#walking around it to re-orient my point of view as needed

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

The Urge to walk on things like they’re a balance beam

[oldsargasso]

Okay so re: “I need the other three to have like, a campaign to make him understand. or maybe a game to see who can get away with the most blatant innuendo or...I can't think of the word. but like making excuses like 'oh you should take your shirt off while doing XYZ 😇 you don't want to get it dirty' “

I have this vision of Kenta getting into baking?? Like he keeps getting told to pick a hobby as part of his recovery, and one day he helps Kim or Dean or Winner (WHEN WINNER WANTS TO DO SOMETHING NICE FOR DEAN FOR ONCE) (or maybe even SonicNorth!) with baking a cake—and he finds that he enjoys it?? Not in an explosive “this is so much fun omg” way, but in a quiet way. It’s so instruction-oriented and I think that would be soothing to him, on top of it being hands on, and then at the end of it he has something to give the people he cares about.

ALSO he has a good foundation for bakers arms and he’d look fine as hell doing it!! WHICH IS WHY Winner tells him “You can’t wear your shirt while baking, you’ll get it dirty.” To which Kenta just gives him this look 

“That’s what the apron’s for.”

But Dean jumps in to help “No, no, he’s right P’Kenta, your sleeves will get all dirty.” 

Which is why Kim walks into the room to find Kenta shirtless, wearing an apron cinched tight around his waist that does absolutely nothing to cover his generous and bountiful bosom, his beefy arms on full display as he aggressively kneads the dough he’s working on. 

Kim gives Winner a Look, to which Winner just takes a sip of his coffee and mutters “Don’t act like you’re not enjoying the view.” Which of COURSE Kim is enjoying the view; all he wants to do is grope and tease Kenta’s tits from behind, but Baking Time is NOT to be disturbed or it becomes Knife Time. So Kim, Winner, and Dean all just sit at the island watching Kenta, with Kenta giving them the occasional concerned/confused glance.

AFTER baking time however, the three of them absolutely help with “cleaning up” the flour that’s gotten all over Kenta’s skin until they’ve got him spread out over the counter, a panting, whimpering mess, until it clicks that maybe they hadn’t been taking a sudden and random interest in how to make bread, and it was just him they were watching.

(sorry to hit you with two long asks 🙏 you can take as much time as you need!)

please send me another three million words of this okay thank you!

not baking🥺 winner baking a cake for dean just leave me here 🥺 YES omg Kenta would love the ritual of baking. precise measurements, all the steps that have to be followed in correct order, doing and then waiting and then doing again. and then at the end of it he has something to give the people he cares about. 😭😭😭 STOPPPP before this Kenta really wouldn't have anything to give to people. all his funds previously were Tony's, and then I honestly don't know if he would get a job? or how he's living after that (maybe he can get a job in a bakery lol) but the food he makes would be like the first thing that's really HIS that he can gift.

all of these words are SO GLORIOUS!!! knife time is always only three seconds away. I'm screaming the thought of them all just sitting there WATCHING as Kenta kneads dough and gets a bit sweaty from opening the oven. perhaps mixes something vigorously.

feel free to elaborate on how they would help clean him up 😌honestly though it would take Kenta a while to actually realise, like he'd think about it but dismiss it pretty immediately because why would they be that into watching HIM? they would have to spell it out verrrry thoroughly

my first thought about the shirtless while doing mundane tasks was the classic "working on a car in the garage" wouldn't want to get grease all over your shirt!

"Oh," Kenta says, casting a quick look down at himself. "I thought, it's black so it probably won't matter---"

"Still, if it gets on there it's going to be messy," Winner points out sensibly. "And you know how fussy Kim gets about the laundry...'

And well, it's Winner's car so he would know best, and Kim did get really worked up that time Kenta put his blood-soaked jeans in with everything else last week... Kenta pulls his t-shirt over his head and sets it safely to one side. "What about yours?"

Winner shrugs and follows suit, tossing his shirt far less carefully away. The rag tucked into his waistband is pretty grubby; their shirts probably would have ended up the same if not for Winner's intervention. Kenta tends to forget, for all his extra years, how much he's outclassed when it comes to the garage.

(lol I love how we both were like of course Winner would be the first one to exploit this)

and then Kim and Dean come in from where they were practicing and settle in for the show 😇 perhaps Kim is convinced into sitting the driver's seat and turning the car on and off so they can test Kenta's handiwork. and while he's there Kenta swears he can feel Kim's gaze like a physical touch. and also when he can look away from Kim, he sees Winner has his dirty hands all over Dean, so obviously the only correct course of action is for everyone to take their shirts off. and perhaps more.

[onlydylanobrien]

Dylan O'Brien - NME Magazine Interview

Dylan O’Brien: “I was in this transitional phase – close to a quarter-life crisis”

From YA heartthrob to legitimate leading man – how the 'Maze Runner' star hit his stride after a whirlwind decade

Definitely!” hoots Dylan O’Brien when NME asks if he still has to audition. “I’m not Tom fucking Hanks, bro.” He’s clearly amused by our question, but forgive us for thinking the 29-year-old actor gets cast on reputation alone. A decade into his career, and he’s making an impressive transition from teen TV star and YA franchise hero to charismatic leading man.

New York-born O’Brien cut his teeth on MTV’s hit Teen Wolf series, before landing the lead in the Maze Runner film trilogy based on James Dashner’s hugely popular novels. Leading a band of bright young things that included ex-Skins tearaway Kaya Scodelario, Game Of Thrones’ Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Will Poulter, he honed his craft while racking up nearly a billion dollars at the box office. “My career is a constant acting class,” says O’Brien. “To be able to do the Maze Runner movies simultaneously with Teen Wolf was amazing in terms of getting in reps and working my [acting] muscle.”

Now for the sometimes tricky bit. Many actors struggle with the post-breakout period, but O’Brien is making it look easy so far. This year’s Netflix hit Love and Monsters proved he can carry an old-school family adventure, and new film Flashback (out next week) reveals an appetite for weirder, more cerebral work. He stars as Fred Fitzell, a young man reluctant to buckle down to life as a nine-to-fiver with a boring corporate job and a long-term girlfriend (Mindhunter‘s Hannah Gross). When he runs into a freaky-looking acquaintance from his teenage years, Fred becomes obsessed with finding an old high-school friend he used to drop a mind-bending experimental drug called Mercury with. It’s difficult to say any more without entering spoiler territory, but Flashback is a wild ride underpinned by the idea that we can exist in several realities at once. Even if you follow every plot twist, you might not fully understand the end. “Oh, it’s definitely a headfuck,” O’Brien agrees. “There’s not totally an answer to figure out. There’s a lot of different things that people can take from it.”

Speaking over Zoom from his LA home, O’Brien is bright, thoughtful and really good fun to talk to, especially when he relaxes into the interview, but he clearly knows where his line between public and private lies. When he first read the Flashback script, written by the film’s director Christopher MacBride, his “mind was blown” by just how much he related to Fred. “I felt like I was in this transitional phase of my life that was, you know, sort of close to a quarter-life crisis type thing,” he says. “For whatever reason, it was like me and this script were meant to be. I remember reading it and thinking: ‘I am this guy right now.'”

“There were a lot of things in my personal life that were neglected for a while”

When we ask why O’Brien felt as though he had reached a “transitional phase”, he gives an answer that’s vague but not exactly evasive. For understandable reasons, he doesn’t mention the incredibly traumatic motorcycle accident he sustained while shooting the final Maze Runner film in March 2016. O’Brien suffered severe trauma to the brain and said in 2017 that he underwent extensive facial reconstructive surgery after the accident “broke most of the right side of my face”. Tellingly, he’s never really revealed what happened on set or how it affected him.

Today, O’Brien dances around the details of the accident and other issues he was dealing with at the time, but doesn’t shy away from discussing his inner conflict. “You know, it was a lot of personal things combined with at-a-point-in-my-career things,” he says after a brief pause. He says he’d have been going through some of this stuff anyway, simply because of his age, but it sounds as though success intensified it all. “It was like this whole fucking storm of shit,” he continues. “I was simultaneously so fulfilled and happy about these, like, otherworldly and surreal things that I had experienced in terms of where my career had brought me. I had all this confidence and fulfilment and beautiful people [in my life] – such amazing things to experience at a young age. But at the same time, there were a lot of things in my personal life that were unchecked and sort of neglected for a while.”

O’Brien says that in time, he realised he had to “stop for a second” and “re-explore how I wanted my life to look going forward”. In fairness, you can see why he needed a breather: his career took off while he was still a teenager. After his family moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles County when he was 12, O’Brien contemplated a career as a sports broadcaster – his Twitter bio still bills him as a “no longer suffering Mets fan” – then began posting YouTube videos as moviekidd826. A funny, slickly edited skit titled ‘How to Prepare for the SAT in 45 seconds’, shared when he was just 17, shows he was a born performer and storyteller. YouTube success led to him getting a manager, but his breakthrough role in Teen Wolf still came out of the blue. At the time, he was treading water at a local community college and taking auditions on the side.

Still, he has since taken a rather fatalistic view of this career-making moment. “It’s totally weird because, when I think about it now, I don’t see how it could have happened any other way. I can’t picture myself doing anything else now,” he told Collider in 2011. “It was really sudden and a little random, and not provoked by anything. It was just out of nowhere. It wasn’t my intentional doing.” Today, O’Brien summarises his skyscraper career trajectory succinctly. “I guess I just graduated high school and started acting,” he says. “And then I felt like I was just flying by the seat of my pants and never got a chance to stop.” Thankfully, straight-out-the-blocks Hollywood success hasn’t taken away his sense of perspective. When I say how easy social media makes it to compare yourself unfavourably to others, O’Brien jumps in: “Yeah, that’s very true. I was watching the Billie Eilish doc the other day, and I was like, I’ve done nothing. I’m not an artist at all!”

“No one thought ‘Love and Monsters’ was going to be good!”

O’Brien is also self-deprecating when he talks about being cast in Flashback, suggesting it happened because he had such an intense connection with Fred. “I was honestly like, ‘Who is watching me right now?’ That is the best way I can describe how I was feeling when I came across this script,” he says. “Chris [MacBride, director] and I had this conversation that went so well in terms of [my] understanding this script that I think he’d sent around a lot and [that] very commonly wasn’t understood. I think Chris has even said that the night before shooting, he suddenly had this thought, like, ‘Wait, do I even think he’s a good actor?'”

Though O’Brien has firmly ring-fenced elements of his private life, he’s actually pretty frank about his acting vehicles. He readily admits he was expecting a snobbish response to Love and Monsters, a CGI-heavy hybrid of post-apocalyptic action and romcom that dropped on Netflix in April and topped the streamer’s daily most-watched list. “It means so much that Love and Monsters has gotten the response that it’s gotten,” O’Brien says. “No one thought this movie was going to be good.” His blunt honesty makes me laugh out loud. “No one did though!” he says in response. “And so, fuck that. You know, most of the people who say something to me about the movie, they’re like: ‘I watched Love and Monsters, and it was… good?’ And honestly, that just cracks me up.” For obvious reasons, we hastily decide not to share our response to the film – namely, that it was a whole lot better than expected.

In Love and Monsters, O’Brien plays Joel, a survivor of a so-called “monsterpocalypse” that has bumped humans to the bottom of the food chain. Though he’s known in his colony as a bit of a coward, Joel sets off on a treacherous 80-mile journey to find his high school sweetheart Aimee (Iron Fist‘s Jessica Henwick), which means evading the hungry clutches of various supersize grizzlies including a giant monster-frog hiding in a suburban pond. It’s a simple but pretty out-there premise that wouldn’t work if O’Brien’s performance was even slightly condescending. Instead, his unselfconscious sincerity really sells a film that has as much in common with the family-oriented Robin Williams movie Night at the Museum as darker fare like The Walking Dead.

His obvious affection for the project really comes across during our interview today. “When I read the script, I just thought it was so sweet and funny and smart and unique, but at the same time reminiscent of all these movies that don’t really get made any more,” he says. That’s a fair point: Love and Monsters is neither a fail-safe superhero movie nor a slice of classy Oscar bait. “And when they were talking about how to market this movie, it was so funny hearing all these conversations like, ‘How do we actually get people to watch it?'” he adds. “But that’s a big part of the reason I wanted to do this movie: because it felt like something I missed seeing.”

“I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who want to make something out of love”

So in a way, Love and Monsters was a risk for an actor seeking to establish himself outside of a bankable movie franchise and a hit TV show. O’Brien has only made four films since his final Maze Runner outing in 2018, and insists he hasn’t been tactical with his choices. “I don’t have anyone saying, ‘We need to get you in an Oscar vehicle’, or any of that kind of shit,” he says. “I’m really lucky to be surrounded by people who think like me: that you should do what you’re drawn to, and make something out of love.”

He’s recently finished shooting a mysterious crime thriller called The Outfit in London with Mark Rylance. Directed and co-written by Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for his screenplay to Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game, O’Brien calls it “quite possibly one of the most special pieces of writing I’ve ever experienced”. He first read the script on a plane and says he “actually stood up and clapped” when he got to the end. Considering O’Brien probably wasn’t flying Ryanair, this reaction presumably attracted a few baffled glances.

Anyway, it must be pretty intimidating walking onto set with Rylance, a multi-award-winning actor revered by his peers – Al Pacino once said he “speaks Shakespeare as if it was written for him the night before” – but it sounds as though O’Brien took it all in stride. He says he’s confident in his abilities, but admits to having a slight wobble whenever he begins a new project. “I’m always sort of re-questioning everything – like, ‘Can I even act?'” he says. “But I think there’s something very natural about that. I think even Rylance could relate to that feeling. Acting is like starting a new year at school every single time.”

At this point in his career, O’Brien has made peace with the fact that some people will have preconceptions about him based on what he’s known for: Maze Runner and Teen Wolf. “People will put you in a box no matter what,” he says. “There was definitely a time when that would get to me, especially when it felt like somebody had a perspective on me that in my soul, I just felt wasn’t accurate.” Still, there’s no doubt he wants to show us what’s really in his soul with more films like Flashback. “If anything,” he adds bullishly, “it just makes me think: ‘Right, I’m really gonna show them now’.”

‘Flashback’ is out on digital platforms from June 4

[youwontlikethisblog]

Adriana Arboleda

I find this episode so interesting and since I like to avoid many things, I've put off writing this post because I just don't know where to start.

Previously:

Armando was visibly upset when they mentioned the wedding in front of Betty, it was purely because he didn't want her to once again feel guilty and break things off. While at the same time he overheard a conversation with Nicolas and Betty that sounded like she was jealous and mad at him for "cheating" on her and that he was a bad boyfriend.

This feeds the distrust that Armando has towards Betty's fidelity and his insecurity regarding their relationship(and his role in Betty's life) as well as his rivalry that he has against Nicolas.

Betty was visibly upset with both Nicolas and Armando. For one because Nicolas really is a huge reason as to why Armando feels a certain distrust. As much as I find Nicolas endearing there's many things that annoy me from him. For example the fact that he continues to find ways to converse with Patty even though he knows that Betty doesn't like it, especially that she doesn't want Patty to know anything regarding where he works at and what he does, but Nicolas; to impress Patty, always brings up the topic of money to make himself more desirable. Yeah he's insecure and he wants to get her attention but that doesn't excuse his crappy behavior as Betty's best friend, someone that he considers as his family. That adds so much pressure, distrust, and resentment towards Betty and Armando's relationship. Yes Nic wasn't aware that they were in a relationship to begin with but Betty often times told him, reminded him, and got upset with him for telling or talking to Patsy Pats about Terra Moda or what he does for a living and the dangers of that information getting out.

Two: that Armando is getting married. For one it makes her feel inferior, that their relationship isn't as strong and that Armando isn't serious about her like she is of him.

Armando had convinced Betty to continue the affair, despite the fact he's getting married. He told her it was only for show, that he'd continue with the preparations of the wedding but call it off last minute. Mario had told him that he needed to get Betty on their side because she was the only one that could embellish the balance for the board meeting this is when we start getting the trails to the letter and why Betty rationalized Armando's behavior after reading the letter.

However that isn't the real reason as to why he goes to fix things. It's what he uses as an excuse to justify why he goes to fix things with Betty. Mario, to get him to do this, weaponized what Armando had told him earlier that day about what kind of relationship Betty and Armando have. Had Armando not shared any of what he did he wouldn't have had any ground to continue to manipulate him.

Currently:

It's the morning of the day AA arrives to Eco Moda. When Betty exist her office she sports a huge smile and greets Armando, who is absorbed by her presences and very content. His eyes follow her through his office as she moves around it and just the same, Betty's eyes are on him, barely noticing Mario. When she does, as she's about to exit the office she greets him, we see Armando with a smile just absorbed by her until Mario speaks and he composes himself to act like that didn't make him happy, joyful, at peace, etc...

Why does AA hold such a significance here?

Armando is now slowly accepting and willingly understanding his feelings(he does try to justify them as something else at times). Betty says she has felt this through his kisses and his affection towards her, that she knows that he loves her now and that he is faithful to her-when it comes to Marcela.

However as she said the previous night as she wrote in her diary that she isn't so sure about his love or fidelity when it comes to his true vice; the models. Models like AA.

Jealousy isn't something healthy in any relationship, even when media tries to paint jealousy as this normal and healthy thing that every person experiences, it's not.

In the previous post I mentioned what the definition of Jealous/y is. It's a combination of feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, or resentment but if you look up the definition of it it says "concern over the relative lack of possessions-"

Sometimes it isn't an object, rather a person, however the issue lays within the fact that person who feels the jealousy views said person as an object rather than a human. Armando's jealousy is possessive, insecure and resentful however Betty's jealousy is of inadequacy and insecurity. She doesn't feel resentful towards Armando for being attracted to "beautiful" women. She expects that from him.

