problem is that those answers simply aren’t to be found in the actual text. Of course, they can point us toward various conclusions, and the novel certainly encourages us to speculate and make connections, but I don’t think the actual answers are there.

That brings me to some of my final thoughts, for now. There's no doubt that this is a hugely successful book, and I believe it accomplished exactly what Wallace meant it to do. He jokingly referred to it as a failed entertainment, much the way Jim considered his lethal Entertainment a failure, but I have the sense that Wallace, unlike Jim, failed on purpose. The book purposely pays more attention to structure and theme than it does to plot or character, yet the plot and characters are hugely compelling for what we see of them. Imagine the book it could have been if he had paid equal attention to all of them. Wallace attempted to create a book that people wouldn't want to stop reading. Reaching the end certainly encourages us to begin again, as the first chapter is actually the last in chronology, but that trick only works the first time. By my second read, I realized that starting over wouldn't help me fill in any of those blanks or answer any of my questions, and I was content to let it go. On the one hand, IJ depends upon its structure to tell the story it's telling. On the other, think of the book it could have been if it spent more time telling a story and developing its characters and less time belaboring a point. It's one of the best books I've ever read, and the tragedy is that I think it could have been even better.

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 3 - Michelin Star related suicide.

K: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru, getting started with the third episode of The Freedom of Expression.

J, T: Yep.

K: Joe Yokomizu san and Tasai san are here again. So, how are we doing, after the second time?

Kami:*interrupts*

J: Ah, He's cutting in early today.

Kami: Yes, yes, yes. Im thinking a lot about my timing.

J: You're entering from every possible angle?

Kami: Yes, thats it.

K: What do you think after the first two episodes? We are on our third today, but does it seem interesting?

K: As a god, im kinda out of things to say.

J: Really?

Kami: Yep

J: You would think a god would know about all sorts of things.

Kami: I don't know all that much. *K laughs* Im studying, Im working on it.

T: Last time, the suspicion arose that he was poverty stricken, didnt it?

J: Yes, he pointed out he was a poverty stricken god.

Kami: I told you not to say that! *K laughs*

T: Sorry..

Kami: Its a problem.

K: After we finished last time, we ended up talking a lot about money, didn't we?

J: Yes, we did. *everyone laughing*

Kami: Yep, yep.

J: After the recording, Kami spoke non stop about money, didn't he? He is really attached to it..for a god. You'd think he'd be the one least interested in that, but he turns out to be the one most interested.

Kami: It wasn't that bad until then. It wasn't like that back on the radio show. It really has become a problem recently.

J: Oh now?

T: I see.

Kami: Yes, now.

K: Right, well, our third episode...

J: Yes, the title is 'Suicide resulting from Michelin stars - In the lawsuit of a former 3 star Michelin star chef, the court rules that....'

This is concerning the Michelin guide which was even popularised in a TV drama last year. In its country of origin, France, there is so much pressure, the fear of losing a star can even lead to suicide. A Chef who lost his third star even filed a lawsuit against Michelin. As for the specific story, Marc Veyrat, who runs the famous restaurant 'La Maison des Bois' in the Alps, recieved the long awaited 3 star rating in 2018. Just one year later, this dropped to a 2 star rating. Veyrat responded angrily, 'The quality of my food hasn't changed at all. Its a mistake in the inspection', and brought the case against Michelin. As well as demading the inspector's qualifications and the report to be made public, as his demotion has led to him to  falling into a state of depression, he is suing Michelin for the sum of just 1 Euro, or in yen, 120 yen. He has been telling the media of his discontent that the inspectors could not recognize the cheese Reblochon, from the Savoy region, and probably mistook it for the widely produced cheddar cheese. Nanterre courthouse in the suburbs of Paris responded, that as well as the evaluation of the inspector coming down to freedom of expression, the plaintiff did not show good enough reason that  his reputation had been marred. The famous chef was defeated, but the agony of chefs over the star rating is becoming a problem in society. By the way, simply put, the standard for the inspection, or the standard for the stars, is the food only. Not the restaurant interior, or the service. The food is assessed on the following five criteria. 1) The quality of the ingrediants. 2) The level of skill and amount of seasoning. 3) Originality. 4) Cost performance. 5) The consistency of the presented dishes on the whole. This is the same all over the world. As for the meaning of the stars, this is as follows. One star = Food that is particularly delicious within its category. Two stars = Spectacular food that is worth making a detour to have it. Three stars = Excellent food that is worth specifically traveling just to have it. The report is produced by a group consisting of the inspectors, the chief editor and all other responsible parties for the Michelin guide book. Every year they recieved around 45,000 emails and letters from thier readers, which they look through, and sometimes even do re-evaluations. ....Food!

K: Food...

J: Yep...I mean, reputation really controls which restaurants we go to.  Kaoru, what do you think?

K: Hmm, well, its an inspection isnt it?

J: Yes, its an inspection.

