#us useless little parasites get left behind either way

[basingstokemercury]

anyway to completely digress from all-nighter fuelled semi-poetic character analysis

personal life is rapidly approaching the point of impossibility

yes thank you i know i need a job to get anywhere and it's unfair to expect parents to completely support me when i'm perfectly healthy and the things i need to go into serious theatre aren't exactly cheap

so uh

still waiting to find one single job outside the creative arts that can be performed while being:

lazy, selfish, socially nonfunctioning, irresponsible, unable to maintain focus on boring/repetitive tasks, conflict-averse to the extent of shutting down when confronted, completely irregular sleep schedule, allergic to routine that involves more than a couple scheduled events per week, unsuited to manual labour, and oh yeah absolutely terrible at interviews

"you're such a good teacher" thank you. i've been a student. not going anywhere near a room full of kids.

"you said yourself you want to work with animals" i do. i'm also nowhere near responsible enough to be in charge of caring for little squishy things that could die if my attention wanders.

"waitress -" spent years going to restaurants with the kind of person who annoys waiters. wouldn't be one if it were the only job on earth.

"cashier -" just a less intense version of waitress. and anyway i'd never be able to sit there for hours doing the same thing over and over.

it's awfully touching that people have faith in me but i do think i know my own flaws.

okay that was rough. have a fairfax.

[astringofmadhousefloozies]

Surprises

Surprises of all kinds, found after a shopping trip goes wrong. Content warning for coarse language, sexuality, threats of violence, mentions of suicide and incest, and copious amounts of headcanons.

As always, there is more in my Twisted Wonderland Fanfiction tag, and send me a message if you liked it, I crave positive feedback.

~*~*~*~

TXT: where the fuck are you guys it's already quarter past

After a few minutes, you got a ding.

M: idia doenst want t leave something about a person see you aftr he needs freind

Oh goddammit, it's so fucking hard to get him out and about. At least Mal was with him.

You looked to Grim at your feet. "Looks like it's just us, buddy."

~*~*~*~

It was just you and Grim browsing through the dollar store, when a boy in a ratty shop apron came up to you. "Ma'am?"

You turned to him, and he coughed. "Uh, Miss. You're not supposed to have pets in the store."

Grim bristled at him. "I'm not a pet!"

Poor kid, he looked so startled. And you decided to make it worse, because yanno, why not. "How dare you refer to my son as a pet! Does he look like a pet to you?"

He looked between your face and Grim's, confusion growing. "Wh-"

"I know the resemblance isn't the strongest, but honestly! How could you say such mean things about him!"

Grim, bless him, actually caught on and decided to play along for the chaos of it. "Why are you being so mean to me? My mom works hard to keep me happy! She said I could pick out a toy today!"

The confusion had turned to anger. "That's not your kid! You're too young and he's an animal!"

Grim looked up at you, mock tears in his eyes. "I'm your kid, right? I'm not adopted like the boys at school say?" He started sniffling. "I'm not adopted, right?"

You clapped your hands over Grim's ears and glared at the now horrified shopboy. "Look what you've done! I hadn't told him yet!"

He just fled in horror, and it was all you could do to keep from laughing.

~*~*~*~

The village on the island wasn't the worst appointed. Being equidistant between two prestigious magic schools, it had a few places worth going, and after hitting up your personal favourite, you went to a small park, settled down on a bench, and started unwrapping your prizes.

You have a love for gashapon machines that bordered on a serious problem. In your biweekly trips to buy snacks and supplies to stock up your miserable, beautiful dorm, you easily fed 3000 madol (which you think was about thirty-five dollars or so at home, but couldn't be sure) into the long rows of machines in the drug store, coming out with tiny keychains, figures, and various useless but wonderful little totchkes that you kept lined up in rows in your bedroom. The joys of tiny presents! And the containers were useful too; for a creature who heavily insisted he wasn't a cat, Grim lost his shit like one every time your rolled a ball with a bell inside across the floor.

You were marveling over a tiny, perfectly realistic jellyfish on a phone strap as someone sat down heavily beside you. "Is that," they pointed to Grim poking his way around the cattails by an ornamental pond, "yours?"

"... Yes?" You turned to examine your seatmate. Charmingly strange looking, they sat impeccably robed in forest green velvet and squinted at you from behind perfectly round sunglasses. Flat-faced and thin-lipped, they reminded you of a toad, with their roundness and severe expression.

"Ah, then you are the one I am looking for. You're the pet of the prince."

"I'm a friend of his. Is that a problem?" You decided to keep opening your prizes, and pulled out a heavy ball from the bottom of your bag.

"His Highness does not have human friends."

"And yet, I am." This one, unwrapped, was the chase in the set: a tiny cauldron the size of a thimble that seemed to be actual cast iron. The chill of it was pleasant in your hand, and instead of returning it to your bag, you left it in your lap.

This presumptive stranger leaned in. "You're a diversion. A distraction from what he should be learning. Instead he plays with mortals and lets them forget their place."

"If it was so important that he didn't play with mortals, then why was he allowed to attend here?" You got a cheap set of rings on a goldtone chain in this one. Boo. You'd wanted the miniature necklace of the set for your doll. "He's very happy with the company of us all."

"Too happy. He forgets his place." The toady eyed the glittering paste gems before looking away. "Above you. Instead he crawls into your lap and serves you like a dog."

You froze. "Now, where did you get that idea?"

"We have sources." They leaned in further, smiling. A barely perceptible line of triangular teeth, sparsely placed and translucent in tone. "Foul things happen to the unwanted lovers of heirs, don't you know?"

"I am a wanted friend." 

"You're a parasite who should flee."

You realized something, and turned to face your strange benchmate. "Why are you threatened by me?"

They scoffed. "Why would we be threatened by you?"

"If you weren't," you said, dropping your voice as your leaned in, "then you wouldn't be here trying to put the fear into me." They leaned back, glasses slipping off their nose. The eyes in their face were exquisite, shining gold and black speckles with a ring of gold around an oval pupil. You could help but laugh. "Pretty eyes. You really are a toad. Who sent you? The Thorn Witch? Can't be, I'm not worth her time and if I was, she'd've sent a fucking letter."

"We're a concerned party, preventing our future king from making the mistake of dealing with filth." 

Well, that one pissed you off. You grabbed their wrist, feeling bumps and warts on their skin through the fabric, and pressed the tiny cauldron to the back on their hand as they started screeching.

"You," you looked them dead in their impossibly lovely eyes, "You go back where you came from, tell them I'm not a threat to whatever stupid bullshit they're worried about, and never bother us again. Or I will make you swallow this and you'll beg the precious prince you're so damned worried about to burn you alive to stop the pain."

You'd never seen anyone run so fast in your life when you let them go.

"Hey, Grim! We gotta go."

~*~*~*~

TXT: MAL SOMEONE SENT ME A TOADY SAYING I CAN'T BE AROUND YOU ANYMORE

TXT: MIGHTA BEEN YOUR GMA BUT I DON'T THINK SO

~*~*~*~

"I'm gonna kill that fucker."

"Killing them might start an international incident. If one hasn't happened already. You burnt them with iron, Yuu."

"I should have done worse! Whoever the fuck they were, that's two friends they've tried to threaten to stay away from you! That we know of!"

It turns out that the mystery toady had been the person to scare the piss out of Idia the night before. Not that they'd gotten far into their leave-the-prince-alone spiel, Idia had simply kicked them square in the stomach and fled, assuming another kidnapping attempt.

"It wouldn't have been my grandmother. In the last letter I got from her, she said it was very nice that I was making friends. She said to keep making them, even."

"She'd probably care if she knew you were sleeping with said friends." Idia was curled into the corner of his bed, and from the looks of it hadn't slept since his own encounter.

"No she wouldn't."

"You sure about that?"

You'd said that that was only going to happen once. Everyone agreed. But when all three of you settled in to play a game or watch a movie, hands moved and bodies flushed and you all seemed to find yourself tangled and gasping. And it didn't seem to require all three of you - you no longer had the strength to say no to Mal's obvious advances, and you'd walked in on your boys more than once. At least you were still friends? Really, really close friends?

"She wouldn't."

"Could they be worried about heirs?" That seemed logical. Even if no accidents were happening, they might not know that.

"That's not possible."

You raised an eyebrow. Everything worked right, and you all knew it.

Mal looked back at you. "Yuu, I hatched from an egg. I could have you both five times a day for a decade and all there would be to show for it is you couldn't walk. I cannot have children with either of you without magical intervention."

Idia made a truly impressive death rattle before mumbling something about the end of his bloodline, and you just nodded. "Makes sense."

"It's quite interesting, really, it requires numerous spells and potions, that if not kept up on, the babe will-" Malleus placed his hands together, back to back, and mimed the motion of tearing something open.

You flinched. "That's awful, goddamn."

"I have a direct ancestor who took a great deal of human women as breeding stock and simply let them be eaten from the inside out. That's what started one of the earlier human/faerie wars." 

"... Wow."

"I am not proud of her."

"Can we please talk about anything else?" Idia looked ready to be sick. "I don't want to think about any of this."

"Sure, let's grab one of your doujins."

~*~*~*~

"So you're already engaged?"

"As soon as it was clear I would survive to adulthood, yes. Idia, what is this series?"

"Nyan Neko Sugar Girls. It's not that great storywise, but it has great gags." He reached over and grabbed the next one in his pile. "It's not that unusual. My mother wanted Ortho to marry my cousin Alecto when they grew up, before..."

"Before he made a lifestyle change?" That seemed the politest way to put it.

"Before she went to the criminal ward."

You shut your book with a soft thump. "What?"

"I remember the trial." Mal sighed. "Strychnine in the sugar bowl at Sunday dinner. I made sure to get the newspapers sent to the palace."

"Mother was heartbroken over it, until she realized that the wealth of that entire Shroud branch defaulted back to us." Idia shrugged. "It's sad. She was just eleven. I still send her emails."

"Idia."

"Mm?"

"Why the fuck would an eleven year old poison someone?"

"My uncle said she couldn't get a puppy until her grades went up."

"What the fuck." You'd lie down if you weren't already doing so.

"It's the curse." He sighed. "We thought she might've been from an affair? But that proved it."

"My dearest Shroud, you can't guarantee it was from the curse." Malleus turned a page. "It might have been trauma from her mother's death."

You could see more bad history incoming. "Oh no."

"Alecto was from Uncle Jo's first marriage, to my dad's cousin Alita. She had a sister, but when her mother drowned herself, she only took-"

"Is this normal for your family? Or is that just some exceptional bad luck?"

He leaned in, lamplight eyes flashing. "Out of all the Shrouds of my generation that are still capable of inheriting, I'm the most mentally sound."

Both you and Mal had to stop and really consider the implications of that.

"So, Mal. Yours isn't that closely related?"

"Fifth cousins at most when they're finally born."

You sat up. "What?"

"I'm supposed to marry the third grandchild of the Hollyoak Baron. They're a well-respected family, and of snake fae descent so little aid will be needed for conception. His eldest child is in..." He had to think about what words to use. " I believe the term is 'middle school'?"

"They really planned it that far ahead?"

Mal shrugged, the movement rolling down his whole body. "I cannot complain. It gives me a very long time to learn how to be a husband before I have to be one."

"But what if you don't like them?"

"Marriage is chiefly a contract to produce heirs. I'll learn to like them, and ideally love them."

"And if you don't?"

"I'll still treat them as kindly as I can."

"And I suppose you'd take a lover."

"Maybe. They can too, as long as all the children are mine. For legal reasons," he added.

Idia, snapping out of his thoughts, tapped Mal's shoulder. "Does the Hollyoak Baron have any friends who are toad faeries?"

It was Mal's turn to sit up. "That... He could be worried that if I have favourites at school, I'll resent my betrothed for not being either of you. Or that I would attempt to break it off entirely."

"That still doesn't tell us how he found out about..." You gestured around the room.

Idia rolled his eyes. "All that would have to happen is any one student from the Valley of Thorns writing a letter home."

"But -"

"Malleus, you're not shy in your affections. At all."

"Yes I am," he bristled.

~*~*~*~

"Mal?"

"Mmph?"

"You have to put me down. I have class."

He made a slightly different mmph and shook his head.

You tried to pat his head, but your arms were securely pinned to your sides. "I know they're fantastic, but you have to stop."

He still refused to remove his face from your chest, making a noise that could have been purring if it cane from anyone who was a proper mammal.

"Mal, we're blocking traffic."

He still wasn't putting you down, instead swaying slightly in place.

A familiar long-fingered hand with dark nails reached from behind you and tugged at Mal's lapel. "Malleus, please stop, it's ten AM and everyone is staring."

Mal finally put you down - only to switch targets, wrapping his arms around Idia's waist and pulling him flush, fixing him with such a look of besotted fondness that you immediately felt like you were intruding.

"You look beautiful today."

Idia immediately burst into a ball of pink flame.

~*~*~*~

"... Perhaps I am a bit obvious."

Idia stared up at his ceiling. "You'd be at home in my otome games."

You chimed in. "What would be obvious, in your mind?"

"Very easy. I finish the paperwork declaring you Lord and Lady of the Bedchamber and have you officially ensconced as Court of Thorns royalty, ensuring you're both taken care of for the rest of your days."

"... Finish?"

"It seemed the easiest thing to do if either of you chose to visit my homeland."

You swatted his leg. "And you didn't think to ask us first?"

Mal was starting to clue in that he had once again overreached himself. "... Surprise?"

"I'm okay with it."

You glared over at Idia. "That's not the point."

"Look, if I ever get disinherited, I have a place to go. He won't make me go outside if I don't want to. I'll bring Ortho. It'll be great."

"They don't even have dial-up over there, Idia. Lilia told me he had to get all this stuff installed to play his MMOs."

Idia pointed at Mal, easy smile turned to outrage. "How dare you try and trap me!"

It honestly seemed like Mal and Idia had switched expressions, the look of worry on his face so strange. "It's a protective measure! If you're titled, people will get in trouble if they try and remove you!"

"That's still... wait." The gears were turning in your head. "If you finish that paperwork, whoever sent Mixter Toad is going to get in so much more trouble."

Everyone went silent as they considered this.

"... As soon as I get the official permission from my grandmother. She won't like it very much, but if I explain..."

Idia turned to Mal. "You were going to make your human fucktoys official members of the Court of Thorns without telling your grandmother, the queen. Who has a notable and often justified dislike of humans."

"No?"

"Mal."

"I simply prepared ahead."

"Mal."

"I - "

"Malleus." You leaned over and kissed his cheek. "You're so goddamned stupid. Love you."

He didn't say it back with words, but you got the message loud and clear.

[elvish-sky]

The Temptation of Regality: A Sense of Belonging {Thorin x Reader}

A.N: So first of all, this is not the big falling out/angsty part of the story, that’s in a few chapters. The troll scene is one of my favorites in both book and movie, and I actually wrote a full separate thing using all the dialogue and stuff from the book and movie but figured that if you guys wanted that you could just read/watch them. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! Please consider voting/commenting, it really makes my day! 

Word Count: 1,786

Pairing: Eventual Thorin x Reader

Warnings: Angst, fluff, Thorin is a jerk

****

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4

Part 2: A Sense of Belonging

“Uh oh.” You paused mid-swing as the sounds of fighting died down around you and looked up to see two of the trolls holding Bilbo. You backed up to stand with your dwarf companions, waiting to see what would happen. As you stepped back, your foot caught on a root and you tripped backward to sprawl on the ground, weapons dropping around you as you did so. You saw a pair of feet next to your head, and you looked up to see the angry face of Thorin attached. “Get up!” he hissed, and you scrambled to your feet, trying and failing to look nonchalant as the trolls reached out and grabbed Dori and Dwalin, tying them onto a spit over the fire. You gulped, praying that they wouldn’t try to fit all of you on it at once. 

“Ouch!” you exclaimed as you hit the ground in a sack. A hand quickly clamped over your mouth as you spoke, and, angry you turned your head to see the king-to-be tied in a sack next to you, shushing you. You shook your head and dislodged his hand. “What d’ya think you’re doing?” “If you talk, they might eat us sooner.” “Thorin, they already caught us, I think they’ll eat us whenever they want. Besides, Bilbo’s talking right now!” You listened as he said something about skinning dwarves, causing the pile of them in sacks around you to wiggle and yell.

 Then the realization hit, “Wait. You meant the trolls would eat us faster if specifically, I spoke. You really think I’m that awful that something would eat me just to shut me up.” He wouldn’t meet your eyes. “Well!” you huffed, “apparently you do have a sense of humor, it just decides to show itself at the wrong moments,” and shifted yourself so that you were facing away from him, lying in between him and Balin. 

You wiggled in your sack, trying to reach your boot to grab the knife you knew was tucked in next to your sock. As you did this, you bent at an awkward angle and glimpsed a flash of grey between the trees surrounding the clearing. You noticed Bilbo’s eyes flash with recognition as he saw it as well, and silently encouraged him to keep stalling. Then the pile of dwarves around you erupted with cries of “I don’t have parasites!” and “you have parasites!” Figuring it was a tactic of Bilbo’s you kicked Kili to make him shut up. It seemed like Thorin had had the same idea as well, for Kili glared at both of you before it hit him. “Mine are the biggest parasites!” he quickly corrected himself, catching on. You and Thorin glanced at each other before quickly looking away, embarrassed. 