AA represents Betty's insecurity as a woman in a physical form. When Betty finds out AA wants to see and speak with Armando privately she tries to stop that from happening, contrary to the past when she'd help the man out, this time she tries to stick to "he said he doesn't want to be bothered" but when Armando realizes who wants to speak to him he ignores his duties as the president of the company and the importance of him being in said meeting for the future collection, which will help Eco Moda be able to pay off its debt. Betty knows this so when she sees that Armando doesn't stop to think, at least of the company, much less consider her(the true nature of her anger), and that he is an easy prey or weak idiot to women like AA she gets angry at him but her jealousy lays where she feels the most insecure.

Armando forgets of Betty and how happy he was when he saw her that morning. Now all he can think about is AA.

AA is the symbol and the token object of Armando's weakness: seggs with society's "perfect" women. He places this "need" of his above anything, his responsibilities as president, as an engaged man, and as someone in an committed and mature relationship.

I find Mario's behavior interesting in this scene however. He stares at Armando with raised eyebrows and a frown on his face, contrary to before where he was trying to keep himself from laughing, however freaked out over Armando's feelings, this time he's annoyed at him.

I keep trying to figure out why he'd get annoyed at him for this. In this scene Betty is behind Mario, where Inesita and Armando have a clear view of her. Betty is trying to stay composed and not let the personal seep into the impersonal so Mario hasn't seen her. Yes we're fully aware that Mario is a man that is extremely detail oriented when it comes to human behavior which gives him an advantage to manipulate people and get whatever he wants out of them so he can simply assume, by Betty's tone, that she isn't pleased by this. However this scene and Mario's behavior is very much unlike him.

This is my speculation, not what we are being told.

Maybe based on how Armando had spoken about his relationship with Betty and his feelings for her, Mario was annoyed at Armando for his behavior like saying "How can you say you cherish her and that you love her as a friend and then do this to her? And yet I'm the terrible one? The one that doesn't understand why the plan is wrong? The one with iron skin?" or one could simply point out that Mario didn't want to get stuck doing most of the work in the meeting while Armando went off to spend time with a hot woman.

Later when Betty agrees that they should take a break, when Betty exits the office(I'm skipping that scene for now) and Mario is walking up to it he asks her if Armando is still in there, she tells him that he is and with AA. Mario then says he shouldn't go in there and interrupt them then but he notices Betty's demeanor and asks her if she's alright.

Betty doesn't look at him, she doesn't pay him attention. She doesn't even make eye contact with him so again Mario behaves naturally.

Of course he pretends to be unaware of the relationship Armando has with Betty. He says he won't go in there and interrupt them, but he pays close attention to Betty.

We're all fully aware that Mario would be capable of seducing Betty. He lacks all the moral and ethic rules to not do that. Mario is a villain, a well written one. So his behavior here is just odd imo.

I do believe and know based on his character, that Mario is also annoyed at Armando for screwing up once more, therefore jeopardizing the company and all that it implies. However, take into consideration what happened the previous day. Mario isn't stupid, he is way too smart. He knows that Armando deeply cares for Betty, he's known this all along though he has also tried to deny any true motive of Armando caring for Betty because she's ugly and he knows his best friend and only uses Armando's feelings towards Betty when it benefits him. He knows that Betty is important and special to Armando. Unlike Marcela.

Mario pointed this out the previous day when he told him that he[A] had made love with Marcela in the past but that from what Armando had shared it had never been sweet. He is fully aware that Betty is vastly different to all the other women Armando has been with and it's not only because she's "ugly" but because Betty is of extreme importance and significance to Armando.

Does Mario disprove of Armando's behavior towards AA being in Eco Moda? Yes.

For two reasons: One that Armando is screwing up the plan again. Two that Armando is a hypocrite who gets mad at him for making jokes about their relationship but then he goes and does that, (which is an even bigger disrespect to Betty, Armando's Betty.) all while constantly telling Mario that he is scum because he feels no guilt while he does.

Does Mario care about Betty's feelings? No and if he does it's not enough to make him have a change of heart because what he truly cares about is remaining in the social statues he's on with being the wingman of Armando.

Again even if he did care a little about how Betty feels it's not enough for him to re-evaluate his role in the plan and what comes above that is Eco Moda's ownership but it gives him more intel on how to manipulate Armando. In the meeting board, when he finally got a view of Betty when she went to sit back down at the table, Mario examined her quickly, did so as the meeting continued, glancing at her, studying her.

Resuming to a chronological order.

As Armando leaves to his office to speak privately to AA, Betty stays behind in the conference room with Inesita and Mario where as Mario said, she looked broken and not her computer like self.

Once Inesita suggest they take a break Betty says she'll go to her office, to which we see Mario with his worried expression, look at her and then turn to look towards Armando's office doors in a silent plea that Betty doesn't catch him indecent.

In their office, Armando is busy talking with AA so Betty doesn't catch some indecent Armando, but because she knows him, she knows that he's capable of acting like everything is normal. When she looks at AA she looks her up and down, insecure in herself as a woman with such a woman in the same room. Armando in this scene is absorbed by AA's body, a contrast to when he was absorbed by Betty's presence(that includes body). Barely paying attention to Betty and speaking to AA in an informal and casual way, something he doesn't even do with her. In some places in Latin America speaking formally is a sign of respect and impersonalism. When you speak more casually it implies a personalized relationship with someone: meaning that they have a more deeper connection than someone you work with, a friend, a family member, a lover, etc. Betty and Armando aren't even on that and they've had seggs.

Betty takes note of this, again, this now moves on from her simply being insecure as a woman to now being mad at Armando for behaving this way.

Once Betty exits the office to go grab their refreshments she overhears Armando call AA espectacular

Whenever Betty is mad she always places her hand to her hip. As she stops to talk to Marcela she does this, again implying her anger towards Armando.

The last thing I'll note about this whole AA thing at this time is how both Betty and Marcela react. Marcela goes into the office fuming, throwing shade and whatnot to display her jealousy towards AA and her possessiveness towards Armando, however Betty only displays her anger towards Armando while very minimalistically showing her jealousy because of AA.

Marcela's anger was targeted towards both of them while Betty's was towards Armando.

Later that day after AA leaves, Betty remains angry. When Armando tries to apologize for yelling at her, Betty ignores him and tells him they need to get back to work.

Armando not only made her feel insignificant as a woman but he also said she got on his last nerve, tell me you wouldn't feel bad about yourself and be mad at the person who did that.

Obviously Betty feels inferior to AA. Who wouldn't if we're being honest? She's hot. Again when it comes to Betty it isn't hard to understand or sympathies with her over this.

However lets just remember that Betty has always felt insecure and inferior as a human being and a woman.

Insecurity presents itself in many ways. For some it could be them acting loud and obnoxious, like Armando. For others it could be them never asking for anything or expecting anything because they believe they don't deserve anything, like Betty.

Slowly however, her relationship with Armando has built her self-esteem. She walks a bit taller, she doesn't have such a tremble in her voice anymore unless she's speaking to Marcela or Daniel. Even on this day she dresses differently. She sports a more juvenile outfit, there's a glow to her. Though her clothing isn't form fitting or revealing, she has changed her clothing. Even now since they started to date she doesn't wear the super long skirts with the very boxy blazers from the shoulders or the clothes she wore at the start of the show. She wears the green dress, the yellow, red, and black dress often and the green skirt suit(the olive green one with the skirt that's shorter than all the other ones she wears).

In the past, on one of their first dates, Betty joked that she was ugly and Armando got upset with her, told her that he didn't like that and that she needed to respect herself. Ironic ain't it?

Armando's sole attention has given her a boost of ego, but his confirmation the night they sinned(lol) that he too felt what she felt for him, which was desire, has helped her a lot. Again to recall what her first time was like, this second time around it built her self-esteem. Especially because since then Armando hasn't been able to keep his hands to himself whenever Betty and him have been alone together, out of office hours.

(Currently listening to the YSBLF playlist on Spotify and honestly I just wanna dance)

The previous night though aware of Armando's fidelity to her when it came to Marcela, which was why she said she felt no jealousy or the likes in regards to that relationship(outside of guilt) she still is very aware of Armando's s. addiction tendencies. It isn't only a matter in which Armando is weak to women like that that even when he doesn't want to cheat on Marcela or whomever, he still falls for their manipulative or even pushy tactics to get him to sleep with them.

Let's not forget that Betty knows Armando and his behavior when it comes to the Models because unlike Marcela who has only seen snip bits when she stands behind him when he's flirting, Betty has seen it and heard it all from Armando. She has been in the room when Armando and Mario discuss how to get away with his affairs, she has seen him in action, she has even heard and seen the way he plays women. However Betty lacks the knowledge we have of Armando's seggsual affairs.

What does this mean?

To Betty, this weakness of Armando is solely based on the body of the women he is sleeping with(which are all A Grade) and though to some degree this is true(his obsession with perfection etc.) there's more to it. Armando, aside from having slept with her and saying he desired her, has never acted eager to jump her bones or expressed it like he has about all the other women he has been with. He has never made her feel validated as women for her body, though she knows he has an emotional attraction to her, she doesn't believe he has a physical one(I'll get to that scene in time ok! for now I'm talking about it like they haven't screwed again) for her, or at least one that matters. So when she sees AA in the office and she looks her up and down Betty compares herself, not as Armando's girlfriend, but as a woman in general.

For us women looks are the most important and most valuable thing we're told we have. Without them, what are we?

When you grow up being the "other" of society standards for women you grow up with no self-worth. Comparing yourself to others becomes second nature. We know Betty has said she grew up lonely, only Nicolas was her friend, kids in school made fun of her. She never had this moment when she looked at herself and was at least okay with what she was staring at. The contrary, she hated it but learned to tolerate it. Her self deprecating jokes were her acceptance of it, her way to cope with the way the world treated her. It was for her to be able to not care as much about it. However the way people treat her based on her looks still stings and this time it's a lot more.

Could you put yourself in her shoes? All your life you go about it feeling lonely, ugly, unwanted, inadequate, etc. and one day after so much heart ache, a terrible relationship that left you emotionally disfigured and scarred, a man that is desired by so many women AND men, who is "educated", "smart", handsome and has a good sense of humor pays attention to you, how would you feel?

Realistically speaking; a lot more insecure.

Some people hate themselves so much that they hate when people take notice of them because it's like saying "you have terrible taste if you like me, therefore you are not as great." Burdening someone with your own self-hatred. Betty has shown this in the past, when Armando first started to pursue her. She asked him time and time again why he'd be interested in her or notice her because a man like him could never notice her as more than just his employee.

AA is the incarnation of Betty's own dilema. Her self-hatred and insecurity as a woman because in her eyes she lacks beauty. Body wise she doesn't have Meat on her bones, she has frizzy wavy hair, doesn't wear makeup and has one eyebrow plus a mustache. However, despite this, Armando has fallen in love with her and in a matter of seconds this is shattered.

Armando forgets who Betty is for him. He forgets what he feels for her, the importance and significance of her to him and his life and is enveloped with the idea of AA wanting to speak to him and not in this "fanatic" manor but as a man wanting to conquer. Betty's ego isn't only hurting but she(in complete) is hurting by this. Next to Marcela she knows she is the one to hold Armando's heart and now his desires, but next to women like AA, she is insignificant not just as a woman, but as a person in general.

Especially after Armando yells at her, after a long time of not doing so, he yells at her in front of AA, he forgets Betty is even in the room or in the world. While with Marcela he tries not to bring her up or the subject of the wedding because he knows it hurts her(visibly kept glancing towards her office when AA was asking about it, confirming that whenever he seeks her comfort when she isn't with him in the room he'll be facing or standing by her office), he doesn't even consider her when AA is the room. She's heard him say he'd forget all of his commitments and relationships and run away with AA and marry her, just that day she saw him kiss a picture of her and basically make out with it.

She believes that unlike Marcela, AA is real competition because she's hawt(even though Marcela is hawt too) however she knows that Armando isn't in love with Marcela or even interested in her for that fact but she knows that Armando is of AA. However again because Betty is so insecure as a woman she believes that she isn't even in a competition with AA, because if AA wanted to, she'd take Armando and he wouldn't even put up a fight, he'd go willingly on the first attempt. Add that to Armando saying that Betty gets on his last nerve?

He dug his own grave.

One could ask how is it possible that Armando didn't pick up on Betty being jealous?

For one because Armando has only experienced Marcela's jealousy which is loud and arrogant. She throws shade, she yells at him, she demands from him. Betty doesn't do that. She interrupts his one on one time with AA by entering his office and looking for some paper work. She drops a box full of things to ruin any momentum he could be building with AA. Her jealousy is displayed in quiet and timid ways. The one time it she makes it "loud" enough is when she hears Armando flirting with AA and steps out of her office and stands in the middle of them, until he notices her, but then, after she bumps into him, he yells at her. You can tell right away this isn't just like when he yelled at her in the past that it made her want to cry(I mean who doesn't want to cry when they're being yelled at) but this time it was something that hurt her deeply. For the reasons mentioned above.

And two because he's clueless. Though in the past episodes we have seen Armando learn to be in sync with Betty's feelings and make an effort to be attentive and understanding, all of that work of his is thrown out the window when AA appears, making Betty not only feel inferior and insecure as a woman in general but making her feel like she's nothing, not even in a "my fav. employee" type of way. He makes her feel worthless as his girlfriend.

This is when the hurt moves on to anger.

Anger at herself and anger at him for making her feel this way.

When the Love Guru brings all of this to his attention, Armando has a face of realization.

He truthfully thought Betty was just being her unaware and naïve employee self. The one who trips, who doesn't back up her files on disks, y'know, the one she was at the start of the novel. He doesn't think that Betty is acting out in jealousy because again she doesn't act like Marcela does.

When he finally realizes this thanks to Mr. Dimples, we see the sudden "oh crap" face. Like it all made sense and he knew he messed up.

It's interesting to see how these scenes play such a huge roll to Betty finally speaking up in the relationship later that night.

Sorry this post took so long for me to write. I wanted to fully understand the huge significance of Adriana Arboleda as she has been one since the start of their affair, unbeknownst of Betty.

[unmaskedagain]

Ladybug: A Young Avenger

Hey Everyone, I got prompt for a civil war ML crossover fic but I was really into Team Iron Man on Ao3 for longest of times and, after endgame, I kind of need some team fluff. So I tweaked the prompt. It’s still team Iron man; just… not the way you’d expect. (Also did anyone know else know that Penny’s last name was Rolling?)

It took Tony Stark all of five minutes to figure out Ladybug’s identity.

“Jarvis, buddy?” Tony called out.

“Yes, sir?”

“What’s up with teenagers and being bug-themed heroes wearing inappropriate costumes?”

           The A.I took a moment before answering, “…I, for one, blame Vine.”

           Tony sighed. First fifteen-year-old Peter Parker aka Spiderman. He took the kid on an as an intern the second he learned about Spiderman. Now fifteen-year-old Marinette Dupain-Cheng aka Ladybug.

           He groaned.

What could he do? He needed help.

           Captain America needed to be stopped. The Winter Solider needed to be taken down. Team Cap had gone too far.

           It was war.

           Getting Harley Keener, a mechanical mastermind to agree to be his intern was a bit like chewing nails but Tony always knew the kit would agree. Getting Peter Parker, a child genius with a bright future as a scientist, to agree to be his intern was a piece of cake. Honestly Tony could’ve asked for the kid’s soul in repayment and Peter would’ve asked if he wanted on a silver plate or if plastic was okay? Getting Riri Williams, an engineering prodigy to be his intern, was easy. Too easy; her mom practically threw her at him, all while making him swear into a recorder that he wouldn’t sue. No matter what. Introducing the kids to his labs made him feel like Willie Wonka hand-delivering the golden tickets.

           They were all future scientists and engineers like Tony. They grew up worshiping at the altar of Stark Industries like ever future MIT graduate did.

           Marinette Dupain-Cheng, on the other hand, was an entirely different beast who played an entirely different game. She was a fashion prodigy who had designed for stars like Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale. She had interned for Style Queen Audrey Bourgeois, had her clothes walk the runway during Paris fashion week, and had a summer job that somehow lasted over a year, working for Miranda Priestly, the editor-in-Chief for Runway Magazine when the scary woman took over Paris: Runaway. Said job ended when Miranda when back to New York. Marinette only prayed to the fashion gods. So when Tony Stark, god of the nerds, showed up at her door, she only blinked once.

           Said girl sat between her parents, with cool blue eyes glaring at him suspiciously. Luckily Tony was smart enough to bring Pepper with him.

           Pepper Potts smiled at the family in front of her; two bakers and the daughter, who made the most delicious macarons that she ever tasted. “So you see, after Tony came across Marinette’s wonderful re-design sketch of his suit on her website, he was very impressed with her talent.”

“But to take Marinette on as an intern?” Sabine asked. “Excuse me, but Marinette has always leaned towards the arts than science.”

           Tony gave the woman his best charming smile, “What is science if not another form of art. We both create, strive to better our talents, work to make names for ourselves; experiment and test out hypothesizes. Granted no one in my field ever created the disaster that was crocs.”

           Marinette narrowed her eyes, “Didn’t your father help on the Manhattan Project?”

           Silence.

           Pepper cleared on her throat. “Tom, Sabine, before anyone agrees to anything I’d like to go over safety procedures in place. Would you mind stepping outside with me, I could use a bit of fresh air.”

           Tony and Marinette just stared at each other as the three left the room. When the front door closed behind them, Marinette leaned forward, “What do you want?” Her patience had reached its end.

“Aren’t you being a little rude?” Tony smirked.

“Aren’t you a little old?” Marinette snapped back. “What do you want?”

“I want Ladybug’s help.”

           Marinette flinched back in shock. Her heart raced in her chest. “How do you know?”

“I’m Tony Stark,” He shrugged easily, picking up a mint chocolate Macron. “I know everything.”

           Marinette fought the fear racing through her, and steeled herself like Miranda and Audrey had taught her, “So Iron Man’s wanted Ladybug as an intern? So what does Iron Man get? What does Ladybug get? What does Tony get? And what does Marinette get?”