K: I was in Paris last year. There are loads of these aren't there? * the others laugh*

J: Well, yes. So, he didn't change anything about his food, but his rating still dropped, whats that all about?

K: Isn't it precisely because he didn't do anything new?

J: Oh, could it be that? If others are upping thier game, you will naturally drop.

K: There couldn't really be someone who mistook it for mass produced cheddar cheese.

J: You'd think, wouldn't you?

K: And then, maybe people are just different, no matter what it is. Even if its the same person..

J: Maybe they were feeling bad or something..

K: Hmm, an inspection is...Well, if it was sports or combat sport or something..the observers can easily judge the game, like..oh this one definitely won...But with music, or movies....appraisals of 'things', its different depending on the person isnt it.

J: Yes, you're right.

K: This type of guide is for people who want to expand thier knowledge, the Michelin guide ...For movies it would be the Academy Awards, and there are tv shows doing the same thing.  Its just to make things easier for people...so, in the end, it seems like it can't be helped really.

J: Well, thats it, yes. I dont know about Michelin, but Im in the position to do album reviews, so im in the place to award stars...and, its true, if its a genre you like, you just naturally like it, and are prone to jacking up the stars, but if its a genre you don't listen to, you feel unfamiliar and it takes a while to figure out whether its good or bad. So certainly, as for awarding stars.. asking people, well, im just repeating what you said Kaoru, its not objective information. You have to try and think about the aim. If the orgainisation drops a star from you it doesn't necessarily mean you are bad..

K: Its like a contest or that type of thing, you can still see who's winning the game..

J: Like 1-1, you can see whos winning in front of you, the circumstances are a little different from this though.

K: Eventually, won't it affect thier sales though?

J: I think so.

T: Don't you think diners also rely too much on this kind of guide?

K: You can check anything on your smartphone, you don't really know whats true.

J: You don't, there are these restaurant review sites where some people are paid to write good reviews, and some people are paid to write bad reviews, you know, to destroy thier rivals they will write bad stuff...So its difficult to know how far to trust that type of thing. By the way, Kaoru, do you refer to reviews in relation to food, or new music or anything like that?

K: Well, I do, yes. Guides and such...Usually, I  get information I want to know from all over the place. I ask people, like..'I want to eat this', or 'I wonder if that place is good' or something,  I ask people what they think.

T: But when you want to go to see a movie, do you ask someone who likes movies?

K: I'll read what someone has written about it, or I'll read what they've posted on social media.

J: The main thing is listening to people you can trust.

K: Yes, thats it.

J: Someone you are familiar with, or some well-informed person. Also someone you see eye to eye with.

T: Thats right.

J: If you go out for food with someone, and they say 'this is delicious', if you ask them what else they like, it will be the same kind of things that you like.

K: Really, I've never been to a two star or three star Michelin restaurant * the others laugh*.

J: Well, this internet age isn't going to end...

T: Right

J: Just how far will people trust this kind of assesment, or star rating?

T: Joe, have you ever been hassled by anyone because of this? By artists or such?

J: I havn't actually...I write what I didn't personally like, and sign my name with a star rating, then, 'this is what I think, but what do YOU think', to continue the conversation.

K: Our boss in our office, he was in a band a long time ago, and he got angry about something that was written in a magazine, so he stormed over to the magazine headquarters * the others laugh*  He might ????*1

J,T: Your boss, wow!

J: What was the magazine?

K: Oh, I don't remember..*laughing*

J: Which of them has the freedon of expression? *laughing*

K: They are both clashing with each other.

J: The moment their freedom clashed *laughs*

T: But, Ive heard that kind of story before...A hip hop artist or something, went to a magazine and tried to restrain or kidnap the editor. He took it that seriously.

J: Well, in a music magazine, if you write an article, its the same with interviews, you dont know whether the other party will see or hear it. For me, after editing, I think its good to show it to the artist once. Im only writing my ideas, and there are times where thats not the reality.

For interviews, you dont necessarily hand over the questions in advance, and if im just asking at random, the artist may feel on the spot and not be able to say what they really feel, so i think its good to show them once, to get the facts right.  With reviews too, i think showing them what i intend to write is important. But there are magazines where the boss doesnt get the content checked, 'you said it, so take responsibility', kind of thing. Thats a bit harsh, i think.

T: Well, yes. With interviews, I think its good to show the person. Protecting freedom should be kept independent.

J: Yes, yes, you are free to write what you think, but this is also keeping it real by checking if artists are holding responsibility for what they say. They decide whether they can really say that after checking it first.

K: There are times when you wish you'd used more words..

J: There are! Of course, its limited to the time and place of the interview, for example 1 hour, the time is squeezed. You have to get on with it, with little explanation..sometimes you need to supplement that.

T: Yes, you're right.

K: What do you think, Kami?

J: Kamiii?

Kami: *stifled laugh* Yes, what?

J: I don't know how to address him.

Kami: No no, don't worry about that, we are short on time.