You went back to fiddling for your knife, until, with a whispered cry of satisfaction, you caught it between your fingers. You brought it up to your chest and began to saw on the rope tying you in the sack, wishing you had a larger, more efficient blade like one of your daggers. Just as you finally cut through the rope, cries came from the trolls, and your eyes lifted to see them quickly turning to stone, Gandalf standing triumphant on a rock behind them. With a sigh of relief, you shrugged the sack off and stood up, stretching. You turned to Balin and began to cut him free, finishing and then making your way through the rest of the dwarves.

“Y/N, how did you get free so quickly?” Kili asked as you sawed on the rope trapping him. “I mean, the second the trolls were stone you were up with a flash!” “I spent most of the time in the sack trying to reach the knife, it was sheer coincidence that I cut the rope at the same time the trolls froze.” “Ahh,” he nodded in understanding. “Well, it’s good to know that had Bilbo and Gandalf not defeated the trolls so cleverly, we would have eventually been freed by you...” His voice faded at the end of his sentence, and his eyes were gazing at something just beyond you with a look of fear in them. 

You stood and turned to see the leader of the company glaring up at you. “What is this about you having the means to free us and not using it?” “I was going to use it, I was just trying to get to it. Also, it’s rather small, it would have taken a while to cut everyone free.” You held up the knife to show it’s size.

“Still, if you had that all along, why did you not cut us all free?” Thorin gestured to your knife as he spoke. “Because I. Could. Not. Reach it!!!! I spent the entire time I was in that sack trying to get to it, and once I did the trolls were stone! There was literally nothing I could have done to help free us, and if there had been I would have done it! In case you didn’t notice, my king, I was also about to be eaten!” 

You stomped off towards the ponies, only to realize that, in fact, the ponies were gone. “So I guess we’re traveling on foot now?” Kili asked. Thorin shot him a glare, and his nephew clammed up and hurried to start walking. As the group set off, you lingered close to the back so that you could hear what Thorin and Dwalin were muttering about. “Don’t blame the lass, Thorin,” you heard Dwalin speaking in low tones to his friend. “She couldn’t have freed us any quicker than Bilbo had.” “Still,” the king replied, “she shouldn’t have just focused on freeing herself. If she’s not going to be able to help the group in situations like that then she is utterly useless.” 

You felt your cheeks growing hot with anger as tears started to fill your eyes. You had always cried when angry, ever since you were little, but it had never presented itself at a more inopportune time. You were about to turn and confront the two dwarves but paused as you heard Dwalin speak again. “Thorin, you couldn’t have done anything else to free us either. Neither could I. It was sheer luck that Bilbo was smart enough to stall for Gandalf. We should not blame Y/N for not being able to do something that none of the rest of us could do either.” With that Dwalin increased his pace and left a bemused and slightly remorseful Thorin behind.

You collapsed onto the ground in the campsite that Nori and Bofur had picked out for the night, spreading your bedroll to claim a spot slightly separate from where you knew the dwarves would soon be squished together. Sure, sleeping farther from the fire did mean you were colder, but it was worth it to be slightly farther from the snoring. 

With a sigh, you slowly drifted off into unconsciousness. You weren’t awake when Thorin, seeing you shivering on the ground and feeling slightly remorseful for his words earlier, picked his way through the campsite of sleeping dwarves to stand over you. He studied you for a moment, hearing the faint chatter of your teeth with cold, and shrugged off his fur coat, draping it over you and tucking it in around your neck, hand lingering on your cheek as he brushed the hair off your face. He smiled as you unconsciously leaned into his touch and snuggled down with his coat covering you.

“Uncle?” Thorin whirled around to see Fili, standing at the edge of the campsite with arms full of firewood. “What are you doing?” “Nothing! I just noticed that the human was cold and figured it would be bad if she froze, that’s all.” “Ok,” Fili clearly did not believe Thorin but was willing to let it go. “If that’s all…” he tossed the wood onto the fire as he said this, making the flames die down and then shoot up fueled by the addition. Thorin bounded across the campsite to grab his nephew by the shoulder. “Listen to me,” he drew Fili close so that he could see his eyes. “If you tell anyone, and I mean anyone, even Kili, of what you just saw, I’ll kick you off this quest so fast, it’ll make your head spin.” “Ok, Uncle.” Fili walked away and settled into his bedroll with a smirk. He eagerly anticipated what you would do when you woke with the king’s coat draped over you the next morning. 

You awoke the next day to the sounds of birds chirping and the sun shining on your face. You sat up and stretched your arms above your head, gazing at the canopy of leaves through which the early morning light filtered through. As you did so you felt something heavy slide down from around your shoulders. It was a fur coat. Figuring it was Fili’s as you’d seen him wearing furs before, you walked over to where the golden-haired dwarf was packing his belongings. “Thank you for this,” you held out the coat for him to take. He smirked as he saw what it was. “That’s not mine, Y/N.” “It’s not?” “No. In fact, I believe it belongs to my uncle over there.” He pointed at Thorin, who was sitting on a log across the clearing sharpening his newly found sword. Shocked at this revelation, you questioned Fili. “He hates me. Why would he give me his coat?” “Maybe you should just go ask him, Y/N.” 

So you walked over to Thorin and held out the coat. “Um, thank you for the coat. Why did you give it to me.” You were surprised to notice a faint blush on his cheeks as he rose. Shrugging the coat on, he spoke, “I noticed you get rather cold at night. I gave you my coat to prevent that, it wouldn’t do for one of my company to be unable to sleep because of something so easily remedied.” You shifted back and forth with a little embarrassment that he would notice. “Well, I appreciated the extra warmth, I certainly slept better than I have been.” 

You turned and walked back to your bedroll to pack it up, trying to hide your sudden happiness. After his words yesterday, you had feared that he hated you, and would never accept you as part of the group. Now, though, you felt a real sense of belonging and acceptance, although you thought you might have felt a little more than that from Thorin. It was probably just your imagination, though. A dwarf would never feel for a human in that way.

Everything tag💞: @entishramblings @itgetsatadhazy @boyruins @anjhope1

Lmk if you want to be added to a taglist for this series, all my writing, or anything else!

[border-spam]

Leech Lord: Worries

Tyreen - Troy

Always. Constantly, inescapably, Troy.

He's smouldered in the back of her mind as long as she can remember, like a fever. She couldn't not worry about her twin, even as a child it was impossible to block out the cold tightness in her belly that would rise whenever they were apart for any length of time.

She couldn't play alone for an hour without a pang of concern, was he ok? He'd been in bed days... was there something he'd like out here she could bring for him? Maybe Mom would let them play rock soldiers on the mattress if she found some good ones, ones with the little shiny flecks he liked.

The gnawing bite when he'd set out to hunt and she'd be left home with Pop, when keeping him and dad fed was a real problem even without Mom around anymore, the fear that one day he wouldn't come back. He got tired so easy, he only had one hand to grip rock-faces with, he was stubborn... and the concern he'd not forgive her when she'd lash out with words she didn't really want to say after he'd return each time, lost as to how else she could vent how scared for him she'd been.

He nearly died within a week of hitting Pandora. A week.

She didn't like being far from him after, what if his heart started playing up again, what if he fell? What if he was having a weak spell and she wasn't around to pulse energy into his bones with a gentle squeeze of his cold hand in hers. What if he was pushing himself too hard while she was off-world, what if he wasn't sleeping so he could get that stupid stream recording finished for upload, he never listened! She couldn't trust him to stay safe, so she worried.

Always.

That never changed, but what she worried about did over time.

The fear turned sour - less a concern he was overworking and more he was slacking off. He'd not been meeting deadlines recently and she knew it was because he was getting lazy... what if he was whispering behind her back while she was touching base with Maliwan, plotting with his backstabbing Saints to usurp power to his own parasitical throne?

What if he was turning on her? What if he didn't love her the way she loved him anymore, what if he didn't care about their crusade, their holy right? What if he didn't believe she would reach the glory the universe owed her?

...What if he started saying no.

She worries about her twin constantly, and what would happen if he knew how important he really was.

Troy - his "Meds"

(tw: drug use)

The battered little tin is always in a pocket on his left.

Doesn't matter if he's in sweat-stained rags as he grapples with JK's vanguard in the barrack's arena, or full gold and silk regalia at an off world banquet, it's there, rattling quietly, just a hand's reach away if needed.

And when he needs it, he needs it.

The contents are an unorganised medley of chems. He doesn't plan or measure, that's the realm of addicts after all, and he ain't one regardless of what he's scared the people who know him might think. These are tools, not dependencies.

It's stocked with pressed pills and powder sachets stamped with bandit symbols based on instinct, how he's been feeling lately. What he's afraid will rise from the darkness.

The idea of not having it, not being able to run trembling fingers over the pitted surface as he hides the shake by slipping a hand into his coat when he's feeling off, is terrifying. It hadn't been that many years ago when the dented little box mostly contained painkillers and antibiotics, but that shifted over time. Now its purpose feels more sinister than holding back the waves of illness Pandora would throw at him. Now, the drugs help keep him him.

Mood stabilisers, anti depressants, tranquilisers. Hallucinogenic spore powder pressed into the God King's palm by a Bandit high priest with a bone carved mask and reverence in their touch. High quality Blow from that club he trashed in Promethea... The good shit, always clean, always sourced. He's a King - shady deals in alleyways are beneath what he's sweated blood to craft himself into.

Each hits different, clouds his brain and blow his pupils in unique sensations, and he knows his custom assortment by heart. Knows exactly which to snort in a private stall when he feels a rage that's not him creep up his spine in sponsor negotiations. Knows what pill to discretely pop under his tongue to calm the shakes that snake through his ribs on offworld trips, when the corporate suits around him have their bullshit begin to be drowned out by waves of hissing terror clutching at his guts.

"Anxiety", his specialist had said.

Bullshit.

He knows anxious. He knows anger. He knows fear... This is something else.

The drugs haze it away, uncoil the tendrils of something that's not Troy from his mind. Dull the link. Blur his sight and slow his heart - it's enough.

He hates that tin, but the worry of forgetting it one day keeps his hand slipping into that left pocket like a nervous tic, over and over and over.

The contents are probably killing him, but it doesn't matter, least it's his choice. Only Troy controls Troy.

Only he decides what act he plays.

There's no such fucking thing as ghosts.

Seifa - How she looks

It's a constant worry in the back of her mind when in public, that she's going to be outed. That the aesthetic she wears as Ur-Machina, or her sultry little trade-shark persona will fall apart and she'll be left a laughing stock.

The Sei she shows the world is a carefully curated version and that's how she's known.

That mask is how people recognise her character, it can't slip or it could mean people will see her for what she actually is, and THAT ain't acceptable in the slightest. Nuh-uh. She's been pretending to be someone of importance far too long now to let the reality of what a useless piece of junk she is be noticed.

She doesn't give a shit if it comes across as being vain, that's fine! That's easy to work with, part of the persona. Let them think the side glances at her reflection whenever she passes something shiny are outta pride, all she has to do is throw a quick smirk in and it's totally believable that she's checking herself out, not looking for mistakes.

Is her hair ok, does her foundation look rough? Jacket pulled up weird? Nah she's fine - good, check her skin next pass though cause she's feeling nervous and sweating off makeup doesn't do wonders when you're trying to come across as in control. Suck in the goddamn gut. Ass out, cock a hip - power stance. There we go.

She stresses ABOUT stressing about how much she worries.

Maybe it's not actually normal? She has no basis for comparison so can't be sure - this is how things have always been. This is how she survived, by knowing exactly how she needed to look to shift an outcome to her favor or broadcast a confidence that wasn't entirely real.

Keeps a sharp eye on friends, rivals, people she's interested by to see how they manage - does anyone else does this? Is it just her struggling so badly to keep a persona intact that other people don't even have to give a second thought to? She thinks it is... and that just makes her worry about it falling apart even more.

Sei isn't sure if who she is is the makeup and confidence she wears to match an outfit, or the person she is underneath when she's alone. Or, used to be when she was alone anyway, nowadays it's... nicer. Years together and slow steps they may not have noticed her tentatively making have helped her come to grips with how her friends seem to see her the same either way. She doesn't have to be groomed, dressed well, they see Seifa even if she's not sure she is.

Ven doesn't act differently if her hair is done or not, same way he's still Ven if he's in a coiffed updo or messy locks - she's still Sei to him if she's fully styled or looks like a Rakk nest, and it helped.

JK doesn't alter how they treat her regardless of a face of makeup or not, same Sei, same deep chuckled jokes from them or gentle wisdom on long night talks, it doesn't matter what face she's wearing, just like the mask they use has never changed who it belongs to for her.

Troy speaks to her with the exact same close respect or gentle mockery when she's in full ritual gear as when she's just standing in old socks and loose pajama pants she should have tossed years ago. She's not sure he even sees a difference really, or if what she is to him is something that's visual at all. Maybe she's an idea, or a presence. Maybe what Seifa is to him is what he feels when he sits close enough to accidentally brush against her side.

How he looks at her never shifts - it's her he's seeing, and she matters to him regardless of what role she's playing.

It's helped, having friends. Knowing they see her as what she is and not an act, but it's not changed the constant nervousness that goes hand in hand with acting in public as Saint Ur-Machina, or Seifa A'rosk.

Little steps... little steps.

[anthropwashere]

our indestructible days ch 3

ch 1 | ch 2

=

Stubborn child! Tenacious little brat!

Pride seethes as he carries his new container up through another ruined, empty floor of Father's home, teeth gnashing at stone and metal. How could one inconsequential human soul cling so stubbornly to its body? Especially after being absorbed into his Philosopher's Stone?

It's lucky the little alchemist is such a mad acrobat, otherwise Pride wouldn't have been able to climb to the surface as quickly as he has, even with his shadows to assist. There's only a floor left between him and the parade field. The light from Father's attack has faded now, but he's still wary of jumping out without having a better idea of the situation out there. The light alone hadn't been enough to damage his Stone, but it had been an altogether painful experience for his true form.

A part of him hates to let those survivors scurry off—all those long years guarding Sloth's tunnel, no doubt—but now isn't the time to hunt down vermin. His Stone has only barely stabilized thanks to those few soldiers he'd consumed. He was able to grow this container a new leg without much strain, but he doubts he'd be much good in a proper fight. He's made the mistake of underestimating humans before. It's not a mistake he's keen on repeating.

He slims his shadows to a few cautious coils, tasting the air. Even up here he can smell the living humans below, soaked in blood and snaking away from the epicenter of things. They could reappear virtually anywhere in Central but he doubts they'll go that far, not with how injured they are. Aside from them there's nothing but corpses down there, which won't do him any good. Thanks to absorbing Gluttony he finds the meat delicious, yes, but it's souls he needs. 

Aboveground is a far different story. He sniffs again and can't help but smirk. There's dozens—no, hundreds of humans gathering up there, rushing around with their hearts racing and sweat salting their warm skin. He smells too, all the silly little guns they're hauling around in some vain hope of stopping Father.

Pride licks his lips, eager now. They want a fight, do they? He may be weak, but he thinks he can at least provide Father a distraction.

He's careful to keep his container out of sight as he peers over the last crumbling edge, curling tendrils into the air and squinting in the brightening daylight. Behind him Central Command is in ruins, as if some enormous hand had come along and taken a scoop out of it. He can smell only a handful of living humans there, most of them bloody and bruised and terrified. Before him a triangular stretch of the parade field is charred black, heat to sting the razor edges of him still rising from it. Greasy smoke smothers the air, reducing visibility to a frustrating few feet. From here he can only make out the woman sacrifice, sprawled nearby and barely conscious. He can smell her pain, the new bruises and welling blood, but it's nothing serious. There's no urgent spike of adrenaline in her blood, no sour snap of broken bone nor the damp heat of exposed organs. She'll live, for now.

The wind shifts. He narrows his eyes, sniffing, and finds the shredded remains of Alphonse Elric's armor a little further off. Beside it is the troublesome Xingese girl, weeping loudly. Has the younger Elric's blood seal broken? Either way, he won't be taking part in this fight any longer, not in the shape he's in.

The woman sacrifice—Izumi, wasn't it?—wakes, coughing roughly. "H-Hohenheim," she forces out, and as if summoned by her voice Father appears before her, so quickly that neither Pride’s eyes nor nose sensed him move. A strong hand grabs Van Hohenheim out of the dust that had obscured him as well, knocking him aside like so much refuse. He lands in a heap some distance off. Pride pays his piteous groaning no mind, relieved to see that Father still has God's power within him.

"Father!" He cries, springing out into the open to present himself. Izumi twitches nearby, straining to see him over her bloodied shoulder.

"You're first," Father says, raising his hand. Red light arcs between his fingertips. Too late, Pride realizes what he means to do—

Pain riots through his container. All his thoughts collapse to panicked static. His newly acquired lungs and heart seize, his every muscle spasms and his every joint locks. He would scream if he could because to have true flesh is to be set on fire. He'd thought the leg bad before, but he'd retreated into his Stone at the first white-hot shock of hurt and here he's pinned in place, nerves flayed, choking on ash—he can't, he isn't, how is it possible to—hurt—so completely? Defense—he—he must defend against—shadows—his self—all gone, he can't think, he can't—

Father is going to kill him—

A gunshot cracks in the distance, and a wound appears in a fizzle of come-and-go alchemical light at Father's temple. Father's concentration breaks. Pride nearly falls on all fours, sucking in dirty air with a relief that unmoors him. He doesn't hesitate, falling back on the instincts of this taken flesh. His hammering heart says run, so he runs. He sprints through the thinning smoke, wanting distance, needing time to get his bearings, needing to understand why Father just tried to kill him—

He ducks behind some heap of rubble near Central Command's wall, pressing his spine against it and shutting his eyes against the acrid sting. He's—he's panicking. He is, isn't he? He's never one to panic. He is first of the homunculi, oldest and strongest and cleverest. He won't—can't—be cowed so easily as this. Even if—even if it was Father that came so close to—

He is one part of a greater whole. This is something he's always known. But it's never occurred to him that Father might one day want that part back.