“You made clear distinctions,” Tony said approvingly, his business-side gearing up. “But I am Iron Man.” He said. “You come to New York for this spring break and for the summer. I get Ladybug’s help in handling a personal issue that has developed within the Avengers. Ladybug gets training from the Avengers. Marinette gets to add Stark Industries and a personal letter of recommendation from Tony Stark to her resume.”

“On the condition, that identities stay secret from the media,” Marinette crossed her arms. “I don’t suppose I can hide it from the rest Avengers for very long. And I get an additional letter of recommendation from Pepper Potts. Pepper takes my friend Chloe on as an intern; she’s the hero, Queen Bee. And only one who knows my identity, besides you. Also, I actually do get to help design your next suit. My expenses?”

           Tony smirk widened. The girl knew how to cover her bases. She even wanted to have an Ally with her should things take a turn. “All paid for by me. First-class all the way. You and Chloe will stay in the Stark Tower on the same floor as the other interns.”

“Other young superheroes, you mean?” Marinette guessed, causing Tony’s eyes to twinkle in joy. “Spiderman, Iron Heart, and WarIron. Based on their sizes, I had guessed they were young; teenagers probably. Why didn’t you ask Chat Noir too? Or why aren’t you? Because you’re not, you would’ve mentioned it by now?”

“You mean the Agreste kid?” Tony said, not noticing Marinette’s eyes widen in surprise. “He’s not serious enough for me. I play games but he goes too far. Surprised you haven’t dumped him yet. Get a better partner.”

           Marinette took a bit of a macron to get a moment to think. Adrien was Chat Noir. In retrospect, it made a lot of sense. Both were socially immature, and a bit naïve. Each had an idealistic view of things and didn’t let the real world break them of it. For example Adrien and his dealing with Lila’s lies. Chat Noir and Ladybug turning down his advances.

“Very well,” The bluenette finally agreed. “I agree to be your intern. Shall we discuss my salary now or later? Well, need to before I or my parents sign any contracts.”

           It was Tony’s turn to narrow his eyes. Not one; not a single one of his interns: Harley, Peter, or Riri ever asked about how much they’d get paid. They’d all assumed it was an unpaid internship and was surprised when their contracts included a salary. “You’re a shark.”

           Marinette hummed, “You should see me when there’s blood in the water.”

           That was something Tony was looking forward to seeing.

           The official paperwork was signed three days later; Marinette was officially a Stark intern. Due to go to Orientation for spring break in New York in a few weeks.

           Those weeks flew by. She let Fu know she’d have to go back and forth for a few weeks. She didn’t bother telling anyone else. Her friendships in the class had dwindled dramatically. While most weren’t her outright enemies, her classmates tended to avoid her. If they couldn’t do that, they were beyond cold to her. It was Lila’s doing. She got her hooks into the class, who all wanted to tie themselves to the golden goose, and when it was clear that Lila and Marinette didn’t like each other, they picked sides. They chose their meal ticket over their lifelong friend.

           Honestly, it made Marinette almost wish that Lila had lied about her instead; accused her of being a bully or something. Anything. Because at least then her ex-friends would have somewhat of a reason to be ex-friends. Even if it wasn’t a very good one. Instead, they were just bad friends all on their own.

           Still, Marinette didn’t mourn their loss as she sat in the back of the class with Chloe on a Sunny Tuesday morning, and they were living for New York that Friday. She had a steadily rising career in Fashion. She had worked under Miranda Priestly and Audrey. From them, she learned it was best to drop fair-weather friends and how to spot wannabes, fame-seekers, and gold-diggers from three miles away.

           She was happy with Chloe as her bestie. The girl had turned a new leaf and proven her loyalty to the point where Fu made her a permanent hero. And the Blond had been ecstatic when Pepper Potts had shown up at their door. She had hugged Marinette a full five minutes for getting her the internship. All while screaming with joy.

           Both girls were excited to go. Though Marinette did encounter one downside. The night before, Jagged Stone and Penny Rolling; or as Marinette deemed them #RollingStone, called her. Or rather Penny did the talking. Jagged was trying to wrestle his newest jacket away from Fang’s teeth. Penny offered Marinette a chance to spend her spring break traveling around on tour with Jagged, as his personal stylist. Marinette had no choice but to turn the job down. She loved her honorary Uncle Jagged but she already signed the contract.

           That morning Lila had spun another set of lies. The first was about helping Tony Stark fix his Iron man suit when she was traveling in America. The second was about the newest song Jagged Stone wrote about her. It was exhausting to listen to but the class hung on every word.

           Bustier had just finished her first lesson of the day when she invited Alya to stand up.

           The glasses-wearing girl grinned at the class, “So as everyone’s aware; there’s a class pool party is this Saturday; first day of spring break, baby!” The class cheered. “Everyone who’s invited should’ve gotten their invitation. Don’t want any drama,” She cast a cold look to the two girls at the back of the class. “Invite only. So no party crashers. Marinette, Chloe what are you doing this Saturday?” Alya smirked at her call out that the two girls weren’t invited; that they were the only ones who weren’t.

           As if on cue, the classroom’s door burst opened and in walked Tony Stark, followed by a very apologetic looking Pepper, “Marinette; it’s time to go! Grab Pepper’s minion and let’s go.”

           There were gasps from the class. Max sat up straight. Iron Man was in front of him, in his class, this was the best day of his life.

           Marinette just sighed, “Did you kick the door open, Tony?” Disapproval clear in her voice.

“…No?”

“I can’t go now!” Marinette explained. “I have class. We weren’t supposed to leave until Friday, remember.”

           Tony waved her off, “Details. Spring Break starts now. Queenie, Mari; chop-chop! New York is waiting!”

           Bustier decided to step in. She may not always be the best teacher but she refused to allow a strange man, even if that man was Tony Stark, to take away any of her students. “Mr. Stark, can I ask what you want Marinette and Chloe for?”

           Thankfully, it was Pepper that answered as she closed back the classroom door, “They have been employed as interns for Stark Industries. They’ll be attending orientation during their spring break at Stark Tower.”

Max actually fell out of his seat. Because this couldn’t be happening. Stark industries rarely ever took high schoolers’ as interns. Tony Stark only chose the best of the best. How could Marinette land the job?

“Marinette’s my intern,” Tony grinned. “Blondie’s Pepper’s. Who else is gonna teach her how to rule the world.”

           A slow smile spread across Chloe’s face, “With an iron fist.”

           Tony pointed at her, “You scare me. Pepper get your intern!”

           The other students were amazed. Marinette was Tony Stark’s intern. Chloe somehow got Pepper Pott's attention. What had they missed? Why didn’t Marinette tell them? How?

“That’s what we’ll be doing this Saturday, Alya,” Chloe drawled. “In New York, hanging with the Avengers.” Causing Alya to flush with anger. “We couldn’t come to your pool party even if we wanted to. Which we don’t.”

“He found my sketch of a potential Iron man suit design,” Marinette explained, continuing the story Tony had told her parents. “He loved it and offered me the job a few weeks ago.”

“Weeks?” Nino asked. “And you didn’t tell us? Dudette, not cool.”

           Alix nodded, her arms crossed, “Yeah I thought we were friends!”

           Marinette and Chloe just looked at them like they were stupid.

           Alya put her hands on her hips, “Mr. Stark, why didn’t you ask Lila Rossi to be your intern? She helped you with your suit before. She’d be much better than Marinette!”

           The girl in question face turned bright red, “This can’t be happening.” Lila muttered.

           Tony looked honestly confused, “Lila? Who’s Lila? No one ever helped me with my suit except the kids I already got as interns.” He looked at Pepper. “Do I know a Lila Rossi?”

           Pepper shook her head, and turned fierce eyes towards Lila, “Miss Rossi, please refrain from lying about Tony Stark and or Stark Industries. Or we will sue you on the grounds of defamation.”

           Lila squeaked. Sue? She couldn’t be sued. Her mother would kill her if she got a lawsuit from Tony Stark.

           It was the rest of the class’s turn to look confused.

           However, before anyone could ask any follow-up questions, the classroom door burst opened again. Jagged Stone strutted in, followed by a very apologetic look Penny and happy Fang with, what looked to be, the arm of a leather jacket.

“Marinette!” Jagged yelled. “What’s this about you not coming on tour? I need my favorite stylist, love.

Marinette just sighed, “Did you kick the door open, Jagged?” Disapproval clear in her voice.

“…No?”

           The bluenette just shook her head, “I have plans this Spring break. I’m sorry.”

“Plans?” Jagged whined. “What could be better spending your Spring Break with a Rock Star? You can even bring your Blonde. Penny could use an assistant!” He paused, finally noticing it wasn’t just kids. “The bloody hell is Tony Stark doing here?”

           The two famous men eyed each other. The women they came with just looked so done with the world.

           Tony crossed his arms, “I got custody of Marinette for Spring Break; you snooze, you lose.”

“What?!” Jagged hissed. “She’s my designer.”

“She’s my intern!”

           Jagged glared, “I knew her first. By rights, I get custody.”

“I have a contract that says otherwise!” Tony taunted the Rock Star. “Her future is Stark Industries.”

“Her future is Rock and Roll!” Jagged yelled back.

           Both men glared at each other.

“Pepper!”

“Penny!”

           Both women groaned. How was this their lives? Why what was this their lives? What bus full of nuns and orphans did they rob in a past life?

           Penny smiled, “Marinette means the world to us. I’m her honorary Aunt Penny,” She held out her hand for Pepper. “Jagged’s her honorary Uncle. We’ve known her for years. Contracts were already signed?”

           Pepper nodded, “Tony doesn’t play when it comes to his interns. He won’t budge. Trust me; we’ve done this three other times. Marinette’s his kid now, all but legally.” For now, Pepper didn’t bother to add. Every now and then she found discovered a new set of adoption papers with one of the interns’ names on it; one time she found three sets for all three. Plus if Tony kept hinting any harder, May was going to gut him.  “She’ll be in New York for Spring break and all of the summer.”

“Summer!” Jagged whined. “He gets custody for summer too! No!” he shook his head. “Not happening. Call our lawyers, Penny. We’re going to family court!”

           Tony blew him a raspberry. Tony Stark blew Jagged Stone a raspberry. The class could only blink, trying to process what was happening.

           Marinette just wanted the earth to open up and swallow her.

“Marinette already designed your clothes for the tour,” Penny tried to placate. “They’re amazing. We can call and skype if we need any additional tips. We have a concert in New York over spring break so we can go and see.” They didn’t. But Penny would be damned if she could have one booked within the hour. Anything to stop jagged from mention family court again. “Most of our summer is free too, we can visit Marinette whenever we want.”

           Jagged huffed but didn’t say anything.

“Well not whenever you want,” Tony teased.

“Family court!” Jagged hissed.

“Tony!” Pepper said warningly. She was not going to let this going to court. No matter how lovely Marinette was. “Be nice.”

           Tony pouted.

           Marinette raised her hand, “You guys know that legally my parents still have custody of me, right?” There was no answer. “Right?!” Nothing.

           The bluenette just sighed.

           Alya took that moment to break in, “Jagged, don’t you want to say hi to Lila? She’s right here,” Alya pointed to her bestie. “Oh, can we listen to the songs you wrote for her? Can you tell us how she saved your cat from getting hit by a plane?”

           The look Lila gave Alya could’ve killed a thousand men.

           Jagged looked affronted, “Lila? Who’s Lila?” He looked at his fiancé. “Penny, do I know a Lila?”

“No!” Penny glared fiercely at Lila. “Jagged Stone has never written a song about an underage girl before. He has never owned a cat. What parents and airline would careless enough to allow a child to rush onto a runway for a pet? Refrain from spreading any further slander. Or we’ll hit you with a lawsuit so fast you’ll get whiplash.”

“I’m allergic to cats by the way,” Jagged told the class. “All fur actually. That’s why I got Fang here.” He pointed the crocodile who had made its way to Marinette for cuddles. “I’ve had him for twenty years. He’s the only pet I’ve had all that time.”

           Marinette rolled her eyes and took the crocodile in her lap.

“Twenty years?” Kim’s eyebrows furrowed. “Whoa, that’s long that we’ve been alive.”

           Nino glared at Lila, “Yeah it is.” He finally realized the girl was lying. Most of the class had in fact.

“Enough of this,” Tony waved. “Marinette, Chloe, time to go. Leave the dinosaur.”

           Bustier took a deep breath, “No one is taking Marinette or Chloe anywhere. Until I get a note from their parents verifying that is. I’m going to have to ask you all to leave.”

           Penny and Pepper nodded understandingly. Jagged and Tony just looked shocked.

“But I’m Tony Stark!”

“I’m Jagged Stone, love!”

           Bustier just rolled her eyes and shooed them out of her class. It took some handling, and eventually, the women had to drag the guys out. The teacher shut the door with a sigh of relief. She brushed off the imaginary dirt on her clothes. “Marinette,” She called. “If you could tell any future visitors to wait until after school to pick you up, with a note from your parents that would be most helpful.”

“Sorry,” Marinette blushed, a deep dark red.

           Bustier walked back to her desk before pausing. “Is that Crocodile still in my class, Marinette?”

“…Yes.”

“I think he’s here for the rest of the day,” Chloe shrugged. “Unless you want to invite Jagged back?”

           Bustier paused. No. Never again. “No. No. Fang can stay for the day.”

           When the lunch bell rang, Marinette found that it was easier to avoid her classmates' questions, as they were too busy yelling at Lila. It wasn’t long after that Ladybug had to take down Lila’s seventh akuma form.

           Marinette and Chloe left that night to New York. Somehow he managed to convince their parents that missing three days of school to study in the most advanced building in the world was a good thing.

           When they got to Stark Tower, they were given a quick tour. Then Pepper took Chloe to show her where she would be working. And Tony took Marinette the workshop where three other kids were already working.

           The oldest one glanced at her and snorted, “God he kidnapped another one.” He was the tallest in the room with dark brown hair and a smirk on his face.

           The other two snickered.

           Tony looked affronted, “Oh please; your parental units practically threw you at me.

The younger looking boy smirked, “Aunt May threatened to shank you next time you took me out of school early.” He had light brown hair and big brown eyes

           The genius pointed, “You tell Aunt Hottie to leave me alone.”

“HI, I’m Marinette!” She waved happily. “He keeps mentioning he has custody. And I’ve become moderately concerned.”

“And you should be,” The other girl in the room laughed. She was a pretty brown-skinned girl with black wild curls. “Name’s Riri.”

“Harley,” Said the first boy who spoke.

“Peter,” The other boy introduced.

           Marinette nodded and eyes them, “WarIron,” The pointed at Harley. “Iron Heart,” Then at Riri. “Spiderman, right?” She pointed at Peter.

           The three looked at Tony with questions in their eyes. Tony raised in hands in surrender, “Hey, I told her nothing.”

           Harley eyed the new girl, “You’re from Paris, right?” She nodded. “Ladybug, I’m guessing.”  Marinette blushed. “Welcome to the Young Avengers, I guess. Why’d he bring you in?”

           Marinette shrugged, “He said to there was a personal problem happening with the Avengers. He wanted my help.”

           The teen froze. Peter just shook his head, “You didn’t, Tony!”

Tony looked sheepish.

“What?” Marinette asked.

           Riri rolled her eyes, “That personal problem? It’s called ManHunt.”

“I’m sorry?” Marinette asked. She was going to have to hunt a man?

“It’s a game,” Harley explained. “Team Iron Man versus team Cap. One team hunts the other in a sort of hide and seek type of thing and tries to capture as many members as they can. Last time we played it, Team Cap crushed Team Iron man. It’s why Tony brought us all in. Revenge.”

           Said Man didn’t look one bit ashamed, “Rules were since Thor and the Big guy are gone I can bring in whoever I want to replace them.”

           Marinette tossed up her hands, “You brought me here to play a game?” Unbelievable.

“No,” Tony said. “I brought you here to take out the Winter Soldier.”

“Say what now?”

“Welcome to orientation,” Was All Tony said to her question.

           The kids trained together for a week; Chloe, a girl named MJ who was Pepper’s other interns, and a boy named Ned who was a tech intern, were brought in as well. When it turned out that Kagami was in New York City for a fencing tournament. Tony was happy to bring in the scary girl as well. (And somehow get her mother to agree to let her stay for Spring Break) He made practice stealth and learn hand signals. Tony drilled them on the Team Cap’s strengths and weaknesses. They reviewed videos of previous missions until they had everyone’s fighting style memorized. Tony went over body anatomy aka where the best place to hit them was. They memorized plans and scenarios to take out each specific member of Team Cap.

           The teens spent a lot of time in the lab creating gadgets to use against the Avengers. Each one straight out of a spy movie.

           As far as Tony was concerned this was War. And there would be no prisoners.

Team Cap consisted of Captain America, The Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, The Falcon, Antman, along with several Shield employees which included Fury, Melinda May, and Coulson.

           Team Iron man consisted of Ironman, War Machine, Vision, Maria Hill, The Wasp, Quicksilver, Daisy Johnson, and a bunch of names Stark employees: I.E the interns. (Black Panther refused to participate. Though he and sister would watch from Wakanda.)

           Each team had a total of thirty players; no more, no less.

           The game would take place at the compound. Anything area within the compound legal territory was free to use. The living room would be home base and were all ‘out’ people had to stay. Until they were freed. Or until every member of the hiding team was captured and then it was Game Over. Everyone could communicate with their own team using special mics; normally only taken out for missions. However, those imprisoned in the home base couldn’t communicate with their team.

           On Saturday, just before sunset; the main superheroes of the avengers met up. Tony facing Steve. Rhodey glaring at Bucky. Vision versus Wanda. Hawkeye to QuickSilver. The wasp against Ant-Man and the Falcon.

           Steve smiled, “Tony.”

“You ready for war, Cap?” Tony asked.

“Training exercise,” Steve corrected his husband. “I trust your team is ready.”