K: Yes, our third installment is ending.

J: It felt quick today..somehow.

K: Originally, one episode was supposed to have two news items.

J: Yeah, i thought that.

K: But it didn't work that way, did it?

J: No, it didnt. What do the viewers think? Is one item enough? Or do they want two items at a faster pace?

K: If its too long, they won't be able to watch it.

J,T: Right.

T: A shorter video is better.

J: As for raising the number of views, right?

K: We talk about quite difficult stuff too, we should try to break into it as much as we can, make it interesting. Oh, and Kami, even his voice is interesting.

J: Its enough.

K: Well, that was the third installment, please tune in next time.

K, J, T: Thank you very much.

*1 I couldn't catch this. 

[haberdashing]

No Puppet Strings Can Hold Me Down (16/17)

The Magnus Archives fanfic. An AU that diverges from canon between episodes 159 and 160, in which Peter Lukas’ statement that “he got you” takes on a different meaning.

on AO3

Not everything, though, went smoothly after that point, and not just because Jon was still trapped in his own body, unable to act of his own accord. There were incidents that reminded him of the true gravity of the situation, how one wrong move could lead to consequences much graver than his current imprisonment.

The first incident started with Jonah Magnus writing something down, though Jon hadn’t thought much of it at first; he’d peeked at a few words during the writing, as it wasn’t as if he could look away, but upon grasping that it looked to be a missive every bit as pretentious as he would have expected from Jonah, Jon let his mind wander, focused more on how Jonah Magnus’ handwriting both did and did not resemble his own (it was formal-looking handwriting, filled with dramatic loops and whorls, but still slightly different than what he’d seen Elias write before) than the actual contents of what was being written. Whether it was some sort of bragging or a suicide note or somewhere in between, Jon figured that what mattered was the action that accompanied it, not the letter itself.

Jon had barely noticed that said letter was still in his pocket as the day went on, and as his body entered the bathroom, his mind was more preoccupied with Knowing the sort of thing Daisy had used that bathtub to clean up and how inadequate her cleaning efforts really were on a biological level than with how Jonah had preoccupied himself writing something earlier in the day.

Jon only focused again on the scene in front of him when, after locking the door behind them, Jonah took out the letter and thrust it in his face while making no effort to actually attend to business there.

Read this, Jon.

Jon hadn’t planned on doing so any more than he had when the same words had been in front of him before, but his eyes instinctively looked to the top of the page--and, Jon noticed, his field of vision moved with them, his head tilting ever so slightly upwards.

He could move again, then--and yet, though he hadn’t planned to read whatever Jonah had written out loud, his voice rose to do just that, its tone calm and clinical even as Jon’s hands shook.

“Stateme-”

Jon closed his eyes, closed his mouth, gritted his teeth together to stop the words from flowing up, because he recognized the pattern now. He recognized the pattern, but he’d read just enough before to know that what Jonah wanted to share with him wasn’t a statement--not a regular one, at least, not some brief anecdote about the supernatural. It was... bigger than that. It was something more.

It was, at any rate, very much not something Jon wanted to read out loud, especially after being prompted to by his captor.

(The phrase Free will is a funny old thing, isn’t it Jon? floated into Jon’s head, and he felt bile rise in his throat at the thought of it.)

Part of him wanted to read it, though, and not just the part of him that was starting to feel resigned to whatever it was Jonah had planned for his captivity here. Part of him wanted to see what Jonah thought was so important, wanted to learn why he’d requested that Jon read it, wanted to know what this was all about, wanted to Know-

Jon pulled his hands into fists, crinkling the paper in the process.

It wasn’t a statement. That was what mattered here, right? He could feed off statements, but if this wasn’t one--and it didn’t look the part, exactly, scrawled hastily onto paper that wasn’t even official Institute stock--then that didn’t matter. If he could- could justify in his mind it being something else, that would change things, right? Dream logic, and all that?

It wasn’t a statement. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t let it be.

Jon hadn’t noticed that he was hyperventilating until his vision began to dim.

Do calm down, Jon. Panicking won’t get you anywhere.

“I’m not going to- to calm down!” Now Jon’s voice shook as much as his hands, but there was a strange sort of comfort to that, to knowing that his voice was his own again, panic and all. “If anything, maybe I’ll just panic louder. Martin’s out there, you know, he’ll-”

He’ll what? Think that I’m throwing a hissy fit and do his best to ignore it? Or did you think he would somehow know better?

“I...” Jon reached for the door, but as he went to unlock it he felt his body freeze up on him again, watched Jonah Magnus back away from the door and into the filthy bathtub--Jon noticed, distantly, that he could tell when his body was his own again because the shaking started up as soon as he regained control.

There was a tape recorder on the bathroom sink now, one that definitely had not been there when Jon entered the room.

Jon’s skin was crawling as he planned his next move.

“I’m not reading this.” Jon tried to sound more sure of that than he felt.