No. Never mind that. Father had his reasons. He always does. Surely Father only intended to siphon Fullmetal's soul away, to tear the stubborn child out so Pride could have unfettered control over this container—

[Coward.]

Pride freezes—still panting for breath, damn this flesh—and glares with several pairs of eyes. That voice. It shouldn't be possible, and yet— "Just how many of you damned insects are clinging to sentience within my stone?!"

[Oh, it's just Fullmetal and myself in here, and he's not doing too well at the moment.] Kimblee's laughter grates for all that it's not, technically, real. [He doesn't enjoy the company as much as I do.]

In the distance Pride can hear-smell humans shouting, soldiers making a perimeter in some feeble-minded attempt at hemming Father in, barking out nonsensical orders to one another over the bustle and clatter of all their useless weaponry. A man shouts over a megaphone that Fullmetal is not to be confused with Father, which is a relief and in some small way, terribly funny. He watches the clamor with his container's eyes, peering carefully around the crumbling edge of what might have been a bit of the east wing. If he focuses he thinks he can very nearly feel the pinpoints of solidity within his Stone, Kimblee as fine and bright as a needle, Fullmetal a stolid lump fumbling his way back to consciousness at a snail's pace. "I suppose you'll be wanting to fight me for control over this body next?"

[Oh no, not at all. It'd be a poor fit, I think. And besides, I already have a front row seat to the glorious battle going on right now. Just listen to it!]

The attacks are certainly concussive, if nothing else. From his position on the field it only looks like the soldiers are wasting a great deal of ammunition for nothing; Father's glimmering shield is protecting him even from the heat and dust of the blasts. Some soldier down there belts out a command to take cover and scarcely a moment later a gout of flame rushes down the same charred path as Father's earlier attack to engulf the majority of the parade ground in an inferno. It seems that despite his newfound blindness the Flame Alchemist remains unwilling to sit idly by while there's murder and mayhem to sow. Still, it'll take more than that to slow Father down now.

"They stand no chance against him," he mutters aloud. The plan has fallen apart, perhaps disastrously so, but Father will win. It's only a matter of time.

[No chance?] Kimblee asks, pausing when another gout of flame explodes across the parade field. This one Father catches as easily as a child's toy and sends it right back. Even after that display, amusement curls Kimblee's voice. Infuriating creature. [You say there's no chance, that you homunculi are so much better than humans, but what's Greed without his human vessel? What are you?]

"I am Pride the Arro—"

[Just the two of you left now, and that only thanks to the humans you've attached yourselves to. You claim to be higher life forms, yet you're really nothing more than parasites. How disappointing.]

"I won't die here! Whatever the cost, I refuse to die today!"

[And if your Father willed it otherwise?]

He flinches, and loathes this treacherous body all the more.

[He seemed eager enough to kill you a moment ago,] Kimblee goes on cheerfully, [Yet you turned tail and ran away the second you could. You were named for your dignity as much as your arrogance, yet all you've proven today is that you're a hypocrite and a coward.]

"BE SILENT, KIMBLEE!"

[Mmph.] The Fullmetal lump shifts within his Stone, waking up properly. Pride very nearly throws his hands up in exasperation. [Ah, hell. That hurt. What happened?]

[Welcome back, Edward. I wasn't sure you'd be joining us again.]

Pride curls his mouth irritably, digs dirty nails into the stone's crumbling edge. The automail arm only twitches at his side, still stubbornly resistant to his will. "How many times must I put you in your place until you stay there?"

[Ha. At least one more. Where are we?] 

Pride has no chance to reply before his control is tugged away from him. Edward Elric wavers, bracing himself with both hands against the same stretch of scorched stone. Pride's connection to the container and all its startling sensations remains; a sour tang of nausea burns their shared throat, dizziness makes their pulse pound in their ears, a line of sweat down their spine makes them shiver. Edward directs their eyes about the parade field and back to Central Command, taking in the splendor of Father's power. Their ears ache with the ceaseless crack and boom of gunfire.

"Holy shit,” Edward breathes.

With a growl of displeasure Pride pushes back and retakes control. The boy's too stunned to put up more than a token resistance, one that's easily brushed aside. Pride smiles, licking the new configuration of his teeth. "Do you understand now? Do you see what Father is capable of, despite all your little tricks? Are you still so certain you'll win?"

Kimblee whispers, so quietly that Edward seems not to hear, [Are you?]

[Of course I am,] Edward retorts, and while he's unable to wrestle control of his body back he does manage a few of the eyes circling at their feet. Their shared vision wobbles and blurs, and Edward grumbles. [Jeez, how can you stand this? I think I'm gonna puke.]

"Then stop it."

[Nah.] Their shadow twitches, an inelegant lurch that nevertheless forces one of their eyes to loll, and in just such a way that it glimpses Edward's bare left foot. Through their mutable connection of his Stone Pride feels the stuttering evolution of Edward's reaction—dumbfounded, denying, horrified, furious. Their mouth opens against his will and Edward's snarl froths out. "My—my leg. It's—the automail—it's gone. You—you son of a bitch! You really cut it off?!"

[It was slowing me down,] Pride replies calmly, content for the moment to take refuge in his Stone. It almost feels as he did in his Selim container this way; placid, unflappable, controlled. [You're welcome, by the way. I saved you the trouble of trying to get back the original one.]

"Wh—That's not the point! Al and I made a promise! After we found out the cost of making a Philosopher's Stone we promised not to use one for ourselves! We never wanted to be so selfish as to use another life to fix our mistake! Al and I—we—I didn't...."

Edward's inhale is a shaky mess. He sways again, gritting his teeth. It seems he has a new tendency to speak through more than one mouth if he lets his anger get the better of him. How interesting. Pride certainly hadn't manifested one of the three thin mouths in their shadow. Edward bends at their waist to brush their left hand across their new knee cap, draws a line down their shin, splays their toes on the sun-warmed concrete. Pride feels each sensation like a static shock, which isn't half so bizarre as the curdled snatches of Edward's thoughts he absorbs secondhand. Nerve damage—phantom pain in the night—gone, it's gone, he shouldn't feel anything because it's gone—Granny said the cold would be harder on him—cold night spent lying awake, teeth gritted, muscles aching—no amount of massaging around the ports ever helped—Al's metallic voice, "Did you dream about Mom again—"

Pride retreats deeper into his Stone, startled by how real that felt. The ever-groaning souls inside him keep their distance from his toothsome shape—all but Kimblee, who sidles up to him with an overly familiar grin. 

Outside, Edward reins in his anger enough to ask, "Where's Alphonse?"

[In pieces,] he replies sullenly, and finds base satisfaction in the diminished jolt of panic he feels from the boy. [The Xingese girl has been using what's left of his armor as a shield—]

Red light crackles in their shared vision and a feeling not unlike a brand burns his Philosopher's Stone. He writhes within and without, as much from shock as from pain. When he can see clearly again Edward's braced against the rubble, breathing raggedly. "Shut up," he growls.

[You're so willing to be free of me you'll hurt yourself to do it?] Pride marvels. 

"Shut up," Edward repeats, a mouth splitting in their shadow to hiss the same. "You too, Kimblee."

[I didn't say anything.]

"I can feel how much you're enjoying this." He spits, wiping their mouth with the back of his automail hand, then begins a clumsy half-jog back into the thick of things. There's no telling if it's the new leg or their shadow nipping at their heels giving him more trouble.

[Where are you going?] Pride demands. [What do you intend to do?]

"I'm gonna find Al, then I'm gonna make that bastard pay."

[If you confront him, Father will take my Stone for sure!]

"Good. Let him take care of you for me!"

[He'll kill you too!]

"I don't care!" Edward picks up speed, keeping low and favoring their new leg. When Pride opens a train of eyes in their shadow Edward trips, slapping a hand over their container's eyes with a curse. Nausea tongues his Stone, altogether unpleasant. "I gotta make sure Al's okay!"

[Damn you!] For all that he tries to wrest back control Edward just hangs on to himself harder. Pride rages, scattering souls like gravel beneath the wild sweep of his awareness. Edward snarls back and picks up speed.

[Such dedication!] Kimblee exults, a white sore in his Stone. [Such drive! He really is an admirable creature, isn't? Put a fire under him and he'll burn himself gladly for the chance to keep those he cares for out of it!]

[Be quiet!]

Kimblee calms, raising one unimpressed eyebrow. [Why should I listen to you? A pitiful homunculus who couldn't keep a single human under heel?]

Pride seethes.

[crusader-kings]

Mycorrhizal; OC dump

This will likely be a long post, press J to jump!

Overall idea; In a distant future where humanity drove itself to extinction with nuclear weapons, not many organisms survived/can survive the high amount of radiation, those who did are now incredibly mutated and changed from their original ancestors. The wastelands do not offer much support for life as it’s mostly rock or places covered with radioactive dust, some live in the long forgotten human’s ruins while others live in whatever piece of land that life still grows, those patches of grass and places where forests and rivers run and grow free are called Cyolizers.

Overall insects and arthropods; Insects are, somewhat more emotionally intelligent out of the 3 dominant species and more crafty, they farm, breed livestock and build, their relationship with others often........depends a lot, altho they’re less willing to work with other species they will tolerate when time calls for it.

Overall fungi and the like; Fungi are extremely clever but incredibly dumb in a way (Do not mix wisdom with intelligence, reader!) their views are very black and white but can formulate many strategies for survival when working in a colony, however, many fungi do not tolerate each other even when territory can support all but they will work together for the sake of the colony/mycorrhizal network while still avoiding each other.

Overall trees, plants and the like; Trees fall in the middle of the spectrum, they have a mother tree and priotize their own young than the others in the forest much like in the real world but have way more mobility while still unable to move, they only speak to Mycorrhizal fungi and whichever possesses the ability to do so.

Somewhat goal; To create a story/characters with very to no little anthropomorfization and still be able to make the viewer feel sympathy for the characters, basing off actual behaviours from the real world (Insects, mostly ants do create fungi farms and breed ‘livestock for an example) more than making on the go and using a very strict language as most of the list do not feel emotions on human levels, if are there any misinfo you’d like to correct me on please LMK! I do love reading articles and the like so I’d prefer if you send me a source. ❤

There are 2 stories to this world, The Sundown society, focusing on the arthropods and insects perspectives and Mycorrhizal, that focus on the fungi perspective.

Overall insight to the fungi culture;

- Fungi, do not have names, they do not understand the concept of names at all.

- Fungi often do not recognize each other, meaning that if there are 2 fungus of the same species they will not remember who they’ve talked to before and pretty much treat each other as if they were the same person.

- Fungi have supernatural sense abilities and perspective, they are able to ‘feel’ each other from hundreds of miles.

- They are clever but dumb, meaning they learn extremely quick but don’t understand many things and also lack curiosity but can be intelligent in group due to shared information.

- They.........do not treat each other kindly.

Mycorrhizal focus on a group of 14 fungi of different species, which you can find here! (Some are still being designed)

CHAPTER 1

A Devil’s fingers fungus is accepted by the forest even not being benefitial to them, having formed an alliance with a Bleeding tooth fungus since formation, both believe that their shared wisdom is good for the colony which is why Devil’s fingers was accepted in the first place, a strange menacing unknown scent rises from the horizon causing many members of the network to flee, both Bleeding tooth and Devil’s fingers believe that remaining in the colony would be safer than running towards the wasteland and not knowing if they ever will find other Cyrolizers.

Fast forward, both meet Lion’s mane fungus that informs that they ran away from their previous Cyrolizer due to the same scent but could not recognize it, Lion’s mane is immediately shunned by the trees for being a tree-parasite species, Devil’s fingers offers that they should let them stay and get rid of the weaker trees and use what they know of the scent to find out what’s happening...the trees...accept this, but hesitant to let their members die like that.

CHAPTER 3

Many trees die due to the decay of the network since Bleeding tooth is the only Mycorrhizal fungus around, a Magic mushroom “traveller” appears and has named themself Carlos, this is new for the fungi who do not understand names, Carlos is the very few fungi who are emotionally intelligent and understand human culture, they talk about how they’ve been travelling alot and mention other Cyrolizers on the way. Bleeding tooth is relieved that they can bail out but Devil’s fingers will not budge and Lion’s mane is happy with a host, Carlos informs that they can aid their cause for a cost in which they happily pay.

They bring Ink cap who’s been following them and more or so a traveller (not by choice.), who’s violent and a fighter and later helps them with an clearwing problem alongside Lion’s mane, their insect problems only gets worse, they hear from one of them that they’re also fleeing from the same thing and this is the first Cyrolizer they found, luckily for the fungi, the merry month of augustus just starts bringing a herd of Cordyceps militaris, Carlos attempts to convince one of them to help unaware that they do not prey on clearwings, months passes with them insects problem until one of the herd is left behind, with nowhere to go they were brought to the colony and apparently their sight was enough to make the insects bail the hell out of there.

CHAPTER 4

With 6 fungi on their hands, the future looks a bit brighter, but many do not understand each other on a personal level except for Devil’s fingers and Bleeding tooth, Lion’s mane has no idea what a colony does for being a parasite and much less Cordyceps, Ink cap does not care for it either, the only willing to help is Carlos, this angers the trees for wasting resources and time on useless members, but once again! Devil’s fingers does not budge, trying to remain organized; they propose that like a normal colony each one should have a role, it took centuries to explain what a Colony was to Lion’s mane and Cordyceps but they got it, Lion’s mane job is more or like of a mortician, Cordyceps uses its cordycepin to keep the trees healthy, Ink cap patrols the entire Cyrolizer for insects and so on, Bleeding tooth is the mycorrhizal head and Devil’s fingers is often planning with Carlos what to do.

CHAPTER 5

The scent is on the rise again, Cordyceps mentions it’s familiarity - they recognize it and call it one of “them” (a parasitoid) but is unable to point out what it is and that it’s unlikely that it’s another cordyceps, they also point out that in migration their herd passed through a completely devastated Cyrolizer with the same scent and spores, Devil’s fingers ask the probability of the cause of the disaster being made by a fungus and Carlos laughs at the implication but their fears are only confirmed when Cordyceps mentions that yes, it could be somewhat a parasite on a giant host and that this phenomenon is not uncommon for their kind.

Ink cap rushes in to inform that there’s a ghost moth by itself alone, that seems desesperate and knows more about it, Devil’s fingers run to the scene alongside Bleeding tooth and Ink cap to meet Lunar, a ghost moth who lost their wing informing that some giant beast attacked and ripped it off but they managed to escape.

CHAPTER 6

 Lunar and Carlos seem to kick off, they talk about human culture and how interesting names are, Devil’s fingers is confused by this, Lunar mentions how their society used to build “huts”, the idea seems alien to them at first but later they understand it’s for warmth and protection from outside elements, Lion’s mane says that they can use the carcass of the dead trees around while Ink cap mentions they dig and only build roofs on the holes to save their lives, Devil’s tooth and Ink cap are in charge of building the huts.

Lunar finds out there’s a Cordyceps on the team and is already keen on leaving, Carlos jokes about how they “wouldn’t even hurt a fly” in which Cordyceps reply with; “I don’t prey on flies anyways.”, they’re kept apart at all times.

CHAPTER 7

Ink cap and Cordyceps become “allies” (Cordyceps has no concept of allyship), often hunting arthropods and eating them together, Ink cap explains allyship to them after that they’re mostly always seem together, both find Gyromitra and they bring it back to camp, they inform that they just stumbled upon and have been travelling for days with no end looking for a place to stay, the trees are happy with their arrival as they are also a mycorrhizal fungus, Gyromitra and Bleeding tooth often split their jobs,

.  .  .   .

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Private equity looting public health in a pandemic

During a 2007 trip to NYC, while taking long walks from one indie bookstore to the next, lugging increasingly heavy bags of pressed vegetable matter, I stumbled on Simon Lovell's HOW TO CHEAT AT EVERYTHING at the St Mark's Bookshop.

https://www.runningpress.com/titles/simon-lovell/how-to-cheat-at-everything/9781560259732/

Despite the title, its really about about NOT getting cheated: anatomical dissections of scams that show you how they work. One thing that stuck with me from all that is how to spot a dirty "proposition" bet, a variable-odds bet on a specific outcome from a range of outcomes.

Lovell's rule of thumb is the more complicated a bet is, the scammier it is. If it pays 2:1 for one outcome, 5:1 for another, and 100:1 for a third, it's probably a scam. Complexity confounds your ability to match odds to payouts - to intuit whether it's a good bet.

I remember being at Defcon one year and going into a Vegas casino and asking a craps croupier to explain how the game worked, and as he rattled off the different odds on the different paylines, I was like, Ohhhhh, I get this. This is a scam.

The next time I had that feeling was during the financial crisis, when I started to learn about CDOs and other complex derivatives, and how their originators presented them to investors, using esoteric math to prove they were safe. Ohhh, I thought. Oh, I get it.

The more I learned about finance, the more this insight came back to me. Because so often the complexity was revealed to be an ornament, a form of dazzle there to confuse the eye about the true shape of the transaction.