           Tony smirked, “Oh you have no idea. Your little spies are already hiding in the shadows.”

“Like your team isn’t?”

           The alarm went off.

           Tony suited up, “You have 1000 seconds, Steve.” His helmet shut. “I’d get running.”

           Steve rolled his eyes. His team split up, running into the growing shadows.

           The game had started.

           Marinette waited, hiding in the shadows on the roof. Her ladybug costume was all back with little red polka dots; mostly easy to move around body armor. This wasn’t her actually Ladybug suit; Tikki, while willing to create a new suit design, decided it wasn’t a good idea to involve magic. So Marinette designed herself a new suit, and Tony help her trick it out.

Tony had pointed out the all-good hiding spots located in the Compound. She was the overly large landing pad. She forced herself to stay completely still. Even when she saw the Falcon take flight with WarIron right on his tail.

           The smallest of moments caught on the corner of her eye, the glint of metal. An arrow, she realized. She smiled. Hawkeye.

           She watched the man take stock of the room, looking in every possible place a person could hide. Unfortunately for him, Marinette had a bit of luck on her side.

“All clear on the roof, Cap,” Clint said into his mic. “I’ll keep a lookout from up here.” There was silence as he listened to Cap’s orders. “Okay. Will do. Stay invisible, got it. Over and out.”

           The second the conversation had ended, Marinette through a smoke bomb at his feet. Before Clint could even finish saying, “What the he-” Marinette was on the attack. Using the smoke to her advantage, she swung her yo-yo at Hawkeye’s feet. The String wrapped around his legs, tripping him. Five seconds later, Hawkeye was hogtied on the ground.

Marinette touched her mic, “Tweety Bird down. Bringing him to home base now!”

“Copy that, Ladybug,” Tony said. “Be careful.”

           Clint looked up at his assailant; expecting to see Tony or the Wasp, any avenger. Instead what he saw, was a teen girl with a scary blue-eyed glare on his face, “Who are you?”

           Marinette leaned down, “Your reckoning.” She hissed.

“What the fuck!” He said as he was thrown over the girl’s shoulder and carried to home base.

           When Marinette got to home base, she saw Harley putting a rather put out Falcon on the ground, Spiderman with five webbed up shield agents, Chloe had brought in two, Kagami and Riri brought in six. MJ and Ned both brought in one random shield agent. Marinette tossed Hawkeye on the couch.

           It had been twenty minutes, Clint knew by the clock on the wall. Twenty minutes since sunset and the game had started. And they had already lost just over half their team to a bunch of teenagers.

Clint couldn’t help but wonder what the hell had Tony unleashed on them.

“Foghorn Leghorn secure,” Harley said into his mic. “Tweety in his cage. The shadows are all accounted for.”

“I’m Tweety,” Clint told Sam.

           Sam paused. “…Am I Foghorn Leghorn?”

“Wasp and Vision on their way with The Blue Fairy,” Tony’s voice rang their ears. “They’ll play guard dog. QuickSilver is down; Miss Tuffit got him. Seven minions gone; Captain Hook and his jolly crew got them. Over and out.”

“Queen Bee, MJ, guard the Home base until they get here,” Harley ordered. “Guy in the chair, Mj, back on monitor duty. Fulfill mission Top hat ASAP.” They nodded and left the room.

           Top hat was important. The two were trying to hack into Team Cap’s communications, once they did; it was game over.

“The rest of you complete the assignment,” He told them.

           Then all split up again. Vision and Wasp arrived with Scarlet witch just as they were leaving. All three avengers gave the kids confused looks as they left.

           It would take Marinette another hour before she came across another member of Team Cap. And she didn’t so much as come across, as she did respond to Peter’s cry for help.

“Captain Sparkles!” Peter yelled in their earpiece. “Training yard. I’m trying to hold hi-No I won’t give you back your shield! Hurry! Over!”

“I’m around the corner,” Marinette hissed into the mic as she ran for the yard. When she arrived it was just in time to catch the shield that was flying at her face.

           She held the shield tightly in her hand, feeling like Wonder Woman, as she stared down Captain America.

           Steve looked at the young girl who had joined the fight, “My shield, miss?” He was aware that Spiderman had landed behind him.

           Marinette smiled sweet. Then she launched the shield at him with such brute force, he was lifted off his feet. “The Name’s Ladybug.”

Steve didn’t catch the shield in time and it bounced back to Spiderman.

           Captain America glared at the two teenagers.

           Then the fight was on.

           Spiderman hits Steve with his shield, distracting him. The shield falling to the ground. Ladybug barges Captain America backwards. Steve shoulders her to the floor. Marinette lands on the ground; pain flaring across her shoulder. Spiderman punches Steve who just lifts him and slams him against the ground. Spiderman raises a fist but Steve twists it. A web shoots out of his hand, the sound of a small explosion fills the training yard.

           Marinette takes the distraction to trip Captain America and jump up. As Steve falls to the ground, Marinette uses the electro-shooters that Riri made and shocks the dear life out of him. It wasn’t enough to bring him down but then Peter added in his own shocking web-shooters.

           Yet Steve still looked ready for another round of their fight. Marinette quickly picked up the shield and slammed it across his head. Steve Rogers fell forward in a slump.

           Spiderman webbed up with quick-drying cement.

           Both teens breathed heavily; struggling to catch their breath, tense from the fight. Marinette could even find it in herself to unclench the shield.

“Captain Sparkles is down, over,” Marinette said into the Mic.

“We’re bringing him in, over,” Spiderman added.

           There was a moment of silence.

“…What the fuck?” They heard War Machine say.

           When Marinette walked in with the shield in one hand and helping Spiderman carry Cap with the other, the avengers present quietly lost their shit. Kagami nodded, where she stood over Fury who looked more pissed than ever before in his entire life. Chloe stood over Coulson, who just looked put out. MJ and Ned looked overly pleased. Their mission had been a success but it only lasted long enough to get Fury and Coulson. After that, Team Cap was smart enough to ditch the communications, figuring something was up.

“Who’s left?” Spiderman asked in the Mic. “Over.”

“Stoneheart,” Kagami answered bitterly, referring to Melinda May, into the Mic so the team could hear them. “She took out Daisy and got away. Hill is after her now.”

“Jon Snow and Miss Tuffit,” Chloe said referring to the Winter Soldier and Black Widow. “Iron Man and WarIron are after Small fry. War Machine has eyes on Miss Tuffet.”

“I’m closing in on Miss Tuffit, over.” War Machine said.

           Marinette looked at her team, pressing on her mic, “Guy in Chair, Mj, I want you on Stoneheart’s tail. Spiderman go be back up for the War Machine. Iron Heart, meet me on the Location 12. Over.”

“What are you going to do, over?” Harley asked.

           Marinette clenched the shield in her hands, “I’m going to go tell Jon Snow that Winter Is Over. Queen and Dragon with me. Over.”

           The battle with the Winter Soldier was epic. The showdown happened in the gym. It turned out they weren’t hunting for the Winter Soldier, the Winter soldier was hunting for them. The second they walked into the gym, the doors closed behind them.

           Bucky jumped down from the rafters. He stared at the girls. He had seen them fight. None of them fought with any ounce mercy but plenty of skill. But they were clearly just kids. Just Dames in over their heads. He’d go easy on them. “Shall we, Ladies?”

           Ladybug, Queen Bee, Iron Heart, and Dragon shared a look before giggling.

           The Winter Soldier only just barely stood a chance.

           The girls laid Bucky gently on the floor on home base. He grunted and glared at them.

           A few minutes later, Tony and Rhodey walked in with the Black Widow. The last of Team Cap.

           Tony smirked, “Game over.”

           Rhodey shook his head, “Record time; two hours and four-two minutes. Beats the last one by about seven hours and sixteen minutes.”

           Then they debriefed. Video of the fights and footage was seemed was shown so everyone could see where they could improve. The image of tiny Ladybug clocking Captain America in their head with his own shield was rewinded and watched seven times.

           Tony fell over laughing, “I’m putting on Youtube!”

“I will divorce you!” Steve snapped but couldn’t fight the smile on his face.

           Once The random agents of shield and Stark industries left, Steve glared at Tony. His team had gotten demolished. In record time. “You brought in outside heroes, that’s not fair.”

“No,” Tony laughed. “I brought employees of Stark Industries as agreed upon. Everyone meet WarIron,” Harley lowered his helmet. “Iron Heart,” Riri lowered his, “You know Spiderman already,” Peter took of his mask and waved. “MJ, and Ned” Both teens nodded. “Ladybug,” Marinette took off her mask. “Queen Bee,” Chloe glared as she removed hers. “Dragon!” Kagami took off her black mask. “The interns. Otherwise known as the Young Avengers.”

“Oh, fuck you too Stark,” Clint complained. “Did you see what they did to poor Bucky. He’s the deadliest assassin in history, and I felt they went a little rough.”

           Bucky nodded with a wince, “Can I have my arm back.”

           Steve looked at the bluenette still holding his shield, with a charming smile.

Kagami glared. She held the metal arm like trophy. “Spoils of War.”

           Marinette giggled.

           Being a intern was going to be fun.    

[falling-feuilles]

Chapter 6

TW/CW: Major Character Death, Childbirth, Blood

The days following the letter's arrival were hard. To keep Lise from worrying, Marya and Y/N were forced to keep up appearances, made to quietly grieve during the night when the rest of the household slept. The Old Prince’s already miserable attitude was exacerbated to the point where Y/N refused to eat meals with the man, opting to dine in her own quarters instead.

One particular day, Y/N spent its first half attempting to write her letter to Pierre, to no avail. If only it had come as easy to her as it did to the employees who wrote to first inform them of his passing. After spending nearly an hour trying to write the first sentence, she dropped her head, laying her cheek upon the smooth chestnut, letting out a weary sigh.

“N/N, are you quite well?” Marya stuck her head through the door, noting Y/N’s disheveled appearance.

“Yes, I… I’m trying to write to Pierre to… to tell him about Andrei. He deserves to hear it from one of us rather than in passing at some ridiculous fete.”

Marya sighed, peering out into the hall once more before closing the door, stepping fully into the room.

“You’re right, it would be best to hear it from you as well, you and him are quite close.”

“Quite… I only wish he could just know without me having to tell him… it’s going to send him spiraling Marya, I almost fear he won’t recover…”

“I know… maybe you should put it off for a few more days; you, father, and I are the only people who know, not even Tikhon and the servants are aware. You said Pierre was traveling, yes?”

“I believe so, or he will be shortly, why do you ask?”

“If you send the letter and it arrives when he isn’t there, who do you think will open it?”

“Helene.”

“Precisely, and we both know she won’t be nearly as kind about it. Until we know for sure where he is and where Helene isn’t, I think you should bide your time.”

“You are right, as usual. Marya,” Y/N placed her hand on Marya’s shoulder, “Thank you, you are a true friend, I surely would have gone mad with worry were it not for you.”

Marya smiled, weary face breaking into uncharacteristic joy.

“I am merely returning the favor. Now, I should head to Father’s study, he has me working on a new lesson today, I barely understood the last one.”

She sighed, turning to the door.

“Supposing I were to go to your chambers at, say, eight o’clock? Would you perhaps have the time for a tutoring session?”

Marya nodded, leaving the room. Y/N, after ensuring Marya was out of earshot, slammed her fist onto the desk, causing the various bottles and trinkets placed upon it to jump in the air, clattering back down to the darkly stained surface.

“Damn it…”

~

The fields surrounding the Bolkonsy property were vast, colored dark emerald by the night sky. Had it been in the city, Y/N would never have risked walking at such a time. However, in the country, escorted by a large shire, she felt perfectly safe. The stars, while visible in the city, shown twice as bright in the clear skies, unclouded and free from the countless buildings decorating the streets of St Petersburg. From her perch on Emil's broad back, the rolling meadows stretched on for acres, encumbered only by the wooded groves sprinkled across the estate. The thin, winding path beneath her was neglected, unused by the members of the household. The vast property had many paths strewn throughout, only a small number remained in use. Although Prince Bolkonsky regularly walked the property, he only ever used the same trail. He was a man of habit, exact to the point of madness.

A small rustling to her left startled Emil, causing him to shuffle away, snorting indignantly.

"Easy, easy..."

Lightly, she sprung down from the saddle, landing firmly on the mottled path. Unwilling to move closer, and unable to flee her side, Emil stood perfectly still, hot air issuing from his snout.

Calmly, she moved towards the brush, noting the movement of the grasses. Carefully parting the grass, she found a small litter fox cub, rolling around in the leaves, struggling to re-orient itself. A few meters away, she noted the familiar signs of a fox burrow, tucked into the side of the small mound to her right. Kneeling next to the small creature, she heard it whimpering, calling for its mother. Gently, she scooped the small creature into her arm, creeping quietly towards the den. By the moonlight, she saw a few other small figures curled up, guarded by their mother. Her head was up, pitch black eyes fixed on Y/N, ready to pounce should the need arise.

"Don't fret, I'm just here to return this little one."

Y/N held out the small ball of fur, catching the attention of the mother. She shuffled forward, wary, but determined. Nudging her nose into the cubs fur, she bit down on the nape of its neck, lifting it from her gloved hands.

She stood to leave, but the ribs pushing through the mother's silvery fur gave her pause. Holding out a hand, hoping she would understand the gesture, Y/N hurried back to Emil; he was calmer, knowing the mysterious creature was just a fox seemed to calm his nerves, though he still watched the malnourished canine with his large, muddy eyes.

Digging through Emil's vast saddlebags, Y/N searched for the small tied bag hidden deep in its recesses. Finally, her fingers brushed the familiar canvas, drawing it out of the leather satchel.

"Here," she held out a hunk of salted meat, allowing the mother to inspect it. After a few good sniffs, she gingerly removed it from Y/N's fingers, scarfing it down. The cub was nowhere in sight, presumably hidden back in the darkness of the burrow.

Expectantly, the mother looked to Y/N again, nudging her hand. Chuckling, she held out another piece, feeling the fox's damp nose brush her fingers.

After ensuring the mother was properly fed, Y/N stood back up again, tentatively placing a hand on the fox's head, scratching the spot just behind her pointed ears.

The cubs began to whine, calling for their mother. With one last look towards Y/N, she stalked back into the den, disappearing from view. She swung her leg back over the saddle, grasping the reins with her hand.

"Come, Emil, let's head back before someone notices we've gone."

He huffed, trotting along the path, back towards the faint lights of the house.

~

The next morning, she made her way to the small dining room to break fast with the ladies of the household. Marya, seated primly at the head of the table, looked to her as she entered, gesturing for her to take a seat. Lise, seated to her right, looked highly uncomfortable.

"Lise, are you quite well?"

Y/N sat beside her sister, placing a hand to her forehead.

"Yes, yes... something in my breakfast must have disagreed with me-"

"Look at her. She's very pale!" Bourienne stood, looking closer at Lise's face.

She let out a sharp whimper of pain, dropping her spoon.

"Lise... I think it's time."

"We'd better send for Maria Bogdanovna," Bourienne moved forward, placing her hand on Marya's arm.

"Yes, I think you're right, I'll go and see to it." Marya sped away, muttering frantically under her breath.

"Courage, mon ange!" Bourienne pressed a kiss to Lise's cheek,

Lise was in clear distress, grasping her sister's hand. Y/N stood by her side, brushing Lise's blond locks away from her damp face.

"No! Can it be, so soon? But surely it's just a stomach ache?"

"It's best to be on the safe side, ma cherie."

With help from Bourienne and another of the maids, Y/N managed to get Lise into the bedroom, laying her gently on the bed.

"Lise, look at me, you have to breathe, you'll be just fine."

~

The next few hours passed in a miserable tirade of screaming, stress, and no small amount of fear. Like her father, Lise had a weak heart; while not nearly as detrimental to her health, it was the main reason physicians were so insistent she rested frequently, even more than the average expectant mother would. Y/N, although she begged to be let inside the room, she was denied each time. Instead of being by her sister’s side, she waited by the window, eyes searching desperately for the carriage bearing the doctor. Marya stepped nearer, lowering herself to sit beside Y/N.

“Have you heard anything from the midwife?”

“No,” Marya placed a comforting hand on Y/N’s shoulder, squeezing it gently, “But, they did say you could see her for a moment or two.”

“Truly?” Marya nodded, moving so Y/N could pass her, making a beeline straight for the room.

Inside, Lise lay sprawled on the bed, coated in sweat, face twisted into a pained grimace. Her breath came in short pants, dry and uneven. Y/N dashed to her side, nearly pushing over a nearby maid. Lise reached out her hand, grasping tightly at Y/N's as another painful contraction wracked her frail body.

"Sister... you... y..."

"Shhh, hush, my darling Lise, all will be well, you're doing wonderfully, I'm so proud of you."

The midwife moved to Y/N's side, all but shoving her away.

"My lady you must leave."

"I... yes, of course, Lise," she bent over her sister's prone form, pressing a kiss to her damp cheek, "I will see you as soon as I can, alright? I love you."

Y/N was pushed from the room before Lise could murmur a response. Down the hall, she noticed Marya jump from her seat next to the window, dashing down the stairs. Y/N followed on her heels, skirts bunched in her hands.

The night air was fresh and cool, a drastic change from the warm, stale air of Lise's room. Stepping outside, Y/N could see what drew Marya out the door, the doctor's carriage.

"Thank god, what took so-" Y/N stopped, eyes catching the face of the man exiting the carriage. "A... Andrei..."

Marya rushed forward to embrace her brother, leaping into his arms. Y/N stood back, eyes wide, open-mouthed.

How?! I thought... she said...

"Andrei, Lise is inside." Her voice was quiet. Even. But dreadfully quiet. Was it the shock? Fear, even? Regardless, the group didn't have much time to waste, the doctor hurried up the front steps, guided by Marya. Andrei followed quickly behind, leaving Y/N to take up the tail end of the chase.