Then we’ll see how long you last in here. There’s plenty of fresh water, so it could be weeks before you succumb to hunger. Do you really think your curiosity can stay sated for that long?

“That’s your master plan? Lock me in a bathroom and hope I get bored before I die?” Jon raised his voice as he spoke, hoping that Martin might be able to overhear, might be able to put together the pieces--the mental image of Martin kicking in the door suddenly popped into Jon’s mind, and he did his best to focus on that.

You might get bored. You will get hungry. One way or another.

Jon let out a long sigh, then ran for the bathroom door, willing to fling himself into it if that was easier than unlocking the damn thing, only to have his body forced back again before he could make contact.

Don’t you want to know what’s in there? It really is fascinating work, if I do say so myself.

Jon did want to know, he did, the yearning for knowledge burned within him-

The toilet seat was up, and that gave Jon an idea.

Slowly, carefully, Jon made his way forward again, directing his gaze between the tape recorder on the sink and his own face in the mirror. (It’d been a while since Jon had gotten a good look at himself. He didn’t look well, and not just because of the scars that dotted his body now.)

“...it was always leading up to this, wasn’t it?”

More than you know.

Jon nodded, trying his best to look resigned, crouching down as he looked over at the papers still clutched in his hand... and shoved them into the water of the toilet bowl.

The paper was already starting to break apart, the ink bleeding from the pages, before Jon flushed them down to the sewers below.

Jon wasn’t surprised to find that his body was taken over again as the papers circled the drain. It didn’t matter, not really. What mattered was that whatever Jonah Magnus had written was gone now, never to return, at least not in that same form.

...this isn’t over, you know.

Jon would have laughed, if he could.

I’m pretty sure it is, actually.

The second incident came a couple days later and started as innocuously as the one before, with Martin making two cups of tea.

(Martin insisted on making meals and snacks and tea for both himself and Jonah in Jon’s body, even after showing that he knew of Jonah’s presence, and Jon did his best to determine why.

Was it simply a matter of utility, of it being almost as easy to make food for two as for one? Was Martin thinking of Jon when he did it, knowing that Jon would taste what Martin prepared for him even if he wasn’t actually the one eating it? Did Martin just not trust Jonah Magnus to fend for himself with such things?

Whatever the true reason, Jon appreciated the gesture all the same, though he was in no position to indicate as much.)

The cups were both steaming hot as Martin brought them to the table that afternoon, and Martin didn’t hesitate to take a sip of his own, but Jon’s just sat there, with Jonah making no move to drink any.

After a minute or two of this, Martin finally looked up and asked, “Aren’t you going to have some tea? I made it fresh for you, you know.”

“No, I don’t think I will.” Jonah looked at Martin for a long moment before adding, “Did you know that ingesting methanol can be deadly?”

“What?” Martin’s face, pale and panicked, showed all the confusion that Jon felt but couldn’t express.

“It’s true. Though it looks and smells much like ethanol, ingesting as little as fifteen milliliters of methanol can be fatal.”

“I... wait, are...” Martin was growing paler by the second now. “Are you trying to threaten me?”

Jon’s body shook as Jonah let out a huff of amusement. “Quite the contrary, actually. I just wonder whether you know for certain whether you put more or less than fifteen milliliters of methanol in this cup of tea.”

Martin slouched down a bit in his seat, and as he did, Jon considered the implications of what had been said. Jonah Magnus seemed to be accusing Martin of trying to poison him, potentially fatally, and Martin wasn’t denying the accusation, either... but why?

Jon’s finger circled the brim of the tea cup absentmindedly. “Perhaps you’ve changed your mind about wanting to hurt Jon to get to me. That does make the game more interesting, though I would remind you that while I can find a new body if I need to, whatever you do to Jon would prove a bit more... permanent.”

“No, I- I know how that all works. Making you find a new host isn’t worth the price of losing Jon forever.”

“Well then.” Jon’s finger slid off the top of the tea cup, down its smooth surface and onto the saucer below. “If you aren’t looking to kill Jon, I believe it would be in your best interests to dispose of this cup of tea and prepare another one, one that hasn’t been adulterated in the same way.”

“Right. Of course.”

Martin took Jon’s tea cup and began emptying it out into the sink as Jon’s mind reeled.

To borrow Jonah’s metaphor, what kind of game was Martin playing here? Why would Martin try to- not to kill him, it didn’t sound like, but to poison him to some other effect? Methanol being the poison of choice, apparently, but what was so special about methanol...?

“It’s probably a good idea to use a different cup if you’re going to make a fresh batch.”

“Yes, I got that, thank you, I’m not stupid you know-”

“I am well aware of that much.”

Suddenly the information flowed into Jon’s head, everything he had been wondering and more answered in an instant.