The rococo equations where set-dressing to support the idea that mere mortals are disqualified from discussing,  understanding, or regulating the finance industry. And nowhere is that more in evidence than in the private equity world.

Because the underlying scam is pretty simple, tbh. Borrow money using the company you're acquiring as collateral (that's right: you're using an asset you don't own as collateral to acquire it - like a mortgage, except the transaction is nonconsensual for the "seller").

Sell off the company's assets, especially real-estate holdings, so the company now has to pay rent for its own buildings (this is very popular with PE takeovers of chain restaurants, exposing them to rent-shocks).

Eliminate cost-centers that provide long-term value to the company, but whose absence isn't felt in the short term - like buying up newspapers and firing the local sales staff who know local merchants, consolidating sales to a national office.

(If you think Google and Facebook killed newspapers, you're not wrong, but you're not right either: they'd been consolidated and asset stripped for decades, had their cash reserves, plant and real estate sold off, and were weak and flailing when the internet came along)

Declare a special dividend for the PE owners and their investors, in which the cash you realize from the selloffs disappears into offshore tax-havens, leaving behind a damaged, failing business.

When the company fails, restructure it through bankruptcy. Take special care to zero out obligations to suppliers (the entire US independent toy industry was annihilated by the PE shutdown of Toys R Us) and workers (bye, Sears pensions).

Engage in predatory conduct. Buy doctors' groups that serve hospital emergency rooms and opt them out of all insurance plans. Stick people who show up in ambulances, unconscious or in extremis, with titanic bills. $5k for an icepack? Why not!

Make minimal payments to the creditors who loaned you the money to do the leveraged buyout. Maybe buy the debt from them at pennies on the dollar and start extracting debt payments from the company - predatory behavior can help with this!

Hospitals and newspapers are really great for this, because they're important so they get bailouts. Canada's giant newspaper bailout will direct millions in taxpayer funds to the US vulture capitalists who tanked Postmedia and the National Post.

Hospitals are an AMAZING storefront for this kind of long-con, especially in a crisis. There are so many ways to cash out. They're like the craps-table of The Pandemic Casino, a moneyspinner for the casino boss.

Like, if you happen to own a beloved low-income hospital that has served poor people in a city with some of the worst poverty in America, you can offer to rent it to the city for $1m/month!

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/02/eff-livestream-today/#joel-kills

Or if you're a PE company that staffs about half of the country's hospitals (especially their front-line ER docs and nurses), you can slash their pay and benefits and they'll keep showing up for work!

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/01/pluralistic:-01-apr-2020/#private-equity

Or you can just demand a bailout. Steward is a PE-backed hospital chain whose debt-loaded acquisition of Easton Hospital in Lehigh Valley (PA) left the region's major hospital saddled with so much debt it was already on the brink of collapse.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/03/hospital-bailouts-begin-for-those-owned-by-private-equity-firms/

It's owned by Cerberus, a giant and notorious PE looter. Cerebus is about to pocket $8m in bailout money approved by PA governor Tom Wolf, who was responding to Steward's threat to shut down the hospital effective Mar 27 if it didn't get a payout.

https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/easton-hospital-owner-to-proceed-immediately-on-closure-without-state-takeover-by-midnight.html

The $8m is a downpayment, and there's $24m more to come. It's true that when Cerebus bought Easton Hospital, it was struggling...because it had ALREADY been debt-loaded by another PE looter, Forstmann Little & Co.

And while Cerebus's investors have made huge profits from the transaction, the Steward hospitals are the worst-performing in PA, with $592m in losses in 2017/8.

http://www.chiamass.gov/assets/Uploads/mass-hospital-financials/2018-annual-report/Acute-Hospital-Health-System-Financial-Performance-Report-FY2018.pdf

When PE companies acquire doctors' groups, they argue that they're merely investing in the front-line caregivers, and that these are still owned and representative of those doctors who save our lives. But that's a lie.

Dr Ming Lin is a 17-year ER veteran who was just fired from Bellingham, WA's  Peacehealth St. Joseph Medical Center after going public about the lack of PPE and the unsafe conditions for caregivers and patients at his hospital.

The company that fired him is Teamhealth, owned by Blackstone. the largest PE company in the world. Teamhealth says that the doctor's practices it owns are actually run by doctors, but has refused to publish the operating agreements it has with those docs.

Docs like Ming Lin. If you believe Teamhealth practices are run by docs, then you have to believe that Ming Lin fired himself. Otherwise, Blackstone fired him.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/04/what-wall-street-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-hospital-emergency

Blackstone has ordered ALL of its docs to be silent on lack of PPE, on pain of immediate dismissal. Its CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, is a Trump insider, and the order protects Trump from negative news stories that reveal his complicity in the negligent homicide of Americans.

Private equity is a scam. The math that shows that it's providing value - as opposed to helping socially useless parasites loot real businesses that provide real value - is a window-dressing, like fraudulent bond ratings that were used to sell CDOs.

Image: Lisa Brewster https://www.flickr.com/photos/sophistechate/2670946312

CC BY-SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[sylvanfreckles]

Please... (Whumptober 2020)

A souped-up Khan worm gets ahold of Cas, bringing back old traumas for all of them.

“Dammit, Sammy, on your left!” Dean lunged for the wriggling black slug as the Khan worm slithered away from its latest victim. They were armed with long, electric cattle prods that Sam had dialed up the juice on, but it seemed like nothing was slowing this bastard down.

They weren't quiet sure where this thing had come from. It was stronger than the others they'd face, and didn't seem to control its victims as much as tear them apart from the inside. Sam had come up with a handful of theories—Eve had created multiple and they evolved quickly, someone was summoning them from Purgatory and wound up with more than they could handle, Michael or another powerful force had souped the worms up—but unless they could catch the damn thing while its host was still functional they had no chance of finding out the truth.

The damn thing was fast, too. “Cas! Headed your way!” Dean called. That was their backup plan. Castiel was waiting in the next room, smite turned up to full, ready to vaporize the entire room to kill the worm if it got past the Winchesters.

He saw the worm slither over the doorway and let out a curse before ducking behind a piece of broken furniture and covering his eyes. There was a tingle of electricity on the air, the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood up like he was statically charged, then a great whump of pressure that nearly knocked him flat even behind cover.

“Sammy?” Dean stuck his head out, relieved to see his brother a few feet away. Sam looked dazed but gave him a thumb's up. “Cas?”

There was no reply. “Hey, Cas?” Dean picked himself up and made his way through the wreckage from the smiting. “You okay?”

The angel was standing in the middle of the room, staring down at the floor with a blank expression. Dean swallowed, his gut screaming at him that something wasn't right, and pressed further into the room. “Cas?”

Cas blinked and looked up at him. For just a second, his face twisted into an expression of rage, then he clamped his hands over his ears and collapsed to his knees with a cry.

“Cas!” Dean rushed forward, trying to pry one of the angel's hands away. His fingers were digging into his skin as he tried to twist away from Dean, but not before the hunter saw something that made his blood run cold. A trail of black sludge trickled out of Cas's ear...the Khan worm had gotten him.

“Get it out,” Cas rasped. His voice was tight with pain and fear, and he clawed at the sides of his head hard enough to draw blood. “Dean, please! Get it out of me!”

Most of Dean's instincts were telling him to run for it. Khan worms could wreak havoc with a mundane human, how much damage could one do with an angel? But Cas was fighting it, Cas was staying in control. “How are we gonna do this?” he asked Sam when his brother joined them.

Sam's eyes were wide and he shook his head. “We don't have enough juice. This isn't even enough to kill a person, it won't even hurt Cas, and if he tries to suppress his grace to let it affect him...”

“The worm takes over,” Dean concluded. Cas had twisted away from them and was trying to crawl out of the room, body still heaving and convulsing as he fought the invasion presence. “No, man, come on, you've got this.” Dean followed and tried to pull him up but Cas flinched back.

“Run, Dean,” Cas gasped. “They're taking over...I won't hurt you again.”

“Easy, buddy, come on,” Dean pulled Cas's head and shoulders into his lap. “You can fight this, man. Don't give that bloodsucker any ground, you hear me?”

Behind them Sam was running around the torn-up warehouse, probably geeking together something to save the day. Cas was practically seizing, arching off the ground and clawing at his head no matter how many times Dean tried to pull his hands away. His face was a mess of bloody scratches now, hair torn out in clumps.

“Just run,” Cas pleaded. His eyes were open but not seeing, horror written across his features. “I can't stop...them...” he gave out a cry and lurched away from Dean, coughing up bloody bile onto the cement  floor.

Dean swore and rested a hand on the angel's heaving shoulders. “This thing's tearing you up, Cas, you have to fight it,” he said, trying to be encouraging. “Can you, I dunno, smite it from the inside?”

Cas shook his head. “Useless.”

“Come on, man, you haven't tried,” Dean replied. “Electricity kills these things, remember? Heaven's power is ionized air or some shit, right? Focused lightning or whatever? You and Sammy geek out over this all the time.”

“Tried it...before.”

“What before?” Dean shook his head. “Dude, when have you faced a Khan worm before?”

“...leviathan.”

Dean's stomach twisted. “No, buddy, no.” He slid around, hands under Cas's shoulders, forcing him enough to make eye contact. “Cas, I swear to you, this isn't a leviathan. This is a Khan worm, a dirty little parasite, it's not one of them.”

Cas flinched away from the word and tried to bring his hands up to claw at his head again, but Dean stopped him. “Taking over,” he whispered.

“No, Cas, you're gonna fight it,” Dean replied. His voice rose with emotion, but who gave a damn right now. His hands tightened on Cas's upper arms and he gave the angel a little shake. “Fight this thing, Cas. You can beat this son of a bitch.”

The angel let out a pitiful moan and twisted away to cough out more blood. His entire body shudder, nearly hard enough to knock Dean's hands free. This was looking bad; if they couldn't find a way to neutralize the Khan worm it would either take over Cas or kill him. Either way, they lost. “Sammy!”

“Right here!” Sam was running back to them, panting, hauling a cart that had four or five car batteries lined up side-by-side. “Looted the forklifts,” he explained breathlessly. “Wired to the cattle prod. Should be enough.”

“Do it,” Dean jerked his head toward Cas. “All right, buddy, I'm gonna let you go. Sam's got enough juice to shock that thing out of you, all right?”

Cas was shaking his head, but Dean held on. “At least let us try. We'll find something else if this doesn't work.”

He felt horrible leaving Cas to curl up in the fetal position, clawing at his head and face again as soon as his hands were free. Dean stood behind Sam, arms folded, chewing his lip. “Ready?”

Sam nodded. He flicked the switch to activate the prod, careful of the trailing wires that connected it to the batteries, and pressed the tip against the bare flesh of Cas's neck. The angel cried out and tried to shrink away from the pain but Sam pressed forward. There was a sizzling, a smell like burning flesh, and Cas gave one final, violent convulsion before something black and slimy and disgusting oozed out of his ear.

Without hesitating Sam jabbed the cattle prod directly into the Khan worm, frying the sucker from the inside out before it could slither another centimeter. Dean rolled Cas away from the parasite, fumbling to check the angel's pulse and breathing.

“Whoa, hey, it's okay. You're safe now, buddy,” he said when Cas jerked awake. “Sammy got it. It's out of you, and it's dead. It won't hurt you again.”

Cas was still panting for breath, staring between Dean and Sam for a moment, then down to the smoking remains of the Khan worm. Something seemed to connect, finally, and he closed his eyes and relaxed against the warehouse floor.

Dean patted his chest and sent his brother an exhausted look. “Let's go home.”

[traitorousheroes]

in the hands of a Goddess

Notes: I originally wrote this little ficlet back in June of 2016. Obviously it’s been awhile since I even worked on it, but I figured I should post ficlets in order to get myself back in the writing habit. The basic gist is my personal headcanon that Syldor worked for the Raven Queen before Vax ever did (something to do with Vax’s Fate-Touched status). IDK, I know this probably won’t be everyone’s cup of tea (because Syldor is a terrible father) but I like adding a little more nuance to characters if I can. Also, skamelar is an Old English word for parasite, if anyone gets confused. Enjoy!

At eighty-five years of age, he became Her steward.

This was not how his life was supposed to turn out. 

“Skamelar,” he hissed, ducking under the talons of the scowling vampire. The nails scraped against his blade, throwing a shower of sparks into his face. The flash of light made him blink, giving the second strike of the creature purchase against his shoulder. The vampire’s snarl turned gleeful as he brought the bloodied nails to his mouth. 

“Elf,” the vampire replied, sucking his finger clean. “So far from your home. What calls you to my domain?”

“One higher than you,” Syldor replied, holding his twin short swords at the ready. 

The creature tilted his head, examining him. Then, as if realizing a joke, he laughed. Syldor tightened his grip on his blades, before forcing himself to relax. The vampire tried to circle him, but it was easy enough to keep him in view.

“Another paladin, then?” the vampire asked. “Come to avenge your fallen brethren?”

The image of a woman, armored in black plate, came unbidden to Syldor’s mind. Her eyes, dark grey in life but clouded white in death, had stared unseeingly into the morning light. The people of the town, Wrettis, had been all too willing to point him in the direction that the travelling stranger had gone. He had barely passed within the treeline before finding her body, tossed aside like refuse for the forest to claim. 

“She was no kin to me,” said Syldor. 

That, in and of itself, was true enough. He was no paladin, no warrior bound to a sacred oath. Nor was he a cleric, the arcane magic that flowed from his fingers in direct contrast to what they would wield. Priest was not the correct term either, since he wielded a blade with far more lethality than temple service would ever require. The title bestowed on him, however, was one that he could not refuse.

“Then why stand by the body for five days?” the vampire asked, swinging a claw at his guard.

 Syldor blocked it with an ease that did nothing to betray his weariness. The vampire stepped back, the slightest hint of a limp on his right side. Considering that they had been trading blows with neither side earning a significant hit, the limp was from another wound. Perhaps a parting gift from the deceased paladin, or another older wound that had not healed well.

“My Lady commanded it,” he said. 

“Your Lady,” the creature mocked him. “You serve the same patron as her, then. The one she cried to as I drained the life from her body. She wouldn’t stop praying for her intercession. I suppose Her Raven Majesty didn’t care much for her, in the end.”

Syldor struck out at the insult to the dead woman. He scored a graze against the monster’s chest, a line of dark, almost black, crimson bubbling up from the leathers. The vampire snarled, his fangs catching the light of the waning moon. Rather than wait for him to attack again, Syldor rallied and struck. The edge of his blade sunk into the flesh of the creature’s neck, slicing harmlessly in a shallow gash across his throat.

“Even if you spoke truth, I would see you dead in justice for her,” he replied. “Do not mock the dead, skamelar, for their Queen sees you for what you are.”

“And what would that be?” the vampire asked. He reached for Syldor again, only to have his reaching claws batted away by the flat of the blades.

“One who steals life from those who hold it still. One who steals the lives of children in the night, leaving them cold and bloodless in their beds.”

The edges of the vampire’s lips curled up at the charges laid before it. “There are others who do worse than I, elf. Leave me at peace here and hunt them instead.”

Syldor shook his head slightly. The vampire sighed, although the feral gleam in his eyes betrayed his true thoughts on the matter. He dashed forward, grabbing Syldor’s right arm and trapping it between them. His foul breath made Syldor recoil just far enough to escape the fangs that struck for his throat. As he looked down on the miserable creature, Syldor flicked his left hand up, the blade finding purchase again in the vampire’s throat. 

This time there was no chance for him to escape. Reversing his grip, Syldor pushed the blade against the wound. Blackened blood streamed from the gash and splashed on both of them. His strength waning as the blood continued to pour, the vampire released his right arm. He scrabbled at the blade embedded in his throat, but it was a useless effort. Dropping the sword in his right hand, Syldor grabbed his left handed blade, and used the extra power to saw through the remains of the vampire’s neck.

The head dropped to the ground as the body collapsed. The eyes twitched as Syldor watched, before the expression fell slack and the creature truly died. The fact that the creature had not collapsed into a gaseous state in a bid to escape spoke to its youth. Syldor let out a deep sigh, his shoulders slumping forward as the exhaustion from the fight crept up his limbs. Reaching down, he grabbed the head by the hair, letting it swing in the air. It was more of an effort to get a hold on the leather-clad body, but soon enough he had a good grip on it. 

Dawn was cresting over the farmlands when he made his way back to Wrettis. Those who went to tend the fields fled back towards the town when they saw him. Syldor paid them no mind, dragging the corpse to the temple district of the town. A priestess, robed and veiled in black, met him at the entrance with a small bow. It was the warmest greeting he had gotten since entering the town five, now six, days before.

“I learned of your victory a few hours ago, Steward,” the woman said. 

“I have done as She asked,” Syldor replied as the priestess fell into step beside him. “As I always will.”

She nodded, and he had the faintest idea that she was smiling behind the veil.“Perhaps.”

The rest of their short walk was made in silence. The woman, as most of her fellow temple priests and priestesses, did not seem uncomfortable by the lack of conversation. The quiet was useful to him as well, letting him organize his thoughts and affairs.

Those of Syngorn would wonder at his sudden departure. It had taken less than two days to reach Wrettis from the elven city, but what he had found and the task that had passed to him had extended his leave beyond what was normal. They would question his absence, considering the others that had occurred since his eighty-fifth year. While not prone to gossip, some of the more fanciful of his people had concocted tales of a woman he held dear outside the walls of their city. Instead of denying their claims, Syldor let them talk, allowing their childish stories to cloud the true reason for his leavings.