"You..." Lise gasped as he entered the room, reaching for him.

"My darling..." He took her face in his hands, pressing a feverish kiss to her forehead. Before any further words could be exchanged, the doctor moved to Andrei's side, placing a hand on his arm.

"If you would wait outside, your Excellency. I must insist, it's for the best." Andrei, despite his wish to remain, left the room, wincing as Lise let out another pained yell.

Y/N, still grappling with Andrei's return, sat outside, stiff as a board. With each of Lise's cries, her fingertips dug more and more tightly into the ball of her thumb; soft flesh yielding beneath the increasing pressure. Andrei, seemingly unable to stand by any longer, made another futile attempt to enter.

He barely managed to open the door a crack before it was slammed in his face.

"No, no, you mustn't come in!"

A few more moments passed.

Another intense scream. A few seconds of silence. Then, the cry of a baby. Andrei flew into the room, Y/N hot on his trail.

The doctor stood, holding a small, damp bundle in his arms. At the sight of Andrei, he quickly transferred the swaddling to the new father's arms.

"Your son, your excellency..."

Y/N moved to Lise's side, noting the blood staining the sheets. It was everywhere. Coating her skin, pooled beneath her, leaving a sticky, scarlet film on the midwife's hands.

It was too much. Far too much.

"Lise...? Lise please..."

No response. Y/N moved closer, grabbing her hand. It was limp in her grasp, lifeless. She knew, and yet, she refused to believe it.

"I'm sorry, your excellency... she's gone..."

[mochideleche]

You can’t keep away from fate | CH6

Pairing : Percy jackson x demigod!reader

summary : The daughter of destiny- literally, along with inevitability, compulsion and necessity. Being the child of a primordial goddess doesn’t really assure you a quiet calm life but when you return to new york after five years of being shipped off to boarding school, your once mundane life says goodbye.

A/N This part is a very long as i’m trying to fit each book into one part, but then nobody would want to scroll for 70 miles so i’m going to half ‘book 4′ in half. If your confused as to where the story started, it starts after the titan’s curse during the spring and this one starts at the beginning of battle of the labyrinth. Also please feel free to ask any questions about the story because I have a lot planned but sometimes forget to explain all the little things so please do comment your queries, I hope you enjoy! 

contents page

Percy wasn’t exactly hoping for his last day before camp to go as badly as he had expected it to go. If somebody had told him that 2 empousa would should show up, nearly slice his head off and explode his new school and blamed it on him, he wouldn’t be surprised but thoroughly disappointed. And to add to that, if someone had told him that the mortal girl- who he now knew as rachel, had seen the whole thing, written her number on his arm and demanded he explained what the hell what had happened, well he would’ve just stayed in bed that day. 

But he couldn’t do that. He had his orientation day at his new high school but he wouldn’t have mind to miss that. It was the fact that after his induction he would be making his way to camp half blood. Camp half blood. oh how percy missed the place, with it’s white greek buildings, strawberry fields and forest filled with dangerous monsters- it was his favourite place on earth. Even better, the day after he arrived, you would be there.

You were meant to go along with annabeth to pick up percy and bring him to camp but your flight got delayed and you wouldn’t arrive until the next morning. Percy was sad, he’d missed you, despite practically talking on the phone every other night - when you were just about to go to sleep and percy had just got home from school  (due to time difference), he wanted to be able to see your face, see you in front of him and be able maybe to hold your hand, hug you...

But before percy could get lost in his thoughts annabeth began to talk to the cab driver. 

Percy almost forgot that she was in the cab with him. once she had seen rachel and then witnessed her write her number on percy’s arm, she had suddenly given percy the cold shoulder. Percy had no idea what she was angry about. He wanted to talk about what had been going on at camp but annabeth refused to reply to him- only giving him blunt answers or just shrugging her shoulders. 

“Just here will be fine” annabeth said and the taxi driver was the most confused, but as soon as she offered him a wad of cash he kept his mouth shut. 

Annabeth and percy hiked up to the top of the hill and as they reached the summit, percy laid his eyes on the view in front of him. Normally the sight would make him warm to the bone but something was different- like there was tension in the air but he didn’t have time to think about it as he was suddenly attacked with a hug.

Shocked, percy just stayed very still until he looked down to see Y/H/C hair and smelt the fragrance of magnolias. 

“Y/N!” Percy exclaimed, and immediately wrapped his arms around you. 

Percy was surprised, happy- no not just happy, he was overjoyed. Here you were, physically in front of him, he couldn’t have asked for anything else in the whole world. 

“I thought your flight got delayed!” Percy asked, of course he didn’t really care, all he cared was that you were there and he didn’t care as to why. 

“Surprise!” you said, stepping back and smiling up at him, “It was only delayed for an hour- so unfortunately i wasn’t able to make it to pick you up but i’m still here!” 

Percy smiled at you, staring at your pretty face as your coffee coloured eyes crinkled with your smile, “yeah, you are” 

“I’m going to speak to Clarisse” annabeth spoke up and began to walk away.

Percy snapped this head towards her, it was almost as if she just said, i’m going to eat my socks. 

“What why?” Percy questioned, looking at you to see if you were equally as confused but this didn’t seem to phase you.

“We’ve been working on something, i’ll fill you in later” and with that annabeth ran off. 

“What was that about? Annabeth and Clarisse? you must be joking-” but percy paused to see that your eyebrows were furrowed and your eyes were focused on his arm.

He looked down panicked to see if had suddenly spurted an extra limb but as soon as he saw the black marker, he hid his arm behind his back. 

“Is that a number?” You asked, eerily calm. 

“It’s not what you think” Percy sputtered but your eyes narrowed on his, you made him very nervous.

“Who’s is it?” you demand but managed to keep your voice levelled. 

“I-uh” Percy couldn’t bring himself to speak. You looked- well Percy couldn’t tell. You were angry for sure but it was more like a calm angry, the most scariest kind. Percy knew that you could probably kill him on the spot but you didn’t move a muscle. 

“You what?” you queried, raising an eyebrow, gods percy was terrified. 

Percy slumped and looked away from you, there was no way he would be able to explain what had happened if you were staring daggers at him. 

The two of you decided to walk down to the green into the camp as percy explained. Well more like you just began walking away and percy had no choice but to trail after you like a lost puppy. But he did seem to notice that as he neared the end of his story your stance seemed more relax, hopefully you weren’t as angry anymore. 

You turned to face him, a sad look on your face, “well i’m glad you’re okay” she said, then a small smile tugged at the corner of your lips, “can’t have you making a fool of yourself in front of some empousa can we?” 

“Well i’m sorry princess, but if you didn’t notice they were very intent on killing me and i had to protect rachel”  Percy protested, nudging you.

“Easy work” you shrugged, then you gave a laugh, “i’m joking... or am i?” and you broke out laughing again and this time percy joined you, he couldn’t have stayed angry at you for a second, even if he was just pretending. 

....

If anyone had told percy that things would just get worse after he arrived at camp half blood, well- at this point he was kind of expecting it. He felt as if the gods were just seeing how much he could take but he wasn’t at all in the least surprised. 

After grover’s trial, the dodgy quintus guy, falling into the labyrinth and having to go on a quest when he was sure he’d get at least a week of relaxation before anything tried to destroy him, percy was feeling pretty depressed. 

And even worse, that just meant less time to spend with you. But that wasn’t only effected by the fact Percy had to go on a quest. 

You hadn’t been seen for the majority of that day or the day before. Only during activates and quick moments between them had percy seen you. You hadn’t even been at dinner the other night and percy was very confused. But annabeth had assured him that you were just doing what she called, “Field work for chiron” 

“You shouldn’t worry, Y/N is very capable of taking care of herself” Annabeth was saying as her and percy had taken a break from talking about their quest strategies. 

“Field work?” what kind of field work?” Percy questioned, totally ignoring annabeth’s notion to not ask about the subject again. 

Annabeth huffed, “Why do you care?”

Percy felt the anger rising in his chest, “Of course I care! If there’s a titan army out there and she’s all alone, i’d be worried to death if anything happens to her!” 

Annabeth looked at percy, it seems as if she had only just taken notice of him and was looking as if she was evaluating him. She shrugged, “chiron’s got her scouting the borders, we’ve been getting a lot of attacks recently...” 

she trailed off as if re-deciding that maybe she shouldn’t tell percy, “anyways, Y/N is one of the most powerful demigods i know, she’ll be okay” 

The coldness in annabeths tone began to soften as she saw percy’s scrunched up eyebrows and frown, “she’ll be back tonight, you can ask her then” 

And sure enough you were, after dinner you and percy sat at the dock and this time the naiads gave the both of you enough space, perhaps they sensed the tension between the two of you and thought it would be best to stay clear just in case a fight broke out. 

“You feeling okay? I know i wouldn’t be if i’d have to go in the labyrinth- i’d be way too claustrophobic” You said trying to make conversation.

“Thanks for making me feel so much better” percy mumbled, and you faced him.

“This must suck, i mean, you did just get here...” 

and so did you, percy wanted to say, i don't want to leave you just yet, but percy didn’t say anything like that. 

“Yeah, sucks worse than having to clip hades toenails”

“Percy!” you laughed, and the sound brought a smile to percy’s face.

You leaned an elbow on your crossed legs and rested your face on your palm. 

Percy stared at you, the reflection of the moonlight on the river landed on your face, making it seem as if you had the flowing face of a naiad- a much prettier naiad though, percy thought.

“I’m sorry” you said suddenly, the soft look on your face faltering slightly, “I should’ve told you why i wasn't around as much”

Percy blinked. At first he was slightly angry, not at you- angry at how chiron had made you go out in the forest by yourself. Percy had no doubt that you could handle anything that came at you- with your elemental powers, goddess radiance and killer swordsplay, he wasn’t worried about monsters hurting you. He was angry at the fact that this had taken you away from him. 

But now he understood, if anyone should take on this task, it should be you. 

“You don’t need to apologise,” percy said, breaking eye contact with you and leaning back, “But you should’ve told me so that i could’ve gone with you”

You gave a soft laugh and percy turned to you to ask something sarcastic like, what’s so funny, you don’t think i can fight monsters just as well? but then he saw the sad smile at your face, “percy, i didn’t want to give you another thing to worry about” 

You were right, percy did have other things to worry about. 

Just the thought of it made him want to hurl, on his 16th birthday percy had to make a decision that would save the world or end it. 

But then looking at you, sadly gazing into the river made percy think. Just how nice life would be if all he had to worry about was exams or if he got onto the swim team or not? He wanted an easy life, then maybe he could’ve got all the time he wanted to spend with you. Percy got angry- why did it have to be him? what did he do to deserve this fate?

You wrapped your hand gently around percy’s wrist, it was only then percy noticed he was making a mini whirl pool. 

He stared at your dainty hand and perfectly manicured nails, gods he loved everything about you, and then looked up into you coffee coloured eyes. 

“I know it will come out okay,” you said sweetly, “you can do this”

“yeah but i’m not the daughter of a primordial goddess who can sword fight with both hands and make people stop breathing by just looking at them” 

You rolled your eyes, “I’ll show you how it feels when i suffocate monsters” 

“No need princess,” percy smirked, “you take my breath away every time i look at you” 

Your cheeks tinted red and you turned away from percy, he burst out laughing. 

But his laughter was cut short when a wave of water rose from the river and drenched him. 

Percy was left sputtering, spitting out the water that had entered his mouth and blinking the droplets out of his eyes. He then lifted up his hand to send his own wave on you but you were smiling dangerously at him, 

“Try it, and you’ll breath your last breath”

He slowly lowered his hand, “alright, you win, this once princess” 

“This once he says” you mumbled under your breath, laughing as you and percy began to make your way back to the cabins. 

...

You stood by zeus’ fist that morning along with everyone else to send off annabeth and the rest. You were worried. It was obvious since everybody else was- the labyrinth wasn’t exactly all fun and games, it was built to be a living death trap. and the fact that your friends were going in there with no reliable way of getting around made you nervous. 

But at least you didn’t have to go on the quest, let alone lead it.

The day annabeth had received the prophecy she had begun to break down. You took her to the big house so that nobody would see your best friend in a panic attack and tried to calm her down. 

You rubbed her back soothingly, “annabeth, i know you can do this- you are the smartest person i know, and a child of athena- you can do this” 

She sniffled back a sob, “i have no idea what i was thinking, how are we going to get through that maze just on my gut feeling?” 

You stared at annabeth sympathetically- you had no idea. 

“Well maybe it’s one of those things when you just don't think about it” you suggested, shrugging your shoulders- you really couldn’t think of any other better ideas, “Maybe you do just have to feel it” 

You thought that idea was absolute centaur poop but it made annabeth laugh, “yeah, maybe” 

You nodded encouragingly, “well let’s start now, try to take your mind off the quest so later you can think clearly and strategise” 

Annabeth sat quietly, she wasn’t replying but you could tell she had agreed and was willing to take her mind off the labyrinth, you tried to come up with conversation. 

“Have you heard anything from nico then?” 

Not the best topic- it could’ve been worser than to talk about than the quest but it seemed to distract annabeth well.

“No, not really- I think percy has though, he mentioned a dream he had of nico”

You nodded, percy had told you about this too. Nico di angelo wasn’t someone you had met but percy had naturally told you about it. You felt sorry for nico, for a boy so young to go through so much- you couldn’t even begin to understand how that must feel. 

You couldn’t blame him for going rogue and something in your gut told you that he should be found before he could fall into luke’s hands.

“Speaking of percy,“ annabeth began and you looked up to see that she was no longer crying, “has he been mentioning that rachel girl anymore?” she asked, a slightly malicious tone creeping into her voice.

“Annabeth, that wasn’t his fault, besides it was her who wrote her number on his arm. And no, he hasn’t...” you trailed off trying to avoid annabeths analysing gaze. 

You must admit on the day percy came to camp and you saw the number on his arm- you were upset.

It was no secret now that you liked percy- with his dark hair, dreamy sea green eyes, golden personality and kind heart, you couldn’t help but swoon over the son of Poseidon.

And you supposed that percy wasn’t really exclusive to you, half the camp had a crush on him too, so it was a dead give away that people in the mortal world would find him just as attractive. 

You didn't bring up anything, you didn't really think that percy had ‘the hots’ for you- you just thought that came with the hero persona, but the certain things he did- calling you everyday, sneaking to the docks at night with you, calling you princess. 

That made your heart palpitate

And annabeth being annabeth saw through you right away. 

She admitted to you that she too once had a little crush on percy but she was still hung up on luke that it just felt wrong, and she supposed due to that her crush died out and well- the rest is history. 

“Well i’m just saying you need to be careful, percy is rather oblivious to most things and if he’s going around letting any girl write their numbers on his arms-”

“Annabeth,” you smiled.

“I’m just saying,” she reasoned, lifting her hands up in a shrug, “if he turns out to be trash and breaks your heart, i won’t even think twice about throwing him under a pegasus stampede” 

You laughed, gods how you were so lucky to have annabeth as your best friend. 

And now due to that you were dying from anxiety as you watched her re-check her backpack and standing strong with determination. 

you gave her a hug, “Don’t panic, im sure things won't be too bad,” total lie. “Stay safe okay?”

Annabeth nodded grimly, “Thanks Y/N, you keep safe too” 

She stepped back and began to talk to chiron, percy approached you next.

You looked up to him, “Try not to do anything stupid while you’re gone okay?” you did your best to not let your voice get stuck in your throat and tried to sound upbeat and confident for percys part. 

Percy scoffed, “Please, we all know i can’t keep that promise” He looked uneasily to the side, despite seeming so laid back you knew how he was really feeling on the inside. 

You tried for a laugh but it kind of sounded pathetic, so you just hugged him instead.

No words were needed but percy hugged you back, tighter this time. His arms wrapped around your waist as if he was hugging you like it was your last- no no no don’t be pessimistic.

You tried to let go multiple times, planning on stepping back but still feeling percy’s arms stay like solid iron around you, but finally you had the courage to detangle your arms from under his and stepped back so you could look at him.

His sea green eyes stared sadly at your face, you tried your best to control your blush. Even at a time like this you still got butterflies over him. 

Annabeth called percy, the rest of them were already at the entrance, her voice acting like a pin to your little bubble. You caught the flash of disappointment in percy’s face.

he turned back to you and gave you a little bow, “Until next time, princess” 

You stifled a giggle, “adieu” and covered your face to stop the other on-lookers from seeing your blush as percy and the rest clambered into the fissure. 

...

How many days had it been? 2 3? percy couldn’t tell, for all he knew a week could have gone by and it would have only felt like half a day. Time went by differently in the labyrinth, percy knew that- but he didn’t exactly think it would be so disorienting. Having not seen the outside world for a while it felt off having to sleep everyone and then since they didn’t even know when night time was. 

They were taking camp and percy had just finished his shift and had begun to sleep but of course that only meant nightmares. 

He was back at long island, in the forest near the camp. He didn’t know how he knew but he could just feel it. He felt worried for a second, if he was having another dream about luke and he was already near camp half blood- but as soon as he saw a petite figure standing against the trees, he doubted that this was a nightmare at all. 

You stood feet shoulder width apart with your arms crossed casually but you were  peering through the trees with a determined look. Percy had seen that face before, it was the face you wore every time you were duelling with him. 

That couldn’t be a good sign. 

you were wearing a grey cami tucked into washed out jeans and with a flannel tied around your waist. You looked amazing and percy wished that he could just stare at you all day- but a sudden gust of wind blew past him, it almost threw him off his feet. Percy stumbled back and looked at you. Naturally you were unaffected, the wind only succeeding in blowing back your long hair which was tied up in a tight ponytail. 

You scrunched your nose in distaste and begrudgingly flicked out your hands, the two drakon bone blades extending to their full length. You began to stride forward, spinning the blades in you hands like jedi do in starwars- percy was very envious of that, and set off in between the cluster of trees. 