He learned how methanol was called wood alcohol because it was once produced by distilling wood. He learned that it was often used to denature ethanol, but that some would drink the resulting mixture anyway despite its toxic properties, either not understanding the risks or being desperate enough for alcohol that they didn’t care. He learned that drinking contaminated alcohol, through this and other methods, had led to thousands of cases of methanol poisoning over the years, hundreds dying in disgrace and pain, while even the survivors often suffered long-term effects that left their lives in shambles, including-

Oh.

That was it, then, wasn’t it? That was Martin’s plan? For once the Beholding’s bank of infinite knowledge proved actually useful for something...

As Jon put together the pieces, realized why Martin had considered that particular poison to slip into his tea, for the first time in longer than Jon would care to consider, he felt something a little bit like hope.

[anotherkindofmindpod]

this isn’t related to a specific episode but I’m confused about the beginning of John & Yoko’s relationship. I’ve heard so many different things about when/how it started- from she was stalking him to meeting at a gallery to Paul’s manuscripts (or pictures of Paul’s butt?!) to they were sleeping together two weeks after meeting- also varying dates on the 2 Virgins night (before or after NYC?) And was he really pining after her in India? Did he try to bring her? I trust you guys- what’s the deal?

Hello listener, thanks for the ask!

Regarding John & Yoko’s origins:  some stories are inconsistent, and some things are unknowable (i.e. internal emotions), but we’ll do our best to lay out what we do know.

Yoko approached Paul first, through a contact (probably Dunbar) related to Indica Bookshop and Gallery.  Since Paul was a patron, supporter and friend of Indica and was somewhat known within the art community as a rich celebrity with a growing interest in the avant-garde (music, films and art) he was an obvious choice for an artist seeking funding/exposure.  Yoko was an avant-garde artist (performance, gallery and film) whose biggest claim to fame at that point was working with John Cage.  This was the credential/name drop with which she approached Paul at his house in Cavendish sometime in late 1965.  Paul (being Paul) invited her inside to make her pitch: she was collecting manuscripts from various composers as a birthday gift to Cage.  Paul declined.  (For the record, Paul has never suggested or intimated that Yoko came onto him at that first meeting, so let’s assume she didn’t and this was strictly business)  The following year, in November of 1966, Indica hosted an exhibition of Yoko’s work.  This is where John Lennon first met Yoko, when he was introduced to her by Indica co-owner John Dunbar.

This was Yoko’s initiation into the Beatles’ world and it should ALWAYS be told like this, FULL STOP, END OF STORY.  Anyone in 2020 who tells the story any other way is a bald-faced liar and a coward.

Does this sound like an overreaction?  Is Paul’s part in this story really SUCH a big deal?  Let’s reverse things and imagine….

In 1965, John Lennon develops a keen interest in photography.  He immerses himself in the photography world, creates a dark room in his house and brings his photo influences into the Beatles’ artwork. John also finances and helps launch a photography gallery in Weybridge. 

One day, photographer Linda Eastman shows up at Kenwood to show John her portfolio and ask for one of John’s original photographs.  John declines.  Paul later meets Linda at her exhibition at Weybridge Gallery. 18 months  later, Paul starts dating her, calls her his new partner, declares her the greatest influence in his life, and brings her to every Beatles session.  Paul and Linda have a joint photography exhibit at the Weybridge Gallery in 1968, hosted by one of John’s closest friends and mentors.  

Paul then loudly and repeatedly proclaims that he was the only Beatle ever interested in photography, he’s responsible for all the visual art in the Beatles oeuvre and implies that John couldn’t stimulate him anymore because he was too square and conservative to understand or appreciate photography.  

Be honest and try to imagine that.  No one would EVER let Paul and Linda get away with that level of bullshit, but for some reason, Jean Jackets are slavishly obedient to whatever John and Yoko say, regardless of facts.  

So anyway, back to those facts...

After the meeting in November 1966, Yoko began to pursue John Lennon at his home, the studio and even Brian’s office.  She constantly asked for funding and money, but was probably seeking publicity as well.  There are rumors that she was also pursuing John sexually, but to our best knowledge they are unsubstantiated.  In 1967, Yoko was REALLY trying hard to get her career off the ground and/or get famous; there are numerous accounts from multiple people in the Beatles circle (Hunter Davies, Michael Lindsay Hogg, Robert Fraser, Barry Miles) that Yoko was hustling nonstop at that time.  So while Lennon was her main target, our impression is that she was probably just trying to make inroads with anyone who could help her become famous.  Accounts consistently suggest that John intermittently found her intriguing (when he didn’t find her scary or annoying), so I imagine she kept soliciting him because that’s where she made the most progress.  Anyway, her stalking is a matter of fact, corroborated by EVERYONE.  Also corroborated by everyone is the fact that John began to sometimes talk to her and occasionally let her inside (the same way the Beatles treated other Apple Scruffs), starting in/around late 1967.  