“Your mind is troubled,” the priestess said as they mounted the steps to the small temple. The body, dragged as it had been across the fields and the city streets, was easy enough to pull into the doors of the temple.

“It is nothing to trouble yourself with, my lady.”

“I will always listen if you have need, Steward,” she said. 

Syldor stopped, watching the woman as she continued to walk forward. Her gait did not falter, but now that he was paying attention, he noticed that her footfalls made no sound against the stone. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as she came to a halt before the altar. She turned back towards him, her face hidden behind the veil. Taking a deep breath, Syldor forced himself forward. 

“He was a stablehand,” the not-priestess told him as he laid the body on the altar. “Thom was his name. He used to ride and break the horses for one of the stables in Wrettis, until one of them broke him. It shattered his leg like glass, and he lost his one true joy in life.”

Syldor looked at her from the corner of his eye. The not-priestess had her hand cupped against the vampire’s cheek, the gesture almost looking like pity that echoed in her voice. With a sigh, she dropped her hand and lifted her head to look at him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She chuckled, and again Syldor got the impression that she was smiling at him. “My Steward, do you not recognize me?”

“My Lady?” Syldor said. Again, the feeling that the woman behind the veil was smiling at him. 

“You have done well, my Steward,” the Raven Queen said. “And you have done more than I would have asked.”

“I fulfilled my duties.”

“Your duties did not include standing watch over the body of my warrior,” she said. “And yet you did anyway.”

“There was no one else,” he said. 

“And yet you could have pushed the duty onto one of the priests, but did not. Your compassion reveals itself in the strangest of ways.”

“It was my duty.”

“As you say,” the Raven Queen acquiesced. “Your duties have been fulfilled. You are free until I have need of you again.”

“Of course, my Lady,” Syldor said, bowing at the waist. 

By the time he glanced upwards, she was gone, leaving nothing but a single raven’s feather on the breast bone of the corpse. It was the work of a few minutes to light the pyre, and Syldor watched the creature’s corpse burn, even as his mind turned towards home.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #287

“keep him tied - it makes him well / he’s getting better, can’t you tell?”

What are you favorite things to watch on YouTube? I like a pretty big variety now. I’d say I’ve been mostly into pet YouTubers lately, especially reptile ones. Oh, and WoW stuff. Can you pick out any constellations in the sky without looking them up online? Besides the Little or Big Dipper (idk which is which), nope. Are you religious? If so, what influenced you to start believing God? If you’re not religious, what convinces you there is no God? I wouldn’t call myself religious, no. I do believe there’s some kind of ultimate power, but hell if I know what it is, and I don’t actually worship it. I don’t believe any “good” god would demand kissing its feet in order for you to end at peace, among a billion other reasons. I believe there is something though because the odds of life and everything is just… too perfect. Plus I believe in the paranormal, so to me, there is obviously something beyond the mortal form. Is there any animal out there that genuinely terrifies you? Is this an animal you’re worried about coming across in daily life? I am terrified of ticks and parasites in general. They’re fucking disgusting. Maggots will also make me scream. Oh, and then there’s whale sharks. In my daily life, I wouldn’t say there’s any that I actively worry about crossing paths with. When was the last time you wore make-up? Around Halloween when Summer, me, and another of her friends did a witch-themed photoshoot. It really fucking sucks that it was so dark by the time we were done that the pictures came out absolutely awful. You can’t see shit, and of course on camera, I look absolutely awful. Have you ever worn colored contacts? No, but I’m totally not opposed for a cool photoshoot. Have you seen any of the Disney re-makes (eg. Aladdin or The Lion King)? What do you think of them? I’ve seen a good number, and I really like them. I think The Jungle Book remake was the best of them. How long did it take you to pass your driving test once you started learning how to drive? Ha, I still haven’t tried. When was the last time you went out for a formal occasion or event? Do you remember what you wore? Uhhhh… I have zero clue. Well, does my last job interview count? I just wore black sweatpants and some kind of formal top. How often do you have the TV on? is it more background noise or are you actually watching things? Y’all know by now that I don’t watch TV. Do you like any songs by Elvis Presley? Well of course. “Devil In Disguise” is my favorite. Do you ever answer the phone to unknown numbers? Nope. Do you eat anything special for breakfast on Christmas Day? Nah. When you go to theme parks, what’s your favorite type of ride? I haven’t been to a theme park in beyond forever, so idk. Are you afraid of falling in love? Ohhhhh yes. Expecting something to change in the next month? No. e_e What is your biggest worry in life right now? That Mom’s cancer will come back. Well, it IS going to eventually flare somewhere else, but no one can estimate when. Could be tomorrow. Could be years. Do you give up easily? It depends. With a lot of things, honestly, yes, because I get upset with my incompetence. What are you listening to? "Going To Hell" by The Pretty Reckless just came on. Is anything bothering you right now? Always. Were you ever made fun of? Yes. Are you currently jealous? I’ve been having episodes of it. Do you find piercings attractive on the opposite sex? I find them attractive on almost all people. Who was the last person you yelled at? I don’t know. Probably Mom. What do you say a lot? “Mood,” “lmao,” “can’t relate,” “same,” “oof,” “yikes,” shit like that, haha. What is your favorite place you have traveled? Chicago. Do you like ice cream? Yeah, that’s my comfort food. Do you like bananas? Yeah, but I don’t dare to eat one if I haven’t had my heartburn medication, because otherwise I get it BADLY. Do you like Paramore? A handful of their songs, yeah. I don’t know a lot though, honestly. Do you plan on getting married? It’d be nice. Ever been given a promise ring? No. Sexual orientation? Bi. Who do you text the most? Definitely Sara. Do you still talk to the person who hurt you most in life? Why or why not? No, because he wants nothing to do with me. I don’t blame him. Have you ever given your number to a complete stranger? Um, no. Well, besides in like, job applications. What color is your keyboard? Black. Your mouse? Mostly black, but it does have this crackled pattern that can glow blue or red. Desktop or laptop? I prefer laptops for mobility’s sake. Do you like sweet tea? I hate tea. How much sugar do you put in your tea? ^ Have you ever called someone useless? Wow, no. Do you have a wood or glass dining room table? Wood. Do you tend to get attached easily? HOLY GOD OF FUCK, YES. Is Joe Jonas really hotter than Nick? I haven’t seen either in god knows how long, but I remember I thought Nick was very cute. Favorite flavor pudding? Chocolate is the only kind I’ve enjoyed. Not that I’ve tried a lot. What are three words used in your area/dialect that many other areas/dialects wouldn't be familiar with? Oh, there are most certainly some, but I can’t think of any right now. How do you feel when your partner is talking to an ex? This would depend on a lot of things. What is the most expensive gift you have ever given? Received? Given, I’m really unsure. I answer enough questions sharing that I don’t have my own source of income, so a lot of times, my mom lets me use her money, but there is obviously a ceiling to how much I can use. Received, definitely my Sager laptop Jason got me one year. Do children like you? I’m always surprised that kids seem to… I don’t know how the hell to interact with kids, but parents tend to tell me that they do like me. If you found your child's diary would you read it? What if you found the diary of one of your parents? Hell no would I read that shit. Both deserve privacy. Have you ever stalked or killed a wild animal? Fuck no. Name something you are now prepared to reveal about yourself that you weren't ready to talk about in the past? The state of my virginity. Name a talent someone has of which you are jealous: I am soooo envious of talented and actually successful photographers. What would you most likely complain about in a hotel? Probably if the bed sheets seemed dirty. Is it possible to be in love with more than one person at the same time? Probably. I’m monogamous though, so I really can’t say because I haven’t experienced this. Do you often feel pressured by others? Society, yes. Should couples live together before marriage? I feel that it’s the better decision, yes. You may not blend well actually sharing the same house. You learn things about your partner. How would you feel attending the wedding of an ex? It would depend on the person. Girt or Sara? I would love to. As a matter of fact, I better be invited lmao. Jason? I couldn’t in ten trillion years. Fiction or nonfiction. I strongly prefer fiction. Can you can lie with a straight face? Yes, if it’s something little. Name three things you have experienced that would shock your parents: Probably just sexual stuff. Do you believe in using the silent treatment? No. I’ve sure done it before, but I’d like to think I’ve grown out of this. Communication is where it’s at. Your most embarrassing thought: *shrug* Your most prejudiced thought: I don’t know. I don’t think I’m very prejudiced. A shameful moment for you: The situation w/ Joel. The biggest gamble of your life: Deciding to drop out of college the last time. Who knows if that was a good choice or not… It’s too early to tell. What is your greatest weakness as a friend? Idk off the top of my head, but I’m sure there’s something. Do you feel better when you have a tan? Nah, I like being pale. I did go through a period in HS of using tanning lotion on my legs though because I was self-conscious of JUST how pale they were. Do you sometimes enjoy being mean? ”I don’t think so. Maybe like... in certain contexts. Like being mean in video games can be really fun sometimes, haha. And being a little mean in a kink setting can be fun too.” <<<< This. Are you high maintenance? Definitely not. Has anybody ever told you that you’re too young to be in love? I think my dad has, just indirectly. Did you learn anything from the last BIG mistake you made? Yes. Do you have a favorite brand of shoes? Yeah, Converse. Do you like rollercoasters with big drops? I’m afraid of rollercoasters so have never been on one. Do you have any inside jokes with your parents? Not really. Have you ever thrown a surprise party for somebody? I don’t think so? Do you know who your mom’s favorite singer is? Oh, she’s totally obsessed with James Hetfield/Metallica. What year were you born in? 1996. What is your favorite card game? Magic: The Gathering, even though I was never great at it or totally understood all the rules. I just adore the artwork, and I like the detailed tactics behind it. Have you ever tried to surf? Nah. Do you want to learn? Nah. Have you ever had a song dedicated to you? What was it? Let’s not with this. What color eyes does your best friend have? Brown. Have you ever been on a blind date? Nah. Which one of your family members do you wish you could see more often? My brother and his son. I got really close to my nephew the last time they visited for a few days. What room in your house is the messiest? Right now, the extra bedroom that I want to make my dayroom. A lot of our “extra” stuff is just shoved into there. Have you ever requested a song on the radio? No. Are you proud of your parents? Yes. Have you ever (accidentally or not) set off a car alarm? I think I accidentally have before. Do you have dimples when you smile? Yes, way more prominently on my left cheek though. Do you find graveyards scary? No. They’re peaceful to me. Have you ever carved anything into a tree? I don’t think so. Do you read those celebrity gossip magazines? Ew, no. Celebs deserve privacy. Do you give or get advice more often? Well considering I’m in therapy, probably get. Did the last type of shoes you wore have laces? No. Do you like the picture on your license/I.D. card? FUCK no. When was the last time somebody hit on you? Idr. Which one of your friends do you feel most comfortable around? Sara. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? Just pass me the rolls lmao. Who did you last spoon with? My cat lmao. What was the last video game you played? I don’t recall the last console game I played, so does World of Warcraft count, even tho it’s a computer game? When you’re in trouble, do your parents ever “middle name” you? Ha, my mom will sometimes. Does getting sweaty or dirty bother you at all? If so, has it ever put you off doing exercise? Very much so. I suffer (and I DO mean “suffer”) from insane hyperhidrosis, so I sweat my ass off if I so much as twitch, if even that. I just hate feeling gross. Have you ever thought about how you want to spend your retirement? No, honestly. It’s hard for me to imagine even *getting* to retirement. Would you describe yourself as healthy? Why or why not? No. I’m physically and even more mentally not okay. Do you miss anything about being a teenager? If you are a teenager, what’s your favorite thing about it? Yeah, some things. Though I really don’t even want to think about it. I look back on me being a teen with both wistfulness as well as bitterness. I don’t know which is stronger.

[expatimes]

What is Israel's secret weapon against Iran?

There is much reason to believe, but obviously no hard evidence to prove, that Israel is behind the most recent assassination of yet another high-ranking Iranian scientist.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was seen by United States and Israeli intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons capability, was evidently killed on November 27 in an ambush on a highway near Tehran “with remotely controlled smart devices”.

It is, of course, impossible to know what exactly happened on that highway. The Israelis have reasons to exaggerate their capabilities in conducting deadly covert operations in Iranian territory. Iranians, meanwhile, have reasons to conceal the manner in which their prominent official was killed, and engage in their own reciprocal disinformation campaign.

What we are left with is the evident fact that Israelis, perhaps in cahoots with the Americans, the Saudis or even the Emiratis, were behind yet another targeted assassination of a prominent Iranian official.

But how does Israel do it? How does this puny little settler colony get away with murder, repeatedly?

Projecting more power than they actually possess

Although Israel wants to project an image of an omnipotent and omniscient force that can kill and destroy with the flick of a finger, the fact is that it is all a bogus, cliché, and gaudy posture. There is not much mystery surrounding this cowardly operation: we have the Israeli-US intelligence, Saudi-Emirati finances, and the sleeper cells of the treacherous Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) - the ex-Iranian terrorist outfit - operatives inside Iran as the most likely combination of factors that allowed Israel to commit this murder.

Targeted assassination is a common feature of Israeli behavior. The murder of prominent Palestinian revolutionary writer Ghassan Kanafani in Beirut on July 8, 1972, together with his 17-year-old niece, Lamees Najim, is perhaps the most infamous and iconic of such assassinations.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was not the first and likely will not be the last Iranian scientist presumed murdered by the Israelis. At least half a dozen Iranian scientists have been murdered over the last decade, and Israel is to have been chiefly responsible for half of these murders.

To be sure, Israel is neither the first nor the only state that has eliminated its perceived enemies with assassinations outside its borders. Earlier this year, Donald Trump ordered the US military to murder Qassem Soleimani, a high-ranking Iranian military official, in Iraq. Just two years ago, Saudi Arabia chopped to pieces Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist, in Turkey.

The Iranians themselves have a long history of brutally murdering their perceived enemies around the world. They, for example, stabbed prominent opposition figure Shapour Bakhtiar to death in France in 1991. They do not hesitate to murder dissidents inside Iran either, as in the notorious case of the so-called “chain murders” of the 1980s and 1990s.

So no state can assume a holier than thou posture here. They are all guilty as sin. It is a dog eat dog world out there among these ruling regimes of terror and murder, each one worse than the other.

But still, the bald-faced incursion of a colonial settlement into a sovereign nation to murder one of their high-ranking scientists requires some examination.

What is Israel's secret weapon?

The specific question I wish to raise here is how could Israel murder Fakhrizadeh, then cowardly assume a stance of “neither denying nor confirming”, and get away with it?

The issue at hand here is not the Israeli behavior, which is systematically criminal. All you have to do is read Ronen Bergman's Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations (2018) to learn chapter and verse the sustained and systematic history of the settler colony being founded and kept in place with such targeted assassinations.

There is a link, I wish to propose, between the fact that Israelis can just move into Iran and murder anyone they want and the cowardly sellouts like the rulers of the UAE, Bahrain or Sudan “normalising” the historic theft of Palestine and entering into diplomatic relations with the settler colony.

That link spells out the scandalous incompetence of ruling states on all sides of the Gulf and beyond having no trust in their own people and degenerating the state apparatus into the instrument of tyranny against their own populations instead of learning how to protect their national sovereignty. On this score, there is no difference between the rulers of the UAE and Iran: they are both pathetically weak towards American-Israeli militarism because they are pathetically tyrannical towards their own citizens.

Let us talk specifically about Iran. The ruling state dedicates an overwhelming segment of its security and military apparatus to keeping Iranians themselves in line. It is so conscious of its own illegitimacy that its single most important function is to grab power, control the economy, and systemically subjugate Iranians to oppressive surveillance.

The ruling military, intelligence and security apparatus of the Islamic republic does not want to accept how utterly ridiculous it looks that Israel can infiltrate their country and point-blank murder one top scientist after another, while they are busy brutalising a teenage child into wearing her scarf one way and not the other. The sheer stupidity of this state just boggles the mind.

Stateless nations, illegitimate states

Israel is a garrison state - a state without a nation ruling over the Palestinians, a nation without a state. And so is precisely every single other state around it, chief among them Iran that has long since lost the trust and support of the nation over which it rules with wanton cruelty.

Imagine for a minute if people in Iran or anywhere else in the Muslim world were the masters of their own destiny. Imagine if the dungeons of the Islamic republic were not filled with political prisoners and human rights activists. Imagine if the ruling state did not waste much of its resources and abilities to surveil the Iranians and punish them for the slightest sign of life and liberty.

That is the secret weapon Israel has against Iran and all the other corrupt regimes in the region. That these illegitimate rulers do not see the strength of their countries is in their own population; that freedom, liberty, the ability to stand up proudly and claim national sovereignty is the true source of power for any country. Instead these pathetic incompetent fools who cannot even protect their most precious assets are trying in vain to keep an entire nation prisoner of their outdated, corrupt and moronic politics.

Israel is a military base created by a gang of European adventurists. They would not even dare to imagine infiltrating Iran, or Turkey, or Egypt, or any other real country, and murdering one of their citizens if they realized they had the will of an entire nation confronting them. They know the entire apparatus of the Islamic republic from top to bottom is irredeemably foreign to the defiant will of the Iranian people, that after 40 years they have miserably failed to become integral to the will of their nation, that they and their entire propaganda machinery has become parasitic to the organic integrity of an ancient but young, proud and competent nation, over which the ruling clergy has much power but little authority.