Percy followed behind you, trying to keep his distance just in case you swung your sword through his torso. Percy didn’t know if you could still cut him whilst he was dreaming but he wasn’t really willing to find out. 

Another gust of wind came but this time it blew away from you, percy had a thought that maybe you were the one summoning the harsh winds. He watched as the wind carried a few stray leaves up with it and it dancing through the trees out of sight. 

Percy remembered you mentioning to him one time that when you controlled the winds you could feel everything the wind felt. You’d told him that when you were with the hunters of artemis, they had taught you how to use that ability to scout out monsters who were hiding. And that didn’t make him feel any better. 

He looked over at you, your face was calm but your eyes were narrow as if you felt something was wrong. Then the calmness of your face disappeared when a small look of shock painted your face. You immediately began to look around as if you could sense something was watching you, then you looked directly at percy. 

Percy wasn’t new to his dreams interacting with him, but that was when he was dreaming about gods who were omniscient and all powerful. But his thought was cut short when a humungous wind pushed through you.

This time, you were taken aback as you lost your footing and hand to bring your hands to your face to shield yourself from the twigs and leaves that came with the gust. As it died down you bounded down into the trees. 

It was for a quick second but percy had caught it and it made him nervous- the scowl on your face. 

You were one to not ever lose your temper, more like you let it boil behind a scary calmness. Percy had never seen you shout or show any reckless anger so seeing that scathing stare you gave whatever you were chasing made him worry. 

He followed you, at much difficulty as you were a very fast runner, the trees became a blur in his side vision and you hair flickered behind you like a horse’s tail when it was anxious. 

Then you skidded to a stop, percy would’ve bashed straight into you if he didn’t stop about ten feet behind you when he saw your target. 

It loomed over you, about 12 feet tall and was as wide as the width of three of trees in the forest surrounding you. Percy almost thought it was a tree but it inched forward, lifting the thing percy thought was its unnaturally arm up over it’s head. Then with speeds that couldn’t be possible for a thing that size, it brought it down. 

Percy shouted out your name but that was pointless, you couldn’t hear him, neither did you need his warning. 

You crossed both swords as the limb, which percy now saw was a huge wooden club, made contact with you. You stumbled under the weight but you pushed back and the club went up in flames. 

As cool as it was, it was totally pointless, cyclopes were fire resisant- in order to work in harsh conditions, but that wasn’t what you were going for. 

The eruption of fire sent the cyclopes into confusion and he bent down to examine his newly lit stick. Now Percy could see it’s ugly face, distorted and wrinkled as if it’d spent a life time frowning. It’s singular beady eye blinking slowly in confusion. 

Seeing a cyclopes attack you, made percy feel sick. Cyclopes were supposed to be good, like percy’s brother tyson and the cyclopes that worked in his fathers forges. Seeing this was just a whole type of wrong. 

The second the cyclops faltered you disappeared from under his club and jumped onto the tip of it and began running towards it’s arm. The fire didn’t affect you, and neither did gravity seem to be pulling you down - comes with the perks of being as powerful as a minor goddess, percy thought.

You continued on you path even as you passed onto the cyclops’ arm, and as you did, you dug both your swords into it, opening his limb as you dashed towards it’s head. 

This shook the cyclops out of it’s daze as a frown made its way on it’s face. It raised it’s other hand to swipe at you but you were now perched on his shoulder. 

Percy had seen some pretty gruesome things, but this was next level gross. Blood was flowing everywhere, parts of the fire on the club were being doused out by it and when the cyclops moved percy could see parts of white bone. 

disgusting. 

The cyclops looked more confused than in pain as he turned towards you, craning his neck so that he could face you and his multiple chins being put on full display. 

And when percy thought he had seen enough, you took both your sword and cut the head off the cyclops. 

The head fell to the ground and rolled towards percy like a great boulder in an avalanche. He barely had time to scramble away, just missing it as the cyclops’ eye stared lifelessly at him. 

Percy turned back to the body which was now dissolving into yellow dust, and you began glide to the ground gracefully, before landing on your feet. Despite the grace in you descent, percy noticed on how you stumbled a little bit under your own weight and how you were breathing heavily. 

he instinctively began to walk towards you, wanting to let you lean against him and tell you how badass you were but as he did, you looked up- you stared right at him. 

Then percy woke up - back drenched in a cold sweat, breath heaving as if he had actually run beside you and the picture of your coffee coloured eyes staring right at him, burning in his mind. 

[happybeeps-nat]

For that fic writer ask: questions 1, 3, and 10, please! (If that’s alright? No pressure!)

Thank you, my love, and sorry for the late answer!

1. What’s your personal favourite thing you wrote 2020?

Let’s not even kid, it has to be You Look So Alive. I have dedicated my entire heart and soul into this story, it helped me stay alive, it gave me something good and so, so many friends (like you!). And to know that I get to do all of this, that I get to write something that is a safe space for people, that people read and re-read, where people tell me their life story in the comments, where people write comments in their first language because they’re “so emotional they can’t English right now”???? This is just it for me. It doesn’t get any better than that, I think. So to me it’s not just about my favourite piece of writing personally, but everything that comes with it. And I think it just might continue to be my personal favourite thing I wrote and am still writing.

3. Which of your fics was most different from what you usually write?

Hmm, I don’t even know if it really is different from what I usually write, but I’d definitely go with I Have Loved You For A Thousand Years, simply because it has this vibe I can’t possibly replicate. This story, when I think about it, has a specific kind of feel to it, and had it when I was writing it, too. It’s like a soulmate AU, but not really. It’s major character death, but not really. It’s hurt/comfort in a melancholy way, and hopeful in a deep kind of way. Idk, it’s definitely different. And rightfully rated M, I think.

10. What, if anything, are you going to try to do differently in your writing in the new year?

Oh my God, okay, so we all know I write feels. And I would even say I write them rather well. But this year, I want to get better at writing descriptively. Give you those surroundings, give you the view and the smell and the atmosphere through more than the character’s introspection.

As a treat, you get a little snippet of something I wrote on the last week of December 2020, to tell you what exactly I mean (and also as a possible teaser to something else I’ll never write lmao).

Snippet:

Finn woke with a gasp, hot desert air filling his lungs with the distinctive smell of burning jet fuel. He sat up quickly, but that was a mistake. Every bone in his body hurt, every muscle felt like it was being compressed by the armour he was wearing. His head was spinning, hurting, a sharp pain rapidly spreading, making it all he could feel. 

He tried to take another deep breath, but it was so hot around him it didn’t do any good. Slowly, he freed himself from the parachute — or what was left of it. Standing up slowly, Finn gave himself no more than five seconds to get used to the pain, to swallow the bile rising to his throat, and to breathe through the panic. There was no point trying to orient himself. This was a desert and he was completely and utterly lost, but that was not the reason for his panic. 

The actual reason lay several meters before him. The TIE-fighter, crashed and burning, the dura-plast of the controls melting and making toxic fumes rise to the air, filling his nose with a biting smell. But that was not why he was panicking either. 

Poe was nowhere to be found. The Resistance pilot that had saved him, that had given him a name. He who had given Finn a reason for what he had thought would be his very last thoughts: _I am Finn, I am Finn, I am Finn._

He was nowhere, and Finn needed to find him. Couldn’t leave him in the burning ship. But when he made his feet walk up to the ship numbly, when he searched the burning cabin, all he could retrieve was the pilot’s leather jacket. 

Something made him stumble back a few steps. His ears were still ringing and the world still spinning, but he was pretty sure that the ground was actually shaking now, grumbling, rumbling, quaking. Making him stumble back, making it hard to keep his balance. 

Moments later, what was left of the TIE fighter was swallowed by the sand as it opened up underneath it. Within seconds it had disappeared, and so had any chance of finding Poe nearby. Finn wanted to cry, wanted to scream and shout and look under every grain of sand for the pilot. But before he could do anything other than stare at the sand beneath his feet, a massive explosion rattled the ground once more and suddenly the sky was dark, brown, nothing more than sand. Sand everywhere. 

No Poe. Only sand.

The shockwave of the explosion, Finn realised a few seconds later, had thrown him off his feet. And his whole body was in pain again, his ears ringing, and this seemed like the perfect place to rest. Regroup. Wait. Sleep. Maybe even to die. He’d see about that... later.

[stone-man-warrior]

November 16, 2020: 2:59 pm:

Centurylink Shane Welsh; Zachary White; Stephen Bell terror scenario playing out today, is a repeating, scripted screenplay of a terror scenario: The activity begins with Centurlylink terror operatives using the Symantec norton product to erase itself from the computer with a variety of computer headaches that take several hours to remedy. The hack installs a second norton product, one conflicts with the other, the computer is said to have no internet security at all, the message from norton says there are a number of “Errors” and the manual diagnostics must be done, a re-installation of the norton product, and a system restore is necessary after figuring out what the problem is. I am re-installing the update to the most recent version now as a result of that computer hack attack.

So, there is more. The other part to this computer attack is the dangerous part.

I have played this game before, always the same people, same props, same place, same activity, same, same, same, all over again... the same shit on a different day at one year intervals or so.

The other part to the attack is a physical one. While I am busy fixing the computer, the thing needs time to load the program, do the diagnostic, etc, so that is a good time to take a walk while the spinning curser is doing it’s thing.

While walking, I encounter an expecially geeky looking fellow at the neighbors house. He is always carrying the same broken computer with wires sticking out all over the place... clearly, the man is a computer wizard, and can help me fix my computer (the one he attacked from Centurylink). Of course, in the past, I have fallen for the computer geek at the neighbor before, so, I already know who he is... he is part of the Green Jello Centurylink Shane Welsh/Zack White attack team. If I say: “Hey, you look like a friendly sort of SDA computer geek who can help me repair this nasty bug that just happened”, then, he will be like Johnny on the spot, ready to go, has a pouch filled with thumb drives and diagnostic software, and, he is already carrying around a broken computer with wires all hanging out of it so I can clearly see it as I walk by. They wait there for me to walk by, so they can carry the broken computer with wires all sticking out for me to see.

The physical attack happens after you invite the geek into the house to look at the bug he put on your computer. There is also a Hot Chick who is there to be mysteriously just barely out of view, so, that is another reason to start a conversation with the friendly SDA Green Jello terror computer geek, maybe have a look at a Hot Chick who is clearly not a computer geek oriented woman.

So, that’s all i have on that, but, the point here is more about the repetitive, planned, scripted attack scenario that is invasive into your personal computer to unknown extent, designed to fool a victim into asking for some help, as a lure for a private, physical attack behind closed doors at the victims home.

I pay $45 per month for Internet service. I pay more than $100 annually for the Symantec norton product. That won‘t keep Centurylink out of my computer or personal information, nor will it protect me from being throttled from reaching FBI and other national Security offices.

One more interesting Symantec note, is that in about twenty years of annual renewals to the norton product, it has never found any issues of computer bugs, ever, when I do a scan. The product is fake. It only does what  Centurylink wants it to. The need the information I share online, so, they don‘t completely wipe pout my computer like they could do. Instead, the install keystroke recorder software, and other spyware, so that the information I explain can be stolen, changed enough to suit the needs of Centurylink, and ultimately used as a lure to get federal agents to go to the wrong addresses, and walk directly into the traps that are set for them.

End terror report: 3:37 pm.

[mikeyhatesit113]

forever and never: Chapter 12

My Toyota Matrix speeds down the highway, leaving the New York City skyline behind us in the rear view mirror. Janie sits in the passenger seat, admiring the engagement ring I had given to her just hours before in Times Square.

Ahead of us, the sun sinks slowly toward the horizon. Everything about that day had been perfect, and it was sending us off with a beautiful sunset. I felt proud as Janie smiled genuinely at her ring, knowing in my heart that I had treated her like a true princess that day.

“It’s beautiful,” she says. “I love you.”

I look over at her with a smile as wide as the Brooklyn Bridge itself.

“I love you too,” I say, pride swelling in my chest.

“Forever and ever,” she says.

“Plus a day,” I whisper.

2 Years Later

Janie and I step onto our front porch step, anticipation building in my chest. I had not been home in more than 3 weeks, and I had no idea what awaited me on the other side of the front door.

I had spent sleepless nights at my grandmother’s house, mental images torturing me during the night. Wicked animations produced by an imagination hell-bent on punishing me. Images that took place in the very dwelling I was about to re-enter for the first time in over 21 days.

Janie opens the door, and I take in the scene before me.

The smell hit me first. The scent was unfamiliar, as if something else had inhabited the place since my abrupt departure.

Stale cologne?

What was more, the furniture had been rearranged. The kitchen looked different, decorated with additional chairs and flat surfaced stands.

It was at that moment when I noticed that Janie was studying me, awaiting my reaction to the many changes to the place I had previously called home.

This, however, did not look like home. This was a foreign place, accented by a foreign occupant who was hiding in plain sight.

But what, or who, I could not put my finger on.

I forced a smile, hugging Janie. Though I did not recognize this environment, another part of me desperately wanted to call it home again.

Janie gave me a tour, which proved to be an orientation into her new world. A universe she had constructed in my absence, but a galaxy I was almost certain that she did not build alone.

“Wow,” I mumbled as we trudged up the stairs to the bedrooms. Brock’s room looked almost untouched, but James’ room yielded a big difference.

There was now a ball python resting in a tank beside his TV.

“Who’s snake?” I asked.

“Steppenwolf’s,” Janie said anxiously. “He brought it as a gift for the boys,” she quickly explained.

“He stayed here?” I asked, a familiar irritation arising in my chest, despite my best efforts.

“Only when the boys wanted him to, for a sleepover,” she replied.

“Oh,” I said. I immediately felt trapped again, like I was going against everything I had tried to stand for. I felt outraged. I felt like I had been violated.

I felt sick.

“And uh, where did he sleep?” I asked.

“Downstairs on the couch,” she said. “He didn’t stay here often.”

“And where did you sleep when you went to his house?” I asked.

“On his couch or in a spare room,” she replied as a matter-of-factly.

I wanted to believe her. I needed to believe her. It was the only way this could work.

“Ok...” I spoke, trying to shove her truth down my throat.

I hoped to God that he didn’t see the inside of our bedroom, which in fact, had also been transformed during my absence.

My brand new queen-size bed was long gone, currently locked up in a dark storage unit. In its place was a twin bed with a frame that creaked, and a mattress with springs that groaned. Additionally, the right side of our room was lit up with a red light that glowed from another large reptile tank which housed a lizard.

That night, I slept warily beside her in that crimson-lit room. I laid awake, wondering what I didn’t know. Wondering what she wasn’t telling me. Wondering if I was making the right decision.

I certainly didn’t have the support from my friends and family, who were incredulous that I returned to her embrace.

“I just want your support and friendship right now,” I texted my friend one day. “You got it,” he wrote back.

His response was not what I was looking for, but did he have the right words to make me feel like I was doing the right thing?

No one did, but in the effort of leaving no stone unturned, everyone’s opinion could not matter.

This was my journey, and no one else’s footsteps or words could complete the distance for me. I had to do it myself, whether it was 3 days, 3 weeks, or forever and ever, just like we had always promised eachother.

Logistically, the tricky task was moving the right amount of stuff back home to Janie and I’s place. I was not ready to empty my room at my Grandmother’s house, nor did I touch my storage unit.

They had been safe zones, and as happy as I was to be back home, I was still rather uncomfortable. I wanted to take it slow, if there was a such thing for a married couple.

Of course, there were other things returned. Janie drove with me to my grandmother’s house one Sunday afternoon to grab one of the things she had missed the most; her Lancer.

In the Lancer’s absence, her father had bought her a $300 mid-1990’s Oldsmobile that had an oil leak problem. It did not have a 6-disc CD player, but it did have a cassette player with cracked vinyl seats.

Call it vintage appeal, if you will. A time machine back to the 1990’s on 4 wheels.

I remember handing Janie the car key to the Lancer and her excitedly hopping in the driver seat. “I love this car,” she said, taking in the interior all over again as if it were the first time ever.

When the boys came home from their father’s house that evening, it was the reunion I was looking forward to most. I hugged them both, telling them both how much I had missed them. As far as I was concerned, I was back for good. And they’d never feel that pain again.

I did have unfinished business, however. I had seen enough photos of the boys sporting fedora hats, indicating that Steppenwolf had bought them their very own wacky hats. I did not appreciate these photos, so one afternoon, I found his Facebook.

I simply sent him this:

:)

It wasn’t long before he answered me.

“Hello?” he responded.

I couldn’t resist myself.

“I want to thank you for trying to take care of a family that wasn’t yours, and I hope you kept the receipt from whatever costume shop you bought those ridiculous hats from.”

“That purple sports car will never fill the void.”

“How does it feel to be an empty old man?”

“What’s wrong, Steppenwolf? Answer me.”

Steppenwolf did not respond, and I was blocked shortly thereafter.

Janie, however, was not happy that I had attacked Steppenwolf. When I told her about what I had sent him, she told me that she already knew I had done so, and that she just wanted me to leave it alone.

Nothing had happened between them. He had been just a friend.

Upon our reunion, Janie and I agreed to participate in marriage counseling. One October evening, our pastor showed up to our home and ate a nice dinner with us. Afterwards, with the cool, Autumn air flowing through the screen door near the kitchen table, Janie and I sat across from each other as our pastor looked on from the side.

We had each written down our concerns on a piece of paper, and it didn’t take long before the dialogue spun out of control.

In my endeavor to overlook so much and ignore so many little details, I could not bring myself to believe that she hadn’t lied to me. That she hadn’t kissed one of my best friends.

That she hadn’t betrayed me.

That I wasn’t her fool.

I guess in the end, even though I felt worthless, I owed myself some semblance of the truth.

I felt the conversation turn against me, and our pastor was soon siding with Janie about my paranoia. He hadn’t lived the nights I had, and he hadn’t seen the dark shadows drift in and out of our lives for the past 2 years.

Specters of betrayal. Phantoms that she denied ever existed.

Ghosts and goblins that haunted the life I thought we’d build.