Tony Bramwell tells a very bizarre story about John being panicked one day in late ‘67, regretful and paranoid after giving Yoko a hand-written letter and a lock of his hair (?).  A frightened John asked Tony to retrieve the items from Yoko.  Considering the fact that John believed (until his death) that Yoko had magical powers, it sounds as if John asked her to make some sort of voodoo/love potion.  Perhaps their early friendship began as sorceress/client (but who knows? That’s just a guess).

We know that John continued to receive tons of mail from Yoko while he was on retreat in India.  According to John, he eventually began to really look forward to receiving these items.  Yoko would send bizarre, artsy stuff like a maxipad with a drop of red paint in the middle.  Who wouldn’t enjoy weird mail like that?  :)   According to John (in both 1970 AND 1980), he still only thought of Yoko as a weird artist by that point.  He insists he was NOT interested in her sexually or romantically, only intellectually, and there is nothing to suggest that he was lying about that.  More importantly, John was having some kind of emotional breakdown in India; he wrote and talked about feeling suicidal in Maharishi's camp.  John never specified the exact cause of his breakdown, although he did later pinpoint ongoing feelings of self-hatred and worthlessness.  

After returning from India, John was highly emotional, erratic, depressed, and abusing drugs and alcohol at an alarming rate.  Derek Taylor recounts John taking some acid trips at his house over two weekends.  During one of these weekends, John’s now-friend Yoko (who he still insists he wasn’t sexually interested in) showed up and helped “rebuild John’s ego.”  In other words, Yoko threw John a life raft and helped pull him out of the darkest, bleakest depression of his life.  

Then in May, after months of erratic behavior, John declared he was Jesus in an Apple board meeting (!).  The following night, with Cynthia away for the weekend, John invited Yoko over (or had Mal invite her) and the two of them dropped acid, made some tapes and had sex for the first time.   As far as we can tell, this information is accurate as it is corroborated by Pete Shotten (who was making the tapes with John before Yoko came over and replaced him!).  Pete said in the morning John came downstairs and shocked Pete by saying Yoko was the answer to all his problems and he was so certain he’d go off and live in a tent with her.  That sounds shocking until you realize John was on acid at the time (in that light, not quite as shocking).  :)  In any event, after that point John and Yoko became basically inseparable for the next 5 years.

There are rumors/theories that John and Yoko were already having sex for months, but so as far as we can tell these are based on nothing but speculation.  We believe John’s initial interest in Yoko was intellectual and personal rather than sexual, as he contends.  We think John slowly warmed to Yoko over that 18 month period; while initially he might’ve found her annoying, frightening and disturbing, eventually he began to find her quirky, intriguing and charming.  We believe their relationship was founded in friendship and that Yoko’s emotional support (and her professed admiration for him as an artist) during that acid trip at Derek’s was vitally important to their bond.

Now, here’s where things get murky. 

John was also later quoted as saying that in retrospect he realized he was unconsciously falling in love with her from afar whilst in India - which may or may not have been the case.  It is certainly common to look back with fondness on one’s own courtship and also possible to fall in love before you realize you are in love (John described experiencing something similar in 1964) so debating this is kinda pointless and we choose not to nitpick this particular point.  However, people have since used this to extrapolate that John was, as you put it, “pining for Yoko in India” which is simply not what John described.  John described gradually looking forward to her wacky mail and developing a strictly platonic curiosity about her.  If you are highly invested in the John & Yoko love story, it’s easy to spin this into secret “pining,” but when you consider that John was, as he put it, suicidal and going insane, it doesn’t quite make sense.  What makes even less sense is why John wouldn’t immediately ask Yoko out upon returning to London in early April, especially since she was aggressively pursuing him at that point.  Yoko was present for at least one of the Derek Taylor acid trips in May.  Why did John wait an entire month to initiate a private moment with her?  

John also said (in Lennon Remembers, I believe) that he privately considered “bringing” Yoko to India (though not as a love interest, but rather in her contemporaneous role as amusing curiosity, i.e. Magic Alex 2.0).  Once again, this may or may not be true, but we have no reason to doubt him.  Nevertheless, this has also been spun fannishly into “John was pining for Yoko as a girlfriend” which (again) isn’t what he said.  :)

To be perfectly candid,  John & Yoko’s public persona is almost entirely artificially crafted.  THIS is corroborated (and detailed) by nearly everyone close to them- May Pang, Ray Connolly, the Dakota staff, etc.  That doesn’t mean their love was fake, just that their relationship was much different from how they portrayed/sold it (or how fanboys like Lewisohn portray it).  At the end of the day, they are just celebrities who we don’t actually know.   We want things to make sense, which is why I think the “John was secretly pining for Yoko for years and his mind was obliterated by love” appeals to some people.  It’s a cleaner, more familiar boy-meets-girl story.  

Rumors and conspiracy theories are plentiful and can lead you down all kinds of rabbit holes (fun or infuriating, depending on your POV).  The “John & Yoko were secret lovers” one makes things a bit sleazier and sexier (I believe Albert Goldman really leaned into this one!).  But if you really want to consider everything, you should also consider this: Yoko’s Tarot card reader John Green insists that Yoko claims Paul was the one she wanted all along.