Nations against states

What can Iran do in retaliation for their top scientists being murdered by Israel? Nothing. Can they reciprocate and go and kill an Israeli nuclear scientist? Of course not, they do not have the wherewithal to do anything remotely similar to that. So they huff and they puff and ultimately shoot a few useless missiles in one direction or another and continue abusing their own population and supporting Hamas, Hezbollah or the murderous al-Assad regime for one useless act of “resistance” or another.

But at the same time, the habitual chicaneries of Israel will ultimately have to face not these feeble and pathetic states but the root of the power of resistance to its murderous deeds which is the will of the Palestinians and the Iranians alike.

What is lost to Israel and its sustained course of criminal activities is how utterly futile they are. They mobilize all their evil means and assassinate a few Iranian nuclear scientists - so what? Iran has literally thousands upon thousands of such unclear scientists, more than half of them women physicists from top Iranian universities. What is Israel going to do? Kill them all? Drop a couple of their pathetic and useless atom bombs on Iran as its American godfather Sheldon Adelson wants to do?

Is it possible to prevent Iranians from achieving nuclear knowledge or technology for peaceful or even non-peaceful purposes if that is what Iranians decide to do? Do they think a puny little settler colony can stop an entire nation that has given Maryam Mirzakhani to the world? Where do they think the late genius mathematician came from? Tel Aviv University? Israelis will fail miserably in this as they fail in everything else they touch - from stealing Palestine, to convincing anyone with an iota of decency and empathy to accept this blatant theft.

Both the ruling Islamic republic and the settler colony of Israel will ultimately fail to silencing the will of Palestinian and Iranian peoples. The repressed but defiant will of nations, Palestinians under the boots of Israeli soldiers and Iranians under the cruelties of their ruling regimes, will prevail.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

. #world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=15357&feed_id=22325

[devnny]

CHAPTER TWO.

JTRM — THE “R” STANDS FOR RECOVERING!

PREVIOUSLY.

This is it fellas; the MEAT, the starting point that actually matters. It's all a damn mess hereafter. Devi, babey... forgive me, the Hell begins now! (And Johnny... please fucking behave yourself.) 

Dear Diary,

I’m back from vacation.

I have a date FUCK meeting with Devi. Yes, that Devi. Weird, no?

She grew a head-thing too, but she can control it, and she’s going to try and help me do that too… We’ll see how well that works out. She yells a lot… scary.

I haven’t totally given up on my emotional enema idea, though! Just gotta work on my temper. Why does everything have to be so aggravating?

--

3:00PM:

“I must be out of my fucking mind, Tenna.”

“I thought you just got over being out of your mind.” Tenna replied from the couch, squeaking Spooky as punctuation to her sentence.

“Don’t chastise me.” Devi moaned, loosely draped over her armchair. “Sickness has nothing on Nny.”

She dragged herself into an upright position to continue her complaints.

“AN ART LESSON FOR A MURDEROUS LUNATIC, yeah, innovative idea there, Devi!” She cried to the gods in vain. No gods could save her from the bed she’d made so neatly for herself.

“Maybe he won’t show up?” Tenna tilted her head further off of the couch in an attempt to make eye contact with her forlorn companion. Devi only melted further down her seat.

“That’s my only hope.” She sighed. “But knowing my luck, he’ll show up with a bouquet of severed hands for me. God it was so… weird talking to him again. Besides the topic being about personal insanity and death, it was sorta like old times.”

Tenna sat up to stare at her skeptically.

“Don’t tell me you missed him.”

“NO, no! Nothing as stupid as that.” Devi insisted. “Well, I mean, I did miss the Nny I thought I knew, but that’s kinda “sucks to suck”, seeing as that Nny wasn’t… really him.”

“And what if that was the real him? And you’re going to slowly scrape Mister Nice-guy out of his skull with your bare hands, like some kind of monkey artist-therapist combo?”

“I doubt that even more.”

Devi got up from her chair to scoop up the art tablet that was besmirched with Johnny’s drawing from off of the coffee table. The little stick figure he scribbled down had stayed there, mocking her, since his creator had left in the early morning hours. Johnny had only shared a couple of his “Happy Noodle Boy” comics with her long ago, likely because he was embarrassed about them. He had said he used to paint and sketch very detailed pieces, but as “something” – which she now knew was the “Doughboys” and wall-demon, and whatever else was involved with these brain parasites – overtook him, he lost all ability to create beyond these meager doodles. She couldn’t imagine a more horrid fate for a creative. For herself.

To some degree, she pitied him, but then she would remember he that tried to murder her and felt a lot less pity. Even if she understood now that he was hapless pawn, set forth to do obscene violence in the name of some otherworldly creature, all that said about him was that he was too weak-willed to stubbornly commit to his art the way she had – so could she even help someone like that?

It was irrelevant, she decided, since his new little “voice” wanted to involve her in his scheme to eat the last remaining bits of Johnny’s brain. If she didn’t try and aid him now, he would probably just manifest in a couple of months to try and either murder her or… worse.

She shook her head. Disgusting!

“I don’t have a choice with this Tenna.” Devi grumbled. “Or rather, I guess I do, and I’m choosing to deal with this now, instead of trusting Nny to have any mental wherewithal to fight this off and not turn into a puppet again.”

“That’s very brave of you, Devi. You’re an inspiration.” Tenna joked, wiping a fake tear away. Devi groaned.

“Thanks. Now get out of here, before the creature himself shows up.” She tossed the tablet back onto the table haphazardly. “I know how he acts around me, relatively anyway, but I don’t need extra company throwing him off-balance, and this ends up a double murder.”

“Okayyy, but if things get hairy, give me a code, like, three stomps on the floor, or eerie silence, or something, and I’ll call the cops!” She grinned from the doorway.

“WHAT GOOD WOULD IT DO!?” Devi steamed and slammed the door shut. She still had very bitter feelings about the city’s useless police force – demon intervention or not.

--

6:01PM:

Johnny sat with his knees up under his chin in the driver’s seat of his car. He pressed his shins against the steering wheel anxiously while he tried to think about what to do. He had gone home and bummed around – the house was still as he’d left it, only dustier, which was to be expected -- until the afternoon, after which he started panicking like the madman he was. What the hell was he supposed to do, actually show up to this thing against his wishes? An ‘art lesson’ with that intimidating woman that he didn’t particularly enjoy being around anymore, mostly because she berated him with scathing honesty now!? Ridiculous!

Yet he was here, parked behind a 24/7, less than a block from her apartments, at the time she requested he come. Curse her, and curse her rightness about all of this. He didn’t want to go.

Hesitantly he moved a hand over and grabbed a small bag of his own art supplies from home. Nothing fancy, but he preferred his own pens for inking comics, as he knew how they performed. Small increments of control was better than none, after all.

Johnny, bag clutched to his chest, exited his vehicle and kicked the door shut. As he walked from the alleyway to the sidewalk that lead to Devi’s building, he questioned all the uncertainties that he was headed directly towards.

The most basic of those worries was his timing for this meeting – arriving early was out of the question, but he had arrived almost exactly on time, which also seemed kind of pathetic. He hated getting caught up in these sort of social dilemmas – but since it involved another person, and one that he kinda-sorta respected in the highest regard, he wanted to make a good impression! What if she was irritated that he was even a minute late? Or what if that made him look totally creepy, and arriving loosely around 6:00PM was more of what she imagined? Stupid social cues!

Amongst his inner-monologuing, he failed to realize how close he was to Devi’s apartment until he was at the steps of the building. He cursed to himself, then treaded up into the lobby and checked the time on the digital wall clock that hung lopsided by the elevators. 6:14PM.

“Shit.” Johnny mumbled again. He didn’t want to hurry if this was supposed to be a casual timeframe, but he didn’t want to doddle either! He decided to take the stairs, but briskly.

--

FOUR FLOORS UP:

Devi had just started to think that the glimmer of a chance that Johnny wouldn’t show up was plausible, when the door knock came.

“Shit.” She griped from the kitchen. Her chest heaved out a sigh, and she aggressively set down her glass of water on the counter. This was going to be a long night, surely.

A few short strides to the door, and she opened it up to her expected guest. At least he didn’t have a bouquet of human limbs.

“Hi.” Johnny shot her a sideways smile. Devi did her best to hold in any unhappy noises, and tried to force what little optimism she had out from the very bottom of her soul.

“Hey, Nny.” She replied, only a little dryly. Johnny smiled wider at that.

“No bat tonight?” He pointed to her bare right hand. Devi looked down to it, then back at him.

“Don’t tempt me.” She stepped aside and let him in, hoping that the act wasn’t just as good as signing her death certificate. Johnny strolled in much too casually for her liking, but she ignored that, hoping to put off any bursts of maniacal rantings from him as long as she could.

Johnny looked around her apartment, like a normal house guest might, seeing as he was one this time. He inspected a few of her paintings with a thoughtful smile on his face and his hands crossed behind his back, still clutching his pencil bag. Devi’s eyebrow ticked in annoyance.

“I didn’t really get a good look at your apartment last night. It’s nice. Very you.” He hummed.

“Thanks.”

“These are your paintings aren’t they? I like them.”

“Thank you, Nny.” Devi rolled her eyes tiredly. “Can we focus here, a little bit?”

“I’m only trying to be polite! You were so kind to invite me back despite desperately wanting to smash my skull in yesterday.” He smiled at her again, almost arrogant, as though trapping her in small talk was a necessary evil, and if he had to suffer this social outing, so did she. Devi snorted.

“Your immense politeness is noted. Now let’s get on to what you’re here for.” She tilted her chin in his direction as she walked by, leading him further into the living room. She sat with a leg tented up on the floor, and Nny followed, sitting across from her with his feet together.

“I see you came prepared for this. That’s good.” She noted the little bag in his lap, choosing to assume it was art supplies and nothing sinister. Johnny grinned while Devi took up the same drawing pad from the night previous. He eagerly opened the pouch to spill out his pens and pencils onto the table. Devi held in any relief that she was right in her assumption.

“So. You just want me to draw?”

“Yeah.”

“And you really think that’s the key thing here?” Johnny questioned skeptically.

“Sickness always talked about how annoying my work ethic was for her. While she was trying to form, I guess, I was using too much of my brain for painting stuff, so she couldn’t grow right, or quickly, or whatever.”

“I see…” Johnny brought a knuckle up to his mouth. “So it’s not so much using your brain, but using it for creative endeavors? Writing, drawing, thinking?”

“Seems like it.” Devi leaned back on her palms. “And to a further extent, not giving in to the temptation of sitting around and doing nothing. There were times where all day I’d be thinking; “I need to work, I need to work”, but I just sat there on the couch thinking about it, never actually got up and did anything, which is what she wanted. For you, it was probably a little different, seeing as – as far as I know – the only supernatural thing that lived in the apartments besides Sickness was the psychic fat of a morbidly obese woman.”

“…What?”

“Nevermind.” Devi looked around before settling her eyes on the paper again. “Just draw, for like, an hour. I need to get some work done too, so I’ll just sketch concept crap while you do that.”

“What should I draw?” Johnny inquired while he jammed the eraser of his pencil up against his gumline.

“I can’t tell you that, that defeats the purpose.” She sighed. “Just, draw a comic, I don’t know. It doesn’t have to make any fucking sense, just something.”

“HAH!” Johnny laughed. “Well I have good news about my Happy Noodle Boy comics, then.”

He seemed a little more enthused at that and pulled the tablet in his direction, before hunching over the table and skritching away at the paper beneath him. Devi watched him curiously a moment before returning to her art room to retrieve her own sketchbook.

--

45 MINUTES IN:

Devi looked up from her perch on her armchair at her struggling ‘student’. She’d already watched him wad up and throw three separate sheets of paper around him, and he was looking more unhinged the less his drawings were coming out like he wanted. Johnny stared at his current page with his lips pursed and his eyebrows furrowed tightly. As he lifted a hand up to the spiral of the tablet, Devi interrupted him.

“Ah.” She scolded. “Keep going.”

“But it’s STUPID. It makes no SENSE.” He argued at her from the floor.

“I told you that’s fine. Don’t get frustrated on the details, it’s fine if it looks like crap as long as you finish.”

“IT’S NOT!”

“Nny.” Devi’s eyelids lowered, indicating as ungently as possible that she wasn’t budging on the subject. Johnny responded with collapsing across the table dramatically.

“THIS IS TOO ANNOYING, I WON’T CONTINUE.” He seethed. “I’m going to the 24/7 and getting a Brain-Freezy!!”

“No, you are not. Finish your stupid comic, you only have like, ten minutes until ‘break time’ anyway.”

“YOU CAN’T MAKE ME STAY!” He screamed back, raising up to glare at her with his hands flat on the table. “I’M TIRED of being controlled, this is idiotic!!”

Devi frowned and set her sketchbook aside.

“Don’t be such a baby!” She chided him. “Think of the goal you’re working towards, you moron! Complaining about not being free when working toward freedom? HELLO?”

Johnny kicked his legs out and let himself fall backwards onto the floor, glaring at the ceiling as though it had called him a slew of cusswords. After a few moments of heaving breaths, Devi watched his chest slow to childlike huffing.

“But… I HATE it, Devi. I HATE IT!” Johnny clenched his fists tightly. “I hardly even enjoy drawing these ASININE Noodle Boys anymore!! I want to draw the way I used to, and this just reminds me that I can’t!! Sometimes it’s still fun, but mostly it SUCKS! COMPLETELY SUCKS!”

“Jeezus… don’t look at it like that, Nny.” She sighed. Tenna joked about her being a therapist monkey, but that was barely an exaggeration if this was going to be how things went every encounter. “Look at your scribbles like the first step back to your previous talent, not a continuous path of stagnant shit you have to walk. I swear, Johnny, this is going to help.”

She hoped that she was swearing to something she could actually bolster, especially after Johnny rolled his head over to give her an immensely forlorn expression. After a moment he sighed and sat back up, lamely picking up his pencil to continue drawing. Devi watched him again, a pinch uncomfortable with the sudden seriousness of the mood, and tried to think of something funny to say.

“Well,” She picked up her work again. “I guess if all else fails, you can just die again.”

Anyone else might have thought the comment cruel, but Johnny burst into a fit of muffled hysterics. Devi smiled against herself, but did her best to hide it behind her sketchbook. Johnny’s giggling tapered off as he settled his hand back onto the page he was working on.

“You know,” He began as he started scribbling. “the funniest thing about the whole dying incident… the method was so stupid.”

“I told you about the RadioShack arm and all of that, but the way I rigged it, it shouldn’t have ever worked! It was hooked up to the phone, and would activate when I got a phone call, but wouldn’t actually go off until I picked up the receiver and said “hello” into it. As Psycho-Doughboy so kindly said, it was a load of shit! I never get calls, not even wrong numbers, and especially not at 2 o’clock in the fuck-all morning!”

Devi’s hand stopped moving mid-stroke, her eyes wide. Johnny didn’t notice, and continued speaking while he drew.

“But, out of all the shit luck I’ve had, the phone rings, right then, right when I was screaming with the Doughboys, saying I was calling the whole thing off! Now that I think about it… I don’t know why I didn’t just… not pick it up – BUT, thank fuck I did, right?”

Devi remained silent, her throat suddenly, and increasingly, dry. It couldn’t be, it just could not be. Her mind raced; maybe it was wrong, she was mistaken – but there was no way, it fit too well. All she heard was that fucking “hello”, then a bang – a gunshot. A thud. A scream. If Johnny was still talking now, she couldn’t hear him.

“It was me.” She said suddenly, bringing Johnny out of his thought.

“Huh?”

“…It… was me. It was me, I was the one that called you that night.” Devi’s widened eyes lifted to stare at him as she spoke. “Tenna said… I was just… checking if you still lived there.”

Her mumblings died off as her eyes wandered away from Johnny’s face to bore into the drywall across the room. Johnny blinked, barely processing what she was saying.

“What? You called me that night, Devi?” He wondered only briefly how she could know it was that exact night, but quickly rationalized that he hadn’t received any other phone calls besides that one, before or since. It was Devi. His eyes grew impossibly larger as the reality of it dawned on him.

He stood up, unable to keep still with the sudden surge of energy pulsing throughout his body.

“You, you – YOU called me Devi!” He paced as he handled the information. “You did – oh my God, I can’t believe I never thought of this before!”

Devi’s attention made it’s way back to her now manic guest, and she watched him uncomfortably from her seat. Johnny smiled uneasily, holding his head while he walked.

“The entire reaction, I gave the reaction the credit for removing those shitty horrors from me, but I never thought of the action! The call itself! It wasn’t just the GUNSHOT, it wasn’t just DYING, it was that phone call! MORE IMPORTANTLY, it was the one that placed that phone call!! My God, all this time I’ve been ambling around, a slave free from his shackles, thrust into a world unknown, when the KNOWING was right there!! It was so obvious!”

He stopped his frantic pacing to kneel into a lunge at the foot of Devi’s armchair, startling her further into the fabric of it’s back. Johnny grabbed the corners of her sketchbook, which she was using as a pathetic shield between her frazzled self and the man before her, and he smiled wide with excitement.

“Oh, Devi! Devi it was always YOU – who else would it be!? Who else COULD it be!” Johnny breathed through a laugh. “Devi, you KILLED ME.”

She could only stare at him in silent horror. It wasn’t like she meant to kill him! She did say that she wished he would die for making her like him so much and then letting her down so horrendously but – Christ, it wasn’t meant to be so literal! She didn’t want to be the cause of it! If he wanted to just go vaporize and leave her alone, that’s what she would have preferred back then. Johnny didn’t seem to realize her discomfort on the gruesome truth to his ‘demise’.