Secrets that wouldn’t stay dead. Rotting corpses that wouldn’t stay buried.

“Michael,” our pastor chuckled. “You have these...construction crews...in your head,” he spoke. “And they build things out of these thoughts you have,” he said, laughing softly. Janie sat beside him, smirking at me.

I’ll never forget the smug look on her face as she stared at me, enjoying the fact that another human being had taken her at her word.

Nothing happened. He’s angry. He’s paranoid.

I couldn’t take it. I had tried to suppress it, bury it, destroy it, even...but the rage had returned. I stood up abruptly from my chair, anger coursing through my veins.

So many friends and family had contributed to my mental health over the past weeks, and this is how I repaid them? This is how I rewarded myself?

Being mocked by my pastor and my wife during marriage counseling?

“You sit there,” I bellowed, pointing a finger at her. “Laughing at me, looking down on me from your pedestal? Trust me, hunny, I’m looking down on you. I have nothing for you.”

I went to walk away, but my pastor called me back to the table.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Ekim,” he said. “Where are you going? Get back to this table.”

I returned to the table slowly, staring at Janie. Her smirk was gone, replaced by a poisonous look of revulsion. I echoed her emotion.

We truly were toxic.

Of course, that counseling session was the start of the downward slope. More odd occurrences around the house sparked more questions and suspicions.

Like the Earl Grey Teabags on the counter, and the Syracuse hoodie I found in the wash basket one morning while I was folding clothes.

Janie was not a tea drinker, nor was she a Syracuse fan. Janie wasn’t home at that time, so I texted her a picture of the hoodie with the simple question, “What’s this?”

“Uh, a Syracuse hoodie,” she responded.

“I get that. Why do you have a Syracuse hoodie?” I texted.

“My family lived in Syracuse for a little bit when I was a little girl,” she texted back.

This was a blatant lie. Her family had never lived in Syracuse, much less another county.

Janie and I hobbled on, but our legs were giving out. The fighting soon made a vengeful comeback, and our tempers boiled over one rainy day.

I struggled with the lies. I struggled with the stories. I struggled with the person I had become. I hated him. I hated what I saw in the mirror. I hated his guts.

I hated what I did to Jay, now that I was at some capacity to understand it years later.

My mood became tense, and the suspicions only increased.

In the kitchen one day, we locked horns. Janie was making dinner when an argument started. It would be futile to try to tell you exactly regarding what, as I cannot remember due to the violent maelstrom we were trapped in. The reasons for conflict and discord were abundant and vicious. Pick one.

After a venomous word exchange, Janie slammed the casserole dish down on the stove top, cracking it. I turned away and marched out the front door into the pouring rain. I unlocked my car, sobbing as I flung open the door and sat in the driver seat.

I had not noticed Janie following me, and she came into my view as I shoved my key into the ignition.

“Where are you going?” she pleaded.

I didn’t plan to say it, and to be honest, I didn’t even know I felt it like I did.

But it came from the heart.

“I fucking hate my life,” I cried, looking her in the eyes. She stared back at me pitifully, the cold rain drops falling on both of us as we took each other in.

Who were we? What had we become?

How had our house of cards collapsed like this? We thought we were the exception.

We hobbled on.

One sunny Saturday morning before Halloween, we were ready to go to a pumpkin patch. However, before walking out the door, I noticed that James was apprehensive.

Everyone else had walked out to the car, and I seized the moment to address James alone.

“James, what’s wrong?” I asked, walking up to him and kneeling down.

“I’m afraid you’re going to leave again,” he said, looking at the ground.

I was taken aback, but I was encouraged all the same.

“James, I love you, your brother, and your mommy very much,” I said. “I love you, and I’m not going to leave you,” I assured him, pulling him into a tight hug.

“I promise, I’m here for good.”

After Halloween, we saw another November 1st arrive. Our anniversary, a day we hailed for years as the day we found eachother.

A day, 5 years earlier, that changed both of our lives forever.

A day I had progressively become more and more ashamed of.

I gave her the gift I had gotten her, a flashy trinket with the engraving, “Forever and ever”.

As soon as she opened it, I could tell she was expecting more. Another disappointing gift on another day we had no reason to celebrate.

Little did I know, that November 1st would be our last.

This is where I’m going to ask you to dig in your memory bank and pull out a date. A date I asked you to remember many chapters ago.

A date with more significance and karma than you could guess.

November 4th.

Welcome to the End.

“Passion or coincidence, Once prompted you to say, "Pride will tear us both apart". Well, now pride's gone out the window, Cross the rooftops, Run away... Left me in the vacuum of my heart.

What is happening to me? Crazy, some'd say. Where is my friend when I need you most? Gone away.”

Duran Duran “Ordinary World”

NOTE: Though this is my side of the story, including my own personal recollections and opinions, the reader should not consider this note anything other than a work of literature. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

[thebardish]

Orientation

We see a series of scenes; a deep cavern illuminated by large glowing mushrooms with a small caravan traversing a narrow ledge, a fiery hammer sparking against an already red-hot anvil, industrial lights of a submerged city-scape of domes shining brightly against dark water, aerial bands of white marble populated to the fullest with every creature capable of achieving flight, dark forest floors of gangly trees covered in a thick green carpet. Then, we see a quaint study of an old man in a large pointy hat, a deep dungeon-like dugout housing a ragtag group gathering supplies led by a wheelchair-bound silhouette. We see a thin Tiefling chasing after an even thinner Elf, laughing and collapsing together against an old tree, a regal Triton in a think armchair with piles of books, tomes, and scrolls scattered around him, two bright purple eyes form from the darkness and out steps a tall woman, almost floating across the cobbled roads, she darts her eyes across any and every living thing. And then, we are back in the study, a dim candle burns at the edge of a messy desk as lightning gives brief clarity to what he is writing and then a knock at the door breaks his concentration. The dugout is now packed with all sorts of creatures looking to the same silhouette, who’s pointing to a large map on the table with pins. Thunder cracks and dust falls from the ceiling and then it fades to black. We see a pitch black void, and then a light. A flash of bright white light and then an enormous chunk of Earth with a vast array of ecosystems comes into focus. The Academy sits in the vast expanse of nothingness. Inter-dimensional doorways blink into existence and snuff out just as quickly. The Academy has come into being, and that’s where our story begins. 

JOVIS: 

Jovis is struck with a vision: He sees a ring of sparks that turn into large circular flames, and a hooded figure clutching something to their chest quickly jump through and vanish. He sees himself as a child, but from outside himself. He is swaddled in a tight crimson blanket, the same blanket used for the back portion of his cloak. He recognizes the location, it’s Mimi and Momo’s front doorstep. He remembers this scene from a third-person point of view, looking down onto himself. 

Jovis awakes in his room to the smell of pancakes. Mimi and Momo are playfully arguing and Jovis grabs a quick bite before running out to meet Oliver at the courtyard. Oliver spills the contents of his backpack and tries to build a tower with the copious amounts of energy drink cans, but Jovis crushes all but one. 

Hathor pipes up and says, “Jovis, why are you friends with this excuse of an Elf?” and follows it up by insisting. “You are at an age where you should learn the extent of what it means to be my vessel and have my power flowing through you.” Jovis agrees and fires his first actual spell, a large purple fireball into the final energy drink can. He hits it directly but as he does there is an overwhelming feeling within him.

Sekhmet, a voice Jovis has never heard before, speaks up and says, “Back off, it's my turn to shine!” and without moving or initiating anything, two more purple fireballs shoot off past the crisp of a can and burst through the window leading into the library. 

Jovis freaks out and runs away, trying to find his way home or an adult to try and fix this, but he finds instead a large set of engraved Oak doors. He pushes them open and is stuck mid-fall and an invisible conveyor belt tracks him to the center of the room. Someone is already waiting in this room.

CAL:

Cal is found in the Library. He zones out and replays the last fight he had with his father. He stands opposite to his father, flanked by Cal’s younger brother Prince Zelzes to the left, and to the right is Roven Silverspear, the king’s literal right-hand man. The argument is nothing of note, besides that Zelzes and Silverspear interject with belittlement by name-calling and undermining his side. He returns to his bedchamber after training that night to find something is off, the hallway is just a little too quiet. He stands back at just the right time before his doors are blown off and guards try and storm in. He makes a break for it. He manages to injure one of the attackers before fleeing.

He spends a week on the lamb, ducking in and out of the public eye and trying to derail the search for him. He overhears talk of his disappearance, with no mention of the assassination attempt. He develops a split personality to cope with this newfound trauma, and towards the end finds himself cornered in a supply warehouse. The guards are closing in and in a last ditch effort to get away, he summons a rectangular portal of frosted glass that lights in the darkness. He gauges his options and jumps through. 

Cal unfurls a scroll that details The Sicarius, a group of Grung assassins known for their use of poison and ability to sneakily topple unruly governments or monarchs. He scans it with more detail when suddenly a large, purple fireball blasts through the window right above his head and begins to burn the Library. Cal jumps up, and knocks over his ‘to read’ pile, where a tome falls open and has a large picture of Adrian, followed by a brief description. Adrian is a Grung who helped found the Academy.

Shelby, a high elf, screams for help because a second fireball has smashed into the Library farther down, causing a bookshelf to fall and pin her. Cal rushes over and lifts it up, allowing Shelby to escape. She thanks him graciously before running off. 

Cal rips out the page about Adrian and stuffs it into the scroll about The Sicarius, and runs. Cal finds his way to a set of large Oak doors, he checks them for traps, but doesn’t find any. He takes a step in and is tracked into the center of the room, where he stands and briefly after, a Teifling almost falls in. 

THARA:

Thara finds herself full of so many emotions as she points to a carriage with The Baron of a far off land, but corrects herself at the last minute, letting go a blast of pure necrotic energy, decimating and reanimating the horses. Her outburst turned the attention of the onlookers to her, and she ran. The two guards make chase, almost catching up to her, but in a brief instant of clarity, she stops at a shimmering pond of silver water and her reality shifts. Instead of jumping downwards, she is spit out sideways out of the backdoor of a restaurant. 

Thara is now in an alleyway, and she makes her way out and into the street of a bustling farmers market, and across the way she makes out a pink skinned, wheelchair-bound Dr. Cantaloupe holds a plastic bag as his adoptive daughter Cherry zips around and fills it up with assorted groceries. 

She rushes over to him and immediately collapses at his feed, sobbing. He helps her up and brings her to a park bench overlooking a large lake. He explains how the Academy works and how everyone here was once a newbie. Cherry hops up and sits next to her, playing with her hair or asking questions about how she got there.

They sit and talk for a bit, enough time where now Dr. Cantaloupe and Thara are walking and talking through the hallways of the Academy. Dr. Cantaloupe looks around and registers that Cherry isn’t with them, and as he gets a little nervous a loud explosion blows dust into their hallway a few intersections back.

Dr. Cantaloupe wheels around and speedily disappears around a corner, leaving Thara alone. She investigates the explosion to find the Library is alive with flames, and across the hallway are two large Oak doors. She looks around and enters them, and just like the others, is tracked to the center. She is last to arrive. 

COUNCIL ROOM:

All three are now within the Council Room, where they are stuck in place, staring at a wall of thrones. In the center, an old Human Wizard sits. He has a large pointy hat and a long white beard. He is clutching a staff in one hand. On either side of the wall of thrones sits two doorways with swirling black portals in their frames. 

To his right sits a towering robotic humanoid with eyes of all shades covering most of her metal flesh, she has eyes seemingly everywhere besides where normal people have eyes, where she has a large red gemstone for the right socket and a large black eye patch covering the left. On her shoulder sits a mini throne where a blue and green Grung sits. 

To the right, sits three large, but ultimately normal-sized thrones. Two on ground level and one positioned above their heads in the center. On the ground sits an elderly Tortle. Next to him is a young, dirt-stained Svirfneblin, and above them sits a dark Kenku with a bow string across his chest. 

The party hears a voice, and they can tell it’s coming from the Council, but none of them are moving in any way. The voice says, “This Council has presided over the Academy of Adventurer’s since its inception. Now, The Chosen, The Lost, and the Re-claimer, find their way into this hallowed hall. You are here for a reason, yet none of us called upon any otherworldly deities to bring such a group here. There must be another reason for strings as intertwined as these,” and the voice pauses, as Dr. Cantaloupe, with Cherry on his lap, comes bursting in.

Dr. Cantaloupe shakes a finger at the council and demands the doorways out of the Academy are fixed this instant. He’d like to, at the very least, have the option of leaving and returning to his family. Cherry even jumps off his lap and makes a game of running through the portal and being spit back out into the room. 

The Council speaks up, “The exit doorways are free and open to use for anyone who needs them, just as the Academy is.” This frustrates Dr. Cantaloupe. He apologies to the party before leaving to wait outside, since the Council seems to not be answering their questions. “The Doctor seems to be not a fan of our Academy, all he has to do is leave,” the Council says.

RESISTANCE:

Dr. Cantaloupe is waiting outside the door, still calming down. He explains of a place they can go that will be safe to speak of such private matters. He leads them down a hallway and taps the wall in a design and it slides up and over to reveal a hallway. Cherry speeds down into the darkness and out of sight. He then creates a sigil of sorts with his hands and begins to lift himself up. His wheelchair folds up into a briefcase and he floats down. The stairs are a rough stone and the walls and ceilings are dirt. 

At the bottom, there is a landing that splits in three. To the right is a locker room, the left a bunk house, and forward to a long meeting area. Dr. Cantaloupe unfolds his wheelchair and sits down on the opposite side of a round stone table. He leans back and folds his hands and tells the players he will answer any question they have. 

The Resistance was formed as an underground and covert way of learning more about the Academy. They learned that the Academy heals itself overnight, almost exactly at Midnight. When he found out none of the exit doors were working, the Resistance changed into a full-blown operation to fix them and find out why they aren’t working in the first place. 

Dr. Cantaloupe slides contracts to each member and offers them a safe haven to train as well as learn more about what’s going on. Each person signs the contact, and with the last one being signed he brings the party down a more secure tunnel, this one with sparse lighting from bulbs until they reach a stone doorway that the party walks into. There are no lights in this room and Dr. Cantaloupe explains that to be a part of the Resistance they need to prove their might, trial by combat style. The three of them were taken to the Council Room for a reason, so having them in the Resistance is more than beneficial. 

The party defeats the Purple Wormling and it disintegrates, only to be brought back the next day. After that, The party splits up. Jovis runs home, waking up Oliver and shouting at him about the very eventful day he had. Cal meditates in the lake to gain some clarity, and Thara prays to her god.

[dimensionhoppinghybrids]

Grandfather’s thunder. (Drabble)

A little forewarning before I post this. What this will contain is possibly some gore, a lot of violence, and the full unbridled rage that my character, Dave the Alicorn will have.

You will see one of the reasons why I mostly now keep him as a side character. On why its where I know he feels content. His adventures may be over, but, you’ll see the power he holds, and why he’s careful on how he uses it.

Oh I know, this sounds rather tacky. But the Mary Sue perspective is still there, and I am just here to remind those that read this; He earned this. This will go under read more.

After Dave had arrived to his destination, he had quickly gotten a sit-rep on the situation.

Xerneas had finally come to claim Night, saying that he was finally due. The reason why was also told rather quickly to Dave, as the stare he gave everyone was a look that would chill even veterans to the bone.

With all of this information relayed back to him, Dave gave a snort. He didn’t say anything more, which was perhaps, even more frightening. After that, he left.

Not long after he left, Joseph and Morgan had returned, and Joseph had gone to see how his boy was doing, and the result that he didn’t want to hear was rather blunt; poorly.

Of course this infuriated Joseph, and he wanted to do something about it. But, upon hearing that his father had been here, and how he had acted, it seemed all the wind in Joseph’s sails had gone out of him. He looked. Well he looked pale. Like what he was being told was something he hadn’t wanted to hear right away. And the only thing he would, or perhaps could say was; “Shit.”

After that, no one knew where Dave went. He had just picked a direction, seeming at random, and gone over there. What they didn’t know, was that it wasn’t random.

He had picked up on the magical trace of walking tree of life. He had bound himself to it like a bloodhound on a scent, and now he was going towards it.

He had to walk for many miles before he finally came to a stop. His calm exterior had never ceased, but he was finally face to face to the tree of life.

The deer looked imperiously at Dave, giving him a haughty, superior look.

“I know why you are here.” Said Xerneas. His tone haughty and his face one that you might make when looking at a particularly nasty stain. “You cannot save the boy, no matter how much you plead or bargain. His time has come, I will have him meet his final end.” Xerneas said firmly. Not pleading, or demanding, but resolute in his statements and in his actions.

Yet, still Dave said nothing. He was only staring at Xerneas, as if waiting for something.

Finally, he spoke; “Are you done?”

Confused, Xerneas looked at Dave like he had grown a third head. Taking the silence as confirmation, Dave gave a grunt that seemed to say; “Finally.” And put his terms into a firm no nonsense tone.

Too bad for him, Xerneas didn’t see it that way. The boy must be claimed, nothing else mattered. He was a paradox he could ignore no longer.

“You will cease this at once, and help us return the boy’s soul back to his body. You know as well as anyone that young Night’s life was cut short, and he was saved. Your judgement is flawed, and your actions folly.” He stated, this was his only warning to Xerneas, and the life deer could tell that it was an ultimatum. There was no need for clichéd “Or else” or other such threats. Dave was being clear on what he wanted.

“I have felled greater Kings then you, demon.” The life deer said in a scowling snort.

“And I have felled much greater gods, and sycophants, then you.” Was Dave’s reply.

Before the deer could get a word in again, his sneering scowl turning into a outright hostile glower, he found himself face to face with Dave. Whom had appeared out of nowhere, his mane suddenly aglow with energy and electricity. His hue a darker shade of blue, and the aura around him, the power was a greater magnitude then he had thought.