She told him:  Paul was her first choice (as boyfriend), which is why she approached him first.  She moved on to John only to make Paul jealous (!), which ultimately backfired when Paul then refused to make advances on John’s new girlfriend.  According to Yoko, Paul’s sense of propriety (?!) ironically prevented him from being with Yoko (even though Yoko KNEW Paul was always in love with her)!  So Yoko inadvertently got stuck with John, who she didn’t really want. Also she was convinced, in the late 70s that Paul was still in love with her and only married Linda because he was devastated he couldn’t have Yoko!

Green swears this is what Yoko told him (for the record, she also thought Mick Jagger was in love with her).  Do we believe Yoko said it, that she believed it? Who knows, maybe?!?  Green’s credibility is certainly questionable. But it’s no crazier than much of the nonsense in Goldman’s book (or Francie Schwartz’s), and Green is alleging to quote Yoko directly.  Parts of this account do ring oddly true; Yoko does seems interested in Paul in the contemporaneous audio/footage from the late 60s.  John did ask Paul not to sleep with Yoko (which Paul seemed a bit nonplussed by).  John and Yoko are bizarrely convinced in the early 70s that Paul and Linda’s marriage is doomed (is it because Yoko convinced John that Paul is actually in love with her???).  Many believe Yoko was jealous of John’s affection for Paul; could Yoko also be jealous of Paul’s affection and respect for John?  Maybe.  But this story blatantly contradicts the entire John & Yoko Myth and is so over the top weird... there’s just no room in our understanding for this alternate reality where Paul and Yoko are the true star-crossed lovers :)   

The point is that you can’t believe ALL the theories and rumors because they often directly contradict each other.  Sometimes you just have to use your own best judgment. We hope this was helpful and that we didn’t just confuse you further.  Thanks again for writing in! -Phoebe and the crew

[jed-thomas]

Debt and Unreality at a British University

Most of the time, when journalists or researchers ask students in Britain about their “concerns” and their “experience”, they’re not looking for answers like: ‘I don’t feel real.’ Because, well, what do you do with that?

A friend of mine sat on a stiff leather couch in the hallway, tiredly scrolling. She’d just clocked out. For nine grand, we were getting about 7 hours of teaching a week. The rest of the time, of course, was supposed to be devoted to reading all the material we’d be discussing in seminars or attending lectures on. But she was working part-time at a Pizza Express. The maintenance loans only stretch so far, especially with rent around here. And you have to catch a bus to get to campus. Lots of us, our parents helped out. But if the ‘rents can’t or won’t pay, you’re a little stuffed.

In 2019, it was reported that over half of young people are now attending university. These figures represent the fulfilment of a target set by Tony Blair at a Labour Party conference in 1999, during his first term as Prime Minister. In July of the year before, Blair’s parliament passed the Teaching and Higher Education Act, introducing tuition fees for universities across the UK. In 1990, around 25% of young people stayed in some form of full-time education beyond the age of 18. Today, most young Britons will have experienced the presumption that they’re a university student and frequently, the expectation.

Yesterday, the University of Warwick’s official Twitter account shared a link to a blog post on how to ‘relieve intense stress in 60-seconds.’ The post was written by a current student.

In 1962, towards the end of Harold Macmillan’s Conservative premiership, “ordinarily resident” students were exempted from tuition fees and made eligible for a means-tested maintenance grant. Shortly after the Teaching and Higher Education Act of 1998, maintenance grants were replaced with loans. In 2004, the cap on tuition fees rose to £3,000 and by 2010, it had risen to its current rate of around £9,000. There were protests over that last increase, of course. The protests were in 2010 and I went to university in 2017. I now owe the British government around £27,000 for tuition and around £10,000 for maintenance. If you’re going this year, you’ll end up owing roughly the same - more, if your family earns less than mine.

You hear things. “Oh, they’re antidepressants.” A friend with a weird flatmate who never leaves their room. Oddly intense desperation eking out of drunk students from some corner of a smoking-area. Vaguely recognisable names and their time of death. “Honestly, just couldn’t be bothered to get up.” An acquaintance from your course drops out and moves back home. Barely concealed frustration in your professor’s tone, hushed rants in faculty corridors. And you notice other things. Admissions of 'suicidal ideation' and life-crises on a FaceBook page which is supposed to be about students sending anonymous messages of romantic interest. Sarcastic tweets about ‘mental health dogs’ and ‘mindfulness seminars’ have become cliché. A routinely empty chair in your seminar room. Strained eyes staring into the middle-ground, silence attending the teacher’s question. Dysfunction as normality. Your diagnosis in your bio next to where you go to uni.

In 2014, it was reported that one in seven full-time students also work full-time. The same report put the proportion of full-time students working part-time at a third. A number of reasons were given as to why they were doing this. I wonder, when they look at their bank accounts, or their accommodation, or their text on sociology, on Latin American history, on virology, existentialism, do they feel they have a handle on things? "I’m a full-time barista, full-time student." "Hello, I’m an impossibility."