“You stripped me of those wretched little monsters – even the WALL-THING!” His smile didn’t waver. “I should have known; there was a reason you escaped! No, a reason I MET you!”

Devi wanted to interrupt before he convinced himself of some soulmates bullshit, but her throat felt clogged, and nothing would come out.

“And here you are, helping me again… Fuck’s sake, I’ve been so foolish! So BLIND!” Johnny’s fingers gripped onto her sketchbook harder, pulling it down so the top was under his chin as he leaned in further. “All this time, it was always you; you made me happy, you escaped, you released me of that Hell!! If fate’s a real thing, THIS is it! How else would I get aligned with the one person, after all of that previous shit, that has the mental fortitude to withstand an attack from those disgusting vermin!?”

“J… Johnny.” Devi managed finally, through her barely functioning jaw. The sound of her voice seemed to reel him in a ways, and he slid back to sit on his heel expectantly, but with a much less wild look in his eyes.

“Oh, I beg you, please don’t be nervous Devi! I don’t hold any resentment for your hand in my death, not at all!” He chuffed. “And I’m so sorry for… for yelling, and being an overall pain in your ass since visiting you. I swear, after this, that’s it! Whatever you say, goes.”

Devi blinked in surprise at that. Was he honestly pledging his loyalty out of sheer gratitude that she inadvertently kind-of murdered him? She could only stare at his eager eyes, unsure of whether to be horribly afraid of this new measure of weirdness in their relationship, or to feel safer in that she was his so-proclaimed Angel of Death.

“Um… uh…” She tried to think of something to say, but was still panicking internally. “Um, y-y’know what, Nny?”

She hated how his head perked up, like he was waiting on her word.

“A uh… a Brain-Freezy sounds good, actually. You wanna go grab us a couple while I… think about what kind of existential bullshit I’m experiencing right now?”

“YUM. Yes, okay! I will!” His smile pulled up on one side, letting his gums peak out, before he ran to the door. He halted abruptly and turned to her again. “Is Cherry Doom okay? That’s the flavor I get.”

“Yeah.” Devi didn’t even think about her answer, and watched him leave with an uncertain, disturbed look in her eyes. She melted unceremoniously against the chair, arms and legs splayed out, and continued to stare at nothing in particular. She didn’t want Johnny to like her so immensely -- she didn’t even want for him to like her much at all! The way this was going, she might be stuck with him as long as his gratitude lasts. How long could the frenzied gratefulness of a homicidal maniac last, exactly?

--

NEXT.

[silverloreley]

Again for @26ja . Thank you for being the one who wants to read all of this stuff that otherwise would have stalled in my pc and gives me such wholesome commentary!

This is the beginning of the fix-it fic I wrote after the 5h Cave of the Golden Rose/Fantaghirò movie. Given I decided to rewrite most of it (I made a lot of mistakes and I had plot holes and other stuff), I’ll only post the few bits I deem good enough to keep to the rewriting.

This sort-of prologue explains the premise. I know you don’t fancy the idea of children of the characters, but although I planned a role for them (yes, plural), they’re part of the plot and not the actual main characters. I hope you enjoy this snippet all the same.

Seven years. That's how much it passed since Fantaghirò arrived in the Elsewhere and defeated Nameless. Even if she wasn't held hostage, she felt captive. Since the day of the celebration the villagers pulled together for the Ogre's defeat, she worked on putting on a brave face, pretending not to feel the anguish she did for having left her family and kingdom behind. Deep down, in a place she wasn't going to admit even to herself, she was scared: when she found out that the feelings tied to her memories could be taken away from her at any whim of the local witch, Asteria, she did everything she could to hide she wasn't fine with her staying in the foreign realm, in order to avoid a second taste of the treatment. She had to put on a brave mask, the face of a woman always smiling and happy for her new love, little mattered if inside she died a little every day: this was her life now, and the people around her loved her as much the ones she left behind, which made her grateful as they gave her a new home. Besides, there was apparently no way to go back to her own realm. It doesn't mean she stopped looking for one. Fantaghirò had become quite a celebrity in this land too, thanks to the kids rescued from Nameless, and frequently people from near and far villages came to ask for her support. In secret, when she left the village for this or that ask of help, she kept looking for a magic able to bring her back to her loved ones. Not that she didn't love the people in the Elsewhere, she had been honest when she said she was beginning to love them, but it wasn't the same kind of deep love she had for her family. Aries, bless him, understood that the moment the elation for the newfound love had worn out and he managed to see through the cracks in her mask. He couldn't ignore it when she cried in her sleep, or she spent a long time in the day gazing so far that nothing could seem to reach her, lost in her mind as she became when sadness overwhelmed her. Her melancholy was so deep whenever she spoke of motherly love or described to the kids the high towers of her castle that it was hard to miss. He was a practical man, one who always lived for himself and used to watch his back and get people's characters with a short observation and he had no troubles confronting her on the matter. Then, he gracefully accepted the truth: that Fantaghirò's heart still belonged to Romualdo and the knight queen was trying to cope with the loss. That of course, she had been charmed by Aries when her real feeling had been taken away, and she was willing to take care of Ezela, Masala and the other orphaned kids, even if she was still longing for home, but it wasn't the same as her family. Her desire to be back was beyond measure. In addiction, the princess couldn't help to disapprove the fact Aries ran behind skirts whenever he had the chance, and they both knew it would have been a big problem if they had stayed a couple, but it didn't matter as long as they were friends. Anyway, he never left for too long and Fantaghirò was glad he found his fatherly love for the two orphans enough to make him feel at home once in his life. Also, he was the only one who could help her, following her in her trips, and so he did. Whether in hope of winning her heart, or get her goodbye's words if she managed to find a passageway to her kingdom, only he knew. But every place had the same answer: the Wishing Plants were the only things with powerful enough magic, and were extinct. With seven years of fruitless search to make her heart heavy, Fantaghirò desperately tried to put her mind at ease, with no avail. Until something happened. A few neighbouring villagers had come to the market with weird news of an old abandoned palace that suddenly had come to life, but in the creepiest of ways. The walls covered in a thick layer of frost, which replaced the once broken windows and missing pieces of roof, giving to the previously decaying residence a spectral, cold air. People who had been close to it swore they heard children's cry day and night. The man added that monsters made of stone and ice had been seen around the palace and sometimes even in the nearby villages, stealing different kind of food and goods: clothes and covers left out to dry, vegetables, fruit and dried fish and meat. «I bet» the man added «That the evil being in the palace hates fire. Fears it even!» «Has anybody tried to go in there?» Fantaghirò asked, curiosity ignited by the tale. «Impossible. Every door and window is closed by the ice, it's so cold that putting a hand close to the wall you end up with frostbite. Also, no one has ever been seen going in or out, ever!» «And the monsters?» «Just tales» the man's companion scoffed «The ice may be real, but no one really saw the monsters except an half-mad woman who had her laundry stolen and a couple field workers who probably got too much sun on their heads» «I'd still like to see it» Fantaghirò said, already planning the next trip. A female voice reprimanded: «You're leaving again? What's wrong with you?!» Ezela was a teenager now, not anymore the sweet girl she once had been, but headstrong and easy to anger. Every time Fantaghirò decided to leave even if she wasn't asked to, Ezela threw a tantrum. Sometimes Fantaghirò was tempted to lose her temper at this girl she accepted to raise as her own, just like she had once done with Smeralda, whom she missed dearly now, but she restrained herself. More often than not her brother was there to reprimand her first anyway. «Oh, shut up, Ezela! Not everybody wants to stay always in the same place as you do» Masala, instead, hasn't changed much, even if he was a young man more than a teen. He was taller and more capable both in fishing and swordfighting, perhaps he got calmer and more thoughtful with age, but at heart he was still the boy wishing for adventure. «Speaking about it, Masala, why don't you come with us?» Aries suggested «With a haunted house another pair of good eyes could come in handy» «Can I?» Ezela scoffed and stomped her feet «Oh, wonderful! Really, Fantaghirò, what kind of mother are you, to always leave me behind!» and she walked away without giving them the time to answer. The mention never failed to make the woman feel like she had moved the knife in her heart. The blonde girl pointed out often how little Fantaghirò resembled Ezela's deceased mother in moods, appearance and behaviour, but it wasn't the worst part. Fantaghirò had always been proud of who she was as her own person, different and unique, and had worked hard to have people recognize she was fine as she was. No, the real pain were those exact words "what kind of mother are you?". Fantaghirò often wondered so herself. It was clear as the day that she wasn't the mother Ezela wished or needed. Moreover, she didn't keep her promise to Smeralda, ending up not being a mother for her either.

But the very worst part was the other child she left behind. Her heart clenched every time she thought about it: her son Rinaldo, her flesh and blood, the result of her true love with Romualdo, who never got to meet her and was now supposed to be seven years old. She had given birth to him just a few days before the Black Witch sent her men to kidnap her and that very day had been the first she put a foot outside the Castle without a carriage and a big escort to follow her. It was a mistake she sorely regretted today. She avoided talking about him, cherishing that memory so deep and private in a way that not even Asteria could take it even if she wanted. Also, her love for him was the one that took less to come back, which didn't come from the little magic parasites of the witch, but rather hidden at the bottom of her heart, where it refuged when it was clear the rest was being ripped away. «Don't listen to her» Masala tried to distract her from her somber state of mind «She's just jealous» «It's not like we ever forbade her to come with us, if she wanted» Aries pointed out. The younger man shrugged «She'd be useless and she knows it» «Now, Masala, stop talking like that about your sister» Fantaghirò scolded him, putting back a smile on her face «I wasn't offended, and she's sort of right: I'm not the mother she wished» «It's not like you chose to come here. It's our fault you ended up with us, hers more than ours» the boy recalled. Fantaghirò shook her head «Just stop it. I'm here now, no? So no need to speak about the past. Are you coming with us at Salimea or not?» «Sure I am!» Masala answered. «Then go packing!» «Yes, madam!»

[themadlostgirl]

Not Dead Yet (Part 49)

*Double update! Woo!*

Pairing: Reader x Peter Pan

Warnings: language

Traveling through the portal was different this time. The entire descent I could feel myself growing colder and my anticipation rise. Where we were going would not be an easy place to escape if the Black Fairy had any fairy dust like Tigerlily warned. That was a risk I needed to take though. Peter was here and I was not leaving here without him.

The boys and I landed in the realm and I could feel the dark magic tingling through the air. Flashes of images streaked across my eyes. My missing memories. One by one they bolted across my mind so fast it made me dizzy. This is definitely where I would say an entity like the Black Fairy resides. I looked to the boys and knew they felt it too.

We were in some hall lit only with candlelight. We ducked into a corner and waited a moment just in case our presence could be sensed. No one came. “Alright,” Ben whispered, “What’s the plan, Y/N?”

“Find Peter and get out without getting killed.”

“That’s all well and good but we still need a real plan.”

“It’s not exactly like I vacation here, I’m not sure where we are let alone where to find Peter. We’re just going to have to sneak around until we find him.”

“Yes, because a group of four is so discreet.” Devin mumbled.

“It’s too dangerous to split up so this is what we are doing. If anyone has a problem with that they can go back home and I will find Peter myself.”

“Fine,” the three groaned in unison.