With a great kick, Dave sent the deer flying backwards! Smashing trees, driving logs of branches into the deer as he shot back. Coughing out blood, the deer god got up and started to pull out what he could, his hide healing up. If he wasn’t a Legendary, then that kick would have killed him in an instant, but he hadn’t and he was a Legendary. All of which though didn’t save him when the earth around him cracked and spears of earth spiked through his chest, splattering blood everywhere, and he felt himself being kicked again by a force greater then before.

Again he was sent flying, his body healing before he landed, only to be scoured yet again with meaty chunks left in his wake as he skidded to a halt.

He wasn’t given a moment to breathe as spells and kinetic force battered the deer god in every which way. The clouds around them had darkened and the world around them suddenly felt like it was in the eye of a great typhoon.

The body of the deer was rocketed upwards as something beneath him exploded with a tremendous force. Unearthing trees and dirt and bits of shrapnel that dug into his hide.

Even electrical attacks rained down on the life deer as the clouds seemed to fire the bolts like spears. They pierced his hide and he could feel his wounds heal and begin anew.

He was kept aloft by a force battering him like he was nothing but a toy in a child’s grasp as he was tumbled hither and thither by a force that broke his bones again and gain. Tore ligaments away as they healed over and over.

Dave was propelling himself forward on magic and force, his frame going at speeds unseen to the eye and he was beating down the life deer with everything he had. Using his teleportation magic to re-orientate himself as he went again and again. Making the body he was pounding with magic and force tumble in the air. Unable to scream, to cry, to do anything as he used his magic to its fullest abilities. The winds themselves seemed to help keep the body aloft as Dave showed no mercy nor quarter.

The air was filled with the blasts of magic as Dave’s horn lit up like a star and he used every ounce of mana from his deep pool of magic to render naught but pain and misery on his foe.

But like all things, it had an end, and a purpose. Dave knew he couldn’t kill the deer, but that wasn’t the point. The point was subduing it. To render him so immobile by force alone that he would need to listen.

It wasn’t a method Dave was proud of. Nor was it something he reveled in. But actions had been set in motion, and weather he wanted it or not, this was the end result.

None could say that Dave wouldn’t go to great lengths to save his family. He had had enough losses in his life when it came to family. And he didn’t want his son to feel the loss of a parent. No parent should be the one to bury their children, or find them lost to naught but the ether of the unknown. It was this that drove his actions, and he would make this deer heed.

With a final kick down on the deer, he shot the body downwards to a tree. The impact alone drove the whole tree through the deer, the body stuck against the tree trunk, even as the ground beneath it cracked, and the body of the tree split in twain.

A dust cloud filled the area, and Dave finally landed near the crater he had created with that final move.

Dave was panting from the exertion. He had after all, used up a lot of mana. But he calmed himself as best he could and approached the crater.

He could hear whet couching as the head of the life deer came to view, the rest obscured by the dense cloud of dust.

“You.. Will.. Not succeed.. I will still, come for him.” The deer couched and hacked as he gave Dave a determined and enraged look. “This, will only temporarily set me back.” He growled, and the noise of a tree trunk breaking could be heard. “Or perhaps,  should I say. Not at all,  because you are in my field now, fool!” He roared, and the deer lunged out of the cloud, his own abilities fired up as trees and vines got ready to wrap around Dave, but they were cut away by magic and fire, even with so much spent, Dave was still willing to fight to his last breath!

Now the two charged at one another, when there was a youthful cry of; “STOOOOOOOOOP!” And the feeling of something hitting them both.

Since neither were expecting it, the sudden blow tumbled them both out of each others reach. The magical blade that Dave had formed swung high, and instead of severing the deer’s head from his neck, it cut a tree in half without so much as a hesitation. Like a hot knife through butter, the tree fell away.

Xernias had been ready to lower his horns into Dave’s sternum, ready to scewer him and wrap him in thorny vines and rip the stallion bit by bit. But his blow missed.

The one who had yelled was a boy. No, not a boy. He was a youthful Alpaca, maybe just shy about his teen years. And he looked like... Arceus?

“Stop! Please, stop!” The Arceus, or rather The Arceus? Pleaded with them both.

“You don’t need to do this, please!” He pleaded again as he got in-between the two of them. Acting as a barrier between the two rowdy and clearly hostile entities.

“Archibald, get out of the way!” Dave commanded, yet the boy didn’t yield. Still he stayed there, trying to keep with them as they tried to circumvent and get in for the attack. Both snorting, kicking hooves and cloven feet. Making noises of their species as they got ready to finish this fight, one way or another.

“I said, STOP!” Archibald said, and his voice rang with all the authority he could muster, and the two beings buckled under an unseen force.

“Please.” He pleaded again. “Please. No more. I don’t want this. No more.” He pleaded, his voice hiccuping in tears as he looked at the two. “Please, Xernias. I am begging you. Help me save Night.” He pleaded with him.

The deer sneered. “Why? Why should I? Wasn’t it you that killed him in the first place, oh great overlord.” He said in a snide and sarcastic tone, which made Archibald flinch.

“Yes.. Yes it was.. But, yet.. Not the same me.” He said, slowly, timidly. “I.. It was.. The old me, I guess. I. I died..” He mumbled.

“Yes, I know, get to the point!” Snapped Xernias, and Archibald gave a startled whimper, but he did his best to get on with it.

“I am reborn.. And I am not the same. The family that you’re attacking, they found me. Took care of me. They could have just as easily just.. Y’know. Killed me again. Be done with it. But they didn’t. So, so it means that no one has to die!” He pleaded his case.

Xernias looked at Archibald, then he laughed. Loudly. “You think just because you are reborn that I will listen to you, whelp?” He asked, and the flinch that Archibald gave told that it had been the hope.

“No. I will not yield to you, not anymore. The cycle must not be broken. The duties I was assigned to do must be done. There can be no exceptions. None.” The life Deer told Archibald. “Not even to you. You foresaw that yourself.” He said as he looked down at Archibald.

The little Alpaca was growing desperate. “But.. But why not? I want to fix this. This is my fault. I don’t want him to die.. Not like this.” He said in a pleading tone.

The deer considered Archibald long and hard. His eyes burrowing into Archie’s own.

“Why do you really want to save the boy’s life?” He finally asked after a long silence.

The silence stretched more as Archibald considered his words.

“Because.. Its my fault. Or my former self’s fault. I.. I mean, he.. He did bad things. I learned the things that was said about me, and us. Legendaries I mean. On how the past me wanted all of this attention, all of the worship. On how he treated others. Like they were.. Playthings.” He said as he paused again. “I got to live and learn with them. Humans I mean. Be around them. Grow up around them.. I.. I mean.. They helped me. Saved me. When I never did anything good in my past life. I didn’t deserve the kindness they gave me. The chance of feeling like I belonged.. They all could have hated me. Well, one or two might still hate me when they learn the truth. But that’s okay. I deserve it. After all I did.” Archibald said, and he looked down, looking ashamed, and fearful.

There was another long stretch of silence. And in that silence, the storm clouds that Dave had summoned finally released their payload that had been formed with them, and they started to pour down the rain. It came so sudden and so swiftly, that it would leave many confused on how it had gotten there.

The silence was filled with nothing more then two old entities staring each other down, and one Alpaca staring at the ground, having made his case as best he could, and now awaiting judgement.

“It is not in our family to hold grudges against past lives.” Dave finally said. “What’s done is done. The past is the past, and those dead and buried can’t live to repeat it. But those of us alive, can only learn to not repeat the same mistakes.” He said as he looked down at the Arceus.

Archibald looked shocked at his words, but dipped his head down in appreciation.

The life deer continued to watch them, his eyes never leaving Dave, nor his horn. Waiting for it to glow again.

“And if I were to spare the boy. Then what?” Asked Xerneas as he considered Archibald. The young Alpaca looked at first hopeful, but then his head drooped, not wanting to get his hopes up. “I.. I don’t know. Maybe leave? I don’t think.. I don’t think after this, I could stay.” He admitted in earnest.

Xernileas knew himself, that the young Arceus spoke the truth. That if he did spare Night, then it was a price that Archibald would need to pay. For nothing came for free, and it was a sacrifice he would need to make.

“Where would you go then?” He asked as he looked down at him. Archibald gave a shrug. “I don’t know. Haven’t learned yet on my abilities.” He admitted. “Well.. Very little.” He admitted further, sheepish. He had managed to stop them, even if briefly.

Xerneas gave a grunt at that. “You never..? Oh blessed hells below.” He cursed. He would need to make a decision on that. He would need to stay somewhere after all.

“Fine. Fine. I’ll spare the little fly.” He said finally. “But on the condition, that you truly learn this time. And you do better.” He said as he stared down at Archibald.

The Alpaca could only nod. “O-Okay. I will, thank you!” He thanked the deer, but he scoffed.

“Do not thank me yet, youngling. You will need to help be heal the body and fuse the soul back into the humans body. Or else, he will die. Permanently.” He growled, and Archibald gulped. “Okay.” He said and then he looked to Dave.

“Grandpa Dave... Do you.. Do you want to come with us?” He asked him.

The Alicorn looked at Archibald, then at Xerneas. “Yes.” He said slowly. “Yes, I think I will.” He said, his voice tinged with distrust, and suspicion. Which made the life deer, grunt in derision.

“Oh. Please.” He said and they began to trot away. Away from the devastation, and the rain.

[fusonzai]

花束みたいな恋をした

Hantaba mitai na koi wo shita

When I first moved to Japan, to say I had some struggles would be an understatement.

It was my first time living away from home, and in a foreign country where I didn’t speak much of the language. I mismanaged my savings, overestimated how much I’d be getting paid, and greatly underestimated just how bad the dreaded daily train ride was.

I was living in a pretty worn down apartment in a somewhat far area called Chofu. Life there was certainly interesting. The apartment was built at least 100 years prior to me living there and it was located 30 minutes from the station. Even though the rent was cheap I was still living pay check to pay check, misusing my credit card in an attempt to feign normalcy.

(First book store, pretending I could read anything)

Suffice to say five years later, when I stepped into the cinema to watch 花束みたいな恋をした, I was taken aback when the films male lead was also living pay check to pay check in a decrepit apartment in Chofu. Shots of Chofu station and the recently completed shopping mall all made me nostalgic for a time that I feel was incredibly formative for me now, years later.

The two leads are both incredibly talented and popular entertainers in Japan. Suda Masaki (the male lead) has appeared in countless television shows and released acclaimed albums while Arimura Kasumi comes off to me as Japan’s sweetheart; starring in romantic dramas in both television and cinema. Their popularity could be compared to that of Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya. I’m not one to spoil films for people, or re-tell stories already told on the screen, but due to the sheer unlikelihood of this film being translated or released anytime soon; some concessions had to be made.

(Tell me these two aren't adorable)

The film centres around the 5 year relationship between two soon to be university graduates, Mugi (Suda Masaki) and Kinu (Arimura Kasumi), and the highs and lows that they experience as a couple in their twenties, navigating their first adult relationship. Mugi is a creative type, writing short comic strips on commission, not too sure of his own direction post university whilst Kinu describes herself as the type of person whose luck is so bad that whenever she drops toast, it always falls butter side first. Kinu comes off as more earnest and less outgoing than Mugi, however the two are both still on that precipice of adulthood. Not quite sure where their lives will lead, still enjoying that idle time between the end of university and the jump into the working world.

(Mugi & Kinu during that honeymoon phase)

We start in 2020 with both Mugi and Kinu sitting in a cafe with different partners; they’ve clearly broken up and don’t even acknowledge each other when they first notice one another. A chance at rekindled love seems unlikely, this is going to be a how they got to where they are type story. A little less ‘The Notebook’ and a little more’500 Days of Summer’.

We’re then taken back to 2015 and see the two meet at the always busy Meidaimae station. They both fail to catch that last train home and spend a night together in Karaoke Bars, Izakayas and eventually Mugi’s apartment where Kinu falls asleep watching his 3 hour long movie on Gas Tanks. They go on three dates where Mugi (afraid of being relegated to only friends) confesses his feelings towards Kinu, and the two start dating.

These initial encounters are so important in detailing the striking amount of shared interests they have. They read the same books, use movie tickets as bookmarks for said books, like the same music, even wear the same white converse sneakers. Yet they tend to hide their differences from one another. Kinu isn’t all too interested in Mugi’s 3 hour gas tank short film and Mugi wasn’t as interested as Kinu in the Egyptian exhibit they both had tickets for before they met. This hiding of differences only gets worse as time passes.

They both graduate and move in together. We’re shown the harshness of Japan’s shuushoku. This is a practice where everyone applies for career orientated jobs at the same time, but those that fail generally have to wait until next year. Kinu fails initially and works part time jobs. Things don’t go well for Mugi either; his freelance work dries up and he decides to bow to the pressures around him and begin looking for a real job. After an almost honeymoon like two years together, the two eventually begin their ‘adult’ jobs, and we first see the cracks of their relationship start to show.

Throughout the next 3 years, we see two people who have gotten through their relationship solely via common interests, suddenly see those shared hobbies crumble. They’re left with the realisation that they can’t actually communicate that well, and feel helpless in trying to stop the conflict that ensues. Mugi works overtime at the new job that he clearly doesn’t enjoy, because he believes, as a man, that he has to provide and protect the status quo and that the adult thing to do is abandon those things that once brought him enjoyment. Meanwhile Kinu struggles to figure out what she wants to do. She eventually gets a job through shuushoku however it doesn’t seem to suit her at all and she ponders changing to a more fulfilling yet lower paying job. The two both get so caught up in their own situations that they often don’t see each other for days at a time. Their walks home together and time spent playing Zelda on the couch gradually fade until they’re no longer. Their arguments about work and life get worse with neither of them managing to get through to the other, at times wondering how they even ended up together.

This all culminates in them deciding to break up after their friend’s wedding, sharing one last happy day together before going their separate ways.

There’s a lot of scenes in this movie that I’d like to break down but for now I want to talk about the break up scene. This scene felt so reflective of some dated, but still prevalent, ideas about love and marriage in Japan that were often espoused to me here by co workers and friends.

Kinu can’t relate to her boyfriend anymore, they don’t have sex, nearly every conversation ends in a fight and anything she tries to do just seems to push the two further apart. Mugi seems too caught up in his job and the future: he believes it’s natural for two people to grow apart after the love fades, and that marriage and starting a family is key to get over this hurdle.

Foregoing the wedding reception afterparty, the two have their break up at the same chain restaurant where Mugi first confessed his love. They go to sit in their original seats, but they’re already occupied. Something about this stung in some indirect way, almost as if the film maker is forewarning that the two can no longer go back to how they were. After some debate, they both air their grievances. Kinu has fallen out of love but Mugi believes that this is normal and believes marriage is the answer. There’s this beautifully acted monologue from Mugi where he ruminates on a future where he and Kinu get married and have children. He romanticises how nice it’d be to be called Mama and Papa, to go on holiday, to take the kids to Disneyland and to have people say, ‘those two had some issues but they really sorted it all out’. He believes love is a like a raw object and has an expiration date, with marriage being the key to prolonging that expiration.

For almost a second it looks as though Kinu is going to accept this fanciful, but sadly flawed, proposal until a young couple behind them is seated in their old spot. This part is almost too on the nose. The couple displays that same youthful awkwarkdness that Mugi and Kuni once had and goes through the exact same motions they did; swapping books, and talking music interests and of course they’re also wearing white converses.

Their youthful bliss and naivety is piercing to both the audience and the sombre couple. Mugi realises it’s over, Kinu realises it’s over, and judging from the sniffles in the audience everyone watching does too. There are some things you just can’t get back, there isn’t a reset button, and you can’t use marriage and children to fix your issues.

This seems common sense to me, however the interactions I’ve had since moving to Japan suggest that that might not be the norm here.

Marriage and weddings in the west always seemed liked a celebration of two peoples’ relationship up until that point and then the beginning of the next chapter of their life together. I used to work catering at weddings, and it’s strange to think that statistically half of those incredibly stressed, but incredibly joyous, couples will divorce, or already have.

So why do these once happy couples decide to go their separate ways? Extramarital affairs is still one of the top cited reasons in the west. It’s also probably the only thing I don’t think I could ever forgive. From an early age this ideal had been drilled into me that people that were married were in love and if you’re in love why would you cheat? If you didn’t want to be with that person, why would you marry them? I think infidelity is still incredibly strong grounds for divorce in the west. If you’re caught you can apologise and maybe make amends but there’s always a stain on the relationship from the outside, once a cheater always a cheater etc. There’s a strong emphasis on faithfulness above almost all else.

Flash forward a few years to me moving to Japan. Now before the move here, I’d seen the Youtube videos and the stories from friends of friends about rampant infidelity in Japan. One of my favourite entertainment personalities found out his wife was cheating on him for the entirety of their marriage and waited until she got citizenship to tell him. I don’t believe anyone is in a position to make broad claims about the culture of a country based on some internet articles. I believe you need experience to shape your world view but that doesn’t mean your world view is necessarily the correct one.

Whilst being an advanced country in many facets, gender roles in Japan often feel as though they have some catching up to do. Whilst there’s this heavy pressure to get married early (if you’re female, 25 and not seeing someone with the intention to get married, what the hell are you doing?) and a market much like the west promoting incredibly expensive weddings and honeymoons, there isn’t that much to care about after the marriage (provided you’re having children, of course). It’s strange in that I found I admired the whole one unit aspect of marriage here. Financially, it seemed that whilst most of my co workers and friends wives controlled the purse strings, big decisions were made together. There is a coldness to the lack of emotion to some of these decisions, but they were often best in the long run.

However there also seemed to be this separation of marriage and of love. Friends wouldn’t consider it cheating if their partner slept with a sex worker or if it was only because they were drunk. I had friends who were actively cheating on their partner whilst being aware that their partner was actively cheating on them. However there was this weird agreement that as long as neither was too obvious it was alright. I had an old boss who said if he was feeling the urge, he’d just go see a sex worker as that arrangement was better for both him and his wife. It was almost as