For students, the British university is an experiment in unreality. Am I a customer or a pupil? Am I demanding a service from a business or being educated by my elders for my own good? Will it be my fault for selecting a ‘non-applicable’ degree or their fault for selling it to me? Everything is optional, even when it isn’t. You spend all week pouring over the text but feel embarrassed to correct or question the people who clearly didn’t because the professor doesn’t: “Don’t worry if you haven’t done the reading.” Next time, you just put in a sentence or two to fill one of the many silences, improvising off of what others have said, pretending you read whatever it was. Then, of course, coursework is set assessing your knowledge of the curriculum. You spend a couple of days stressed out, hoping to turn your lack of knowledge into a scholarly tone of caution and hedged bets. You go to a careers fair, a student union election, a party, a debate. Nothing sticks, tomorrow is the same day. Your teachers are devotees of a faith but you have to fill the ranks of their picket against the Church. The protestors mass, fill the campus with tension and noise, and then, in a couple of weeks, you’re sitting in the same seminar room with the same professor doing the same thing. You have to think surprisingly hard to remember that past, fugitive now in an opaque present. The only thing that changes is that a few new buildings emerge from their shells of scaffolding. When you miss almost five weeks, there is an email or two. One time, because of your chronic truancy, you get some mark or something, some strike against your name. Nothing happens. In fact, you find it incredibly hard to even find the place where that warning is actually recorded, displayed. You graduate with a First.

Recently, there has been a steady trickle of data, news items, and reports, gradually exposing the rate of suicide in higher education in the UK. It came to a head last week, as a Conservative peer, Lord Lucas, called for a bill which would give British universities a duty of care in the mental health outcomes of their students. Lord Lucas’ plea represents the mainstream of a movement by aggrieved parents of young people who took their lives whilst at university. One of these young people was Benjamin Murray, a 19-year-old in his first year studying English Literature at Bristol University. Shortly before falling to his death, Murray was told by the university that he would have to leave. A local newspaper reports that, according to sources at the university, his attendance was ‘sporadic’ and he had ‘failed to hand in expected work’. Discussing interactions he had with Murray which revealed that the undergraduate was suffering with an anxiety disorder, senior tutor Ben Gunter remarks that: 'A large number of students we see have varying levels of anxiety.’

I mean, look at it this way. You’re saddled with a debt, a sizeable debt. It makes you nervous just looking at all the zeroes. But this moment of selling your soul was planned, it was expected from the beginning. And there are voices all around you that keep coming up and whispering in your ear. It’s just a tax on spending after education. No-one’s expecting you to pay it back. It all gets forgiven when you hit 40. What’s a person to do in that situation? The same government that portrayed the national debt as an existential threat is the same government that turns around and says: Don’t worry. Does debt matter or doesn’t it? Is this real or isn’t it?

People are screaming, again. It's 5:35 in the afternoon. Earliest you’ve heard it this week. They’re really drunk. Or on something. You’re only dimly aware of it, really. It’s ubiquitous, it’s ambiance. Dimly, you wonder if they realise how loud they are being, how obvious their public intoxication is. You perk up when you recognise a few voices. People on your course - you’ve got an essay due tomorrow at noon. Down the ages, goes the cliché, students are drunk and reckless with deadlines. But you’ve been wondering whether it really matters if you get a 1:1 instead of a 2:1. Don’t they inflate the numbers, anyway? And besides, it's experience that matters on a CV, everyone’s got a degree these days. I’d just be another idiot with a 1:1. Your flatmate drunkenly knocks on your door and you seriously consider going back on your refusal to go out tonight.

A survey of undergraduates in seven universities in England reportedly found very high rates of dangerous drinking, with 41% identified as ‘hazardous drinkers’. It also considers that one in five students were likely to be diagnosable as alcoholic.

Every weekend students give in to the unreality. I know what you're thinking. Of course, young people have always experimented with substances, acted like they were invulnerable, ignored consequences. But many of the young people before us were unfamiliar with this level of unreality, this level of confusion. So the recklessness intensifies in those claustrophobic spaces that remain open to us.

I have deadlines, right now. A few days to go. I’ve been looking at the news, all the statistics on internships and jobs falling through for graduates and young people, in general. The worst hit. I’ve been talking to my friends, moaning about the job hunt, the rejections and the no-replies. Anecdotes tumble down the grape-vine of graduates from respected universities not even being able to get a part-time job at a supermarket because of the number of applicants or whatever. A couple of my friends are intermitting due to mental health problems. When I was home, before the most recent lockdown, a number of my friends and I worked at a pub. I’m back at uni and they’re still there. Class of 2020, all of us. Of course, they like it, it’s fine. But where do we go from here?

Don’t ask me, mate, I’ve got deadlines.