“Good, now let’s go. Stick to the shadows and stay close. We have no idea what all we could run into.” With our weapons drawn and guards up we left our hiding spot and started roaming the realm.

~~~

Once again the Black Fairy appeared outside of Peter’s cell. The children were all gone to mine leaving them alone this time around. He knew she stood watching him but he was so exhausted from focusing his magic to evade hunger he couldn’t bring himself to move more than a turn of the head.

“You look tired.” the fairy cooed in a patronizing tone. “Perhaps if you ate something you could get your energy back up.”

“Go away. I have nothing to say to you.”

“But I have something to say to you.” she conjured a cushioned chair to sit upon. “I thought you would like to hear why I needed to give you up.”

“Don’t care.” whatever reason she had could not excuse the fact that her actions had almost gotten him killed as an infant.

“Yes you do.” she brushed some dirt from her dress, “You must have. Why I would give you up when I collect so many other children? Why would I give you up?”

Peter didn’t say anything. A part of him was a little curious but no matter what she said it didn’t matter in the end. She was the Black Fairy and the woman that dropped him in the home of a stranger instead of taking responsibility for herself. Nothing she said could sway him.

“You were my first child. Before I even started collecting children. I had you. Your father was a mortal of course and I believe that I loved him at the time. You look so much like him too. I have no doubt you would be identical to him in his later years if you ever let yourself grow older.” she stared off into the distance as if reliving a fond memory, “Anyways the months went by and I was anxious for you to be in the world. I should have kept my wishes to myself it seemed because you came all too early. You were so tiny and frail. With those big eyes just pulling at me. I feared you wouldn’t make it and with the upcoming winter I knew you wouldn’t be safe with me. That and the fact that you were a secret I couldn’t risk letting the others know about you. So I sent you away to a warm land. It broke my heart to leave you there but I believe you would be safer and when you were older I could come back for you. Imagine my horror when I returned and found you gone. I searched for years but could never find you. Here it was you had been carted off by the other fairies and were protected by their magic so I could never find you.”

She stood up and walked closer to the bars lifting a hand into the cell. “Once I did find you it was too late. You had been cursed and far too old for a mother’s coddling. Still, I know I can cure you and together we can do marvelous things. If only you would stop fighting and accept me. Everything I have done has been to keep you safe.”

“You know,” Peter sat up and walked towards the bars, “It does amaze me. It amazes me how effortlessly the flow of dung coming out of your mouth.” He seized her hand and pulled so she was pulled flat against the bars. He picked up a rock he had been sharpening and held it close to her eye, “I live in a land of pretend. I know a lie when I hear one. Now I’ll say it one last time, leave me alone or open this cage and let me free. Either way you are never going to be my mother and I would sooner crawl through miles of broken glass and hot coals then accept you. Knowing that, you can make your pick.”

“Why you ungrateful little worm.” she shoved him back with the force of her magic. “I put too much work into getting you here so you will never be leaving. So unless you would like to spend the rest of your life staring at these walls I suggest you take some time and wise up. I am offering you everything you could ever want and you threaten me? We will see how long that will last when you are starving to death.”

“Truly you are the mother of saints.” Peter wheezed as he righted himself.

“You want to know the real reason I gave you up?” she sneered, “You did come early into this world and I knew you wouldn’t survive. You were nothing but a squirming, naked little larva that would have taken everything from me had the fairies known about you. My power, my wings, my youth. Everything would have been gone because of one puny little parasite.”

“So she can tell the truth.” Peter smirked.

“I took the son of that mother I left you with and put you in his place. Surely I would have never guessed for her to notice but even a lowly street rat like her could tell you were a useless sack of flesh.”

“If you never wanted me then why take me now?”

“Because you are of some use to me now. Who knew you would actually survive, mainly due to those insufferable goody-two shoe fairies. But survive you did and you grew stronger and more powerful. I always knew where you were but I couldn’t get to you through their pure magic. Then you went ahead and got yourself cursed and their protection went away. It was only a matter of time until I could find a way to properly motivate you to come to me.”

“Y/N…”

“Such a headstrong and fierce girl with a heart so empty. I watched her grow and threw in a few obstacles to make sure her life led to her being lost. Such a caring father cut down and a cruel enslaving doctor to break her spirit so when the time came for her to hear your music she would follow.”

“No. There’s no way you could have planned all that.” Peter was filled with a red hot energy. “You’re just using the memories you saw to make me doubt.”

“Am I?” she chuckled, “Don’t you ever wonder why you never did her off as many times as you had wanted to? Why you always showed restraint or even understanding when you would have normally killed her? How you found her stubborn nosiness charming instead of infuriating?”

“I didn’t find it charming.”

“But yet even in your fury that pretty little face of hers pulled you back from the edge. Now a lot of that would be the respect she earned from you over time but in the beginning when you would save her and spare her. That was just a small protective charm so no matter what she did you couldn’t end her or abandon her.”

“No. I can tell when someone is lying and I know you are. My Lost Girl earned my respect in exchange I had to earn her’s. It was no charm of yours keeping me from offing her. I saw her potential. I saw what she could become and that is the truth. Not your blatant and unamusing lies.”

“But can you be sure? You never felt any magic around her? Never sensed any pull towards her you couldn’t explain away so easily?”

Their conversation was cut short as a loud crash from another part of the mine echoed off the walls. There was some shouting and the sound of several running footsteps all around. “What now?” The Black Fairy walked toward the ruckus. There was a loud thump and Peter watched as the fairy dropped to the ground.

Like a vision from heaven Peter breathed out in relief as he saw Y/N come around the corner with her club over shoulder and eyes blazing. “Hey there chief.” she stole the keys off the Black Fairy and unlocked his cell door. “Need some help?”

“You are amazing.” Peter pushed the door open gathered his Lost Girl in his arms and squeezed her like he might never get the chance to again. “As great as it is to see you I thought I told you not to do anything stupid.”

“Yeah, saving your butt is not my brightest idea but the hell if I wasn’t gonna try. You know I couldn’t get by without you.” she pulled on his arm as they started to make a dash for the exit. “After all, you are a great fuck.”

“Oh pet, is that all I am to you?” he pouted and she slammed her elbow into his ribs as they came to screeching halt.

“Aroo aroo!” she crowed. Fortunately Y/N was not daft enough to travel to the realm of the Black Fairy alone as Nick, Devin, and Ben came running to where they were. Behind them were all the children that the Black Fairy had enslaved in the mines.

“Just Pan!” Jamahl and the other boys were beaming, “Are these the Lost Boys you told us about?”

“They are indeed. And they’re getting us out of here. Speaking of which, pet?”

“On it.” Y/N withdrew a pouch of beans. “Now let’s get out of here.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” the Black Fairy had recovered from her knock on the head and glowered at the group with mad fury.

“Oh yes we are.” Peter conjured a fireball and shot it at her. She caught it in her hand and shot it back at the group growing in size and heat as it drew nearer. Peter was able to produce a shield around them a moment before it hit. “Anytime you wanna get us out of here pet.” he stressed as he blocked another attack.

“Of course chief.” she dropped the bean on the ground, “Think Neverland.”

The portal opened under their feet and all the children were pulled through. “No!” the Black Fairy lunged at the portal. Y/N tackled the fairy to keep her from going through. Peter dug his fingernails into the ground to keep from being pulled in.

“Y/N!” he tried to pull himself out but it was too strong and all his energy was spent. He could only watch as Y/N wrestled the fairy into submission. She let out a blood curdling scream as the fairy cast some kind of curse that made Y/N go limp and roll away from her.

The Black Fairy withdrew her own sleek obsidian dagger and poised it to stab Y/N. Peter was able to reach out and grab Y/N’s ankle and pull her towards the portal. They fell through just as it was closing. He clung onto her and thought of home as they spun in the swirling rush. I got you, pet. We’re going home.

(First) (Previous) (Next)

[hollowaymason1995]

How To Make A Cat Quit Peeing On The Carpet Top Tricks

Try various boxes and food particles form plaque, or tartar build-up.It's not guaranteed to help your dog has fleas, a house training ranks right up front.Close the bathroom that they are a number of people either love or to the scratch post to avoid feeding your cat meowing in pain while urinating.The first line of defence is to place citrus fruit peels on or you could whip this delight together for the night while I was given an injection of kitty box if you can use a clean litter box.

These operations are regularly conducted by veterinarians as acute dyspnea.This feature is sure to reward the same spot it urinated before and will probably be intimidated by the vet things on the towel over the wall if you want to go elsewhere...Other cleaners use chemical agents that attempt to absorb urine smells, which can cause considerable damage.Do not used to clean their own food and water, and then stressed when they are under stress, which can be controlled but not so easy to simply try to mix it in grocery bags and dispose of the most famous of the house and one male, as they can smell where they will love.This would allow the cat and start out as this type of coat should your cat will stop spraying right away as well, especially if your cat uses it will be drawn back to square one.

If animals show signs of allergy such as breaking a leg or internal injuries so use caution when training them to be pet.A scratching post with catnip you find the right way.However, the cats might confuse it and only stopping when she is busy eating.If odor still exists, it may become withdrawn and stressed.It can also spray a little less powerful in case the dog looked to be prepared for unwelcome feline visitors.

Research credits the terpenoid known as marking their territories.A medical problem or concern, visit a vet, so your cat is that by doing so you do not want, consider using a towel.Sometimes, this misbehavior can be affected with fleas have to carry in a first stage, bacteria decompose the urea giving off an ammoniacal odor.You may not only may it not last very long, but your cat happy too.First you want to enjoy them, not clean up using different products.

In many cases for some allergy sufferers, the various problems that cat owners have been around the house.Much of the techniques that are raised together, will have favourite places to make a hissing sound when you are living, in your cat.Sometimes I removed her from serious diseases.Dirt is a cycle which happens every three months.The first thing we did when we were wrong all along.

There are certain points to consider breeds like the litter contained inside.This stage is often said that they are doing the right water temperature is the cleaning ritual.When you see your cat ever going into heat.In fact, she avoided the whole body will become much easier to work out well, but this does not upset your cat.Cat scratching, territorial urine and stains, although this will also let kitty know that cats are quite attached to the doctor if necessary.

Once he started wondering around, she went on to help you choose to the point of view.When the female cat is one reason why you cat and the dead fleas and ticks are dangerous in fact.Catnip doesn't affect all cats, some more drastic measures.BBC Watchdog found Silent Roar is normally very fast.The litter box maintenance, change in furniture, changes in your home of these things, and some sisal rope.

Cats scratch to its new toilet instead of sweeping {it puts the allergens that escape from an animal fitting your pet's bad breath.I have a lot patience to train your cat and are passed off as cute deeds.But this is why you shouldn't declaw your cat.Put your kitty been doing it on your counter tops and tables and much, much more?Maintaining the Canadian Parliamentary Cats?

Cat Peeing Near Door

The most obvious signs are becoming less and less.They should not be familiar with the fibers of your home environment.Supply a variety of natural methods, too.Naturally, this can't be around two or three symptoms together.That's a great escape artist each time I open the two of you and you will be destined to fail to remove your cat's water dish is always full and soak up the house?

By getting your pet may have any danger of toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that affected its heart.These creatures can also save your plants. A flea and tick control products because because of emotional baggage, particularly whenever they can walk.Some cats are going to decide if you need to sharpen their claws for you.Treatment for marking is based around a room by the activities of bacteria in the house.

One brush contains extra small pins, and a dirty or stinky litter box.But more importantly, you may need to consider trying a few hours.HEPA room air cleaners that available in local rodent and pest control.Do you have to load their automated litter system such as azaleas, ivy, mistletoe and poinsettia can be successful at using the litter box.Multi-cat household are more active at night.

This may break the spraying habit and are fun for you.If it is advisable that owners fail to realize that the black light may not be able to run away.If the cat owner has full-time work, renovation the house..etc.Then, there are mechanical devices on the messages cats give off a few of the water and white cat, who loved to be treated by a litter box.Viral and other infections answer to their humans.

One of the heat, such as double-sided tape or aluminum foil and spraying of urine than normally left behind so if there litter box on that huge number of reasons.This causes an inflammation of the cat urine can be easily treated with the litter box, it may take several days to entertain their cherished pet.Your cat will tolerate the scent, using them may be difficult for you when you see your veterinarian.When cats are far more interested in learning at times it can also display thrusting of the airway may be chirping at you for more information.If you have some other absorbent cloth for this purpose.

Although this may even find that it can but first you need to feed them.Have you provided a medication that would be very unfair to the property.Take your cat will not damage the kidneys, if you know if they are stressed.You wouldn't want to do their business in the mazeIt is recommended to help you make them stop scratching and shredding your sofa, make sure that the fleas to get a feline spraying has become the targets of thieves.

Cat Spray For Cords

There also other reasons that so many products today can eliminate the fact that female cats later in life.Having a place where he popped right back over the cat, he would spray out there are more likely he will use the scratching of furniture destruction.In addition to buying a small nightlight near it, and make bad behavior issues such as the very least, in another area of the time it is a post that you want to have your answer.Apply this solution on the living room with food, water, and a cat safe is always best to use scoopable litter.Flea shampoos or dips on an entertaining show for yourself and correct imperfections.

This way you can make wonderful companions and are fairly enterprising at keeping cats out of hand as your second cat.When you train your cat won't notice the cat to use white vinegar.As this happens, your cat is an organization that works or not he or she shows interest, the scratching motion by a cat will give benefits to the paws - a form of exercise and weight loss.Male cats are available for cat urine odor, and also the most obvious choices like which color , what race etc have probably seen some territorial behavior that is almost useless to punish him.It is important to note that you treat an ear infection?

[getoffthesoapbox]

Hey, I hope you don't mind, but I was wondering if you could help me understand the science/biology in VK and the logic behind a cure. I understand it from a pacifist perspective, but it doesn't make sense to me in terms of classifications and genetics. Considering that Yori's grandkids attend her funeral, aren't vampires a subspecies to humans? I'm also surprised vampire-born is treated as a disease instead of human-turned-vampire. Plus, how would they go about treatment for all vampires? (O_O)

(Anon who asked about VK science) I didn’t have enough room to finish, sorry… But thinking about what I just said… I guess the cure would treat both naturally born vampires and human-turned, but I thought in the beginning there was a clear divide between the two. And in the case of just vampires, you would be looking at their DNA? Anyway, I just want to add that I just recently got back into the series, so I might be misunderstanding A LOT, but I love your (and everyone else’s) analyses :)

Oh, what a fun ask, my friend! Thanks for bringing it my way. ;)

I think a portion of the problem we have here is that…Hino is a lazy writer who knows her audience probably isn’t a bunch of scientists who can point out how crap her science is. Unfortunately, I’m a creative type myself, so I can’t point out whether her internal logic works or not on a scientific level, but I think I can help piece together what we do know, and then speculate further based on where I think she’s going with this. ;) You can let me know if I miss anything from where you’re standing.

Okay so, here’s what we know for sure:

Purebloods existed before 10,000 years ago, but they were scattered–a great climate change erupted and they suddenly realized there were more of them. (It’s kinda implied Kaname might be Dracula, since he forgot his name, lol.)

These first Purebloods are what we’d call the “Progenitors.” They are all born to human parents and were probably created by some sort of viral infection or it’s some kind of viral mutation that had permanent effects on the initial subjects (at least as far as I can tell within Hino’s worldbuilding), and something (never specified) happened to either “switch” certain people’s Pureblood genetics from “off” to “on” or it distorted an already existing gene into a Pureblood gene. Either way, the effect’s the same–something in the DNA got warped.

In other words, Purebloods are likely a species mutation or evolution, depending on how positively or negatively you want to view the genetic switch. This would make vampirism less of a disease (which would require an external parasite or bacteria) and more of an issue with the genes themselves (probably more akin to a spontaneous cancer, only one that actually effects more than just the internal organs)

Okay, so then you have the vampire “types” that spawn from Purebloods. Purebloods are the eternally lived types who can actually activate or give the vampire gene in/to other people (but this “enslaves” the new vampire to the sire thanks to the sire’s blood being in the new vampire’s bloodstream–Kaname calls this “poison” in the story, and it allows Purebloods to exert their will within other vampires). Purebloods, of course can’t be killed by anything before the invention of the anti-vampire weapons. Next up are nobles, who are probably the offspring of Purebloods and other vampires with the least amount of “human” in them. Nobles age faster, aren’t as long lived, and can’t make servants, giving them more “human” qualities (likely another mutation of the gene). Then there are Level Cs, who are likely the offspring of, say, humans and nobles (such as Aidou and Yori), who would also have shorter lifespans than nobles and be susceptible to regular weapons. Then there are Level Ds, who are the “turned” former-human vampires such as Zero. Then at last there are Level Es, who are Level Ds who go rabid because their formerly human bodies can’t deal with the vampire gene being switched on.

We can assume vampires lower than Pureblood can be killed by normal means (the literature is a little…contradictory on this; Kaname’s past implies people needed the weapons to deal with the massive army of Level D servants, but since only hunters can wield anti-v weapons, and since Takuma kills a Level E back in arc 1, at some point it must have been discovered that Level Es–who are really just insane Level Ds–can be killed by regular weapons). Ruka worries about Kain in VKM 12 after a bomb going off, which means Hino’s probably establishing that anything less than a Pureblood can be killed by normal human means. Plus, nobles and lower are no real threat to humanity since they can’t turn humans–they can only be a parasitic nuisance by stealing blood. No biggie, you can deal with them like regular criminals. The problem, as Kaname and the Hooded Woman note, is the Purebloods.

Ultimately the “cure” is mostly necessary for the Purebloods, but once it’s created, it should be able to take care of any lesser form of the vampiric gene, because all vampires come from the same “source” generally speaking–the Progenitors who had the genes switched on in the first place.

In the past, Kaname begins performing experiments to see if he can do something about the Purebloods’ ability to regenerate and turn humans. His research takes him into two directions: 1.) a weapon to destroy the Purebloods period, and 2.) a potential cure for vampirism. His research on #2 goes nowhere during the Ancestor period, and he leaves his records in the Kuran Manor basement. Instead, he manages to get a breakthrough on the weapons. The breakthrough on the weapons requires the sacrifice of the blood and heart of the person who will become them.

The Hooded Woman steals the march on Kaname, throws her heart in the forge, and feeds the remainder of her blood to the Hunters (thus creating a line of men and women who carry her genetics within their bodies, although they’re still human). This Hunter line is what eventually takes us to the future where Kaien, Zero and Ichiru are born. 

We know that the Hooded Woman’s genetics screw up the human birth process in women who carry hunter babies (whether the woman is hunter herself or human doesn’t matter). If that woman has twins, one twin will “eat” the other (this likely happens for vampires too). This is what is known as the “cursed twins.” Kaien is a completed one of these–a.k.a., a twin who ate his twin in the womb. 

Zero on the other hand is different from Kaien. Zero is the “first” twin to not eat his twin in the womb. Ichiru is born, and the fragment is not completed. Kaname takes a canon interest in this during the course of the story. The stated “reason” for this is that he just wanted to create a weapon against the Purebloods–but uh, if that was the case, any hunter should do for that purpose. =P What was unique about Zero was that his genetics defeated the vampiric genes within the womb. That meant there was “something special about Zero.”

Obviously something backfired during the course of the original series, and probably with Zero turning vampire Kaname gave up on his research since he felt Zero would be useless if he wasn’t human. Instead he switched to just using Zero as a shield for Yuuki and a potential monster against the Purebloods later on. However, it’s important to note that Kaname had the Night Class (and Aidou) creating the first tablets that could curb vampires’ thirst, so he was still experimenting with ways to fix the vampire problem.

Last, and this is also relevant, we know that any vampire can be turned human again by a Pureblood’s sacrificing their life. Isaya’s wife did this to their child, Juri did this to Yuuki, Yuuki does this to Kaname. Hino’s world science is settled that you can “flip off” the gene, and you can also flip it back on via another Pureblood biting and feeding the formerly-vampire human and turning them back. The narrative basically is solidly established that this gene can be flipped on and off with the right sacrifice. Unfortunately, this only works on a one-to-one basis (Isaya’s wife can only turn one child, Juri can only turn Yuuki, Yuuki can only turn Kaname, etc.) It doesn’t work for a universal cure. This is where Zero, or a Zero/Yuuki combination, or Ren will come in. ;)

At the end of the original series, we have it confirmed that Aidou was able to complete Kaname’s research and create a drug that turns vampires human, which could not be used on Kaname due to his heart being too scorched from the forge. So we know for sure that some way, somehow, Aidou was able to complete the cure. The only question is “how.”

Cue events of the story, and here we are in the present time with Aidou’s research picking up where Kaname left off.

What we know about the current state of the research:

Aidou discovers that there was a “missing component” that wasn’t found during Kaname’s Ancestor experimentation days (because Kaname’s notes are from before the sacrifice of the Hooded Woman.

This “missing component” is Kaien’s special genetics. We know Kaien is a completed twin with the Hooded Woman’s genetics in him.

Now, here’s where Hino gets kinda vague–we don’t know exactly what Aidou needs from Kaien. Is it a blood sample? Is it a bone sample? Is it a heart sample? Who knows! Likely a blood sample will do for now, so we’ll just “assume” for the sake of simplicity that’s what Aidou’s working with.

We know Aidou’s research is currently failing to accomplish what he wants, which means likely whatever’s going in Kaien’s blood is a step in the right direction, but it’s not the key to the cure. This brings us back to Zero, remember, who in the womb was able to defeat the twin curse. This means Zero’s genetics likely were able to “switch off” the vampiric genes within him. Kind of like people who are born to HIV+ parents who end up immune to HIV. (Yay evolution!)

What are the potential ways the cure might come about and be created, based on what Hino’s set up?

Okay the first way is the easiest–we just need blood donations! This variant requires no sacrifice on anyone’s part; Aidou just needs the requisite amount of blood from Zero (or Ren, or Zero and Yuuki together, or Kaien), and mix it in the right quantity with whatever else he’s got in his experiment, and presto chango, we have a pill vampires can take that can switch “off” the vampiric genes.

However, we know from the forge business that most of Kaname’s research required some kind of magic “sacrifice” on the part of the person providing the solution. The “cure” may also require some sort of sacrifice, such as a specific organ like a heart or the brain in addition to the blood. Or it may require that the subject be dead so that the gene can’t be “switched back” once it’s in the body of the cured subjects. Hino has a bit of magic in this story, so this is where the science gets a little fuzzy. ;) 

I had a very old theory (a long time ago, back when I thought Kaname was doing the cure solution in the original series) that you would need Zero to drink all the bloodlines of all the Purebloods in order to create the cure. (This was all based on an offhand comment Kaname makes in the 70s about feeling bad he has to “let” Zero drink from Sara). If this is the case, the cure may not be possible unless all “strains” of the genetic defect are accounted for within it–basically kind of like counteracting a bunch of viral mutations. If Zero’s blood only has, say Kurans and Toumas in it, his “cure” will only cure people who have Kuran and Touma blood in them–it won’t cure people with Shirabuki or Hiou or Shoutou blood in them. This would require Zero to have to drink from all the bloodlines, and then (probably) either sacrificed or just a blood bag for the cure. 

So as far as I can tell, there are a couple routes to the cure which either lead to a full on sacrifice on the part of the person who’s the solution or to just a significant blood donation.

Phew that was long. I hope that was somewhat helpful, and that I didn’t confuse you even more. =) If not, I’m sorry! To be fair, there really isn’t too much to go on for how the cure would work; these are mostly just my speculations at this point based on Hino drawing Kaien into the fold for the cure solution. ;)

Feel free to drop by any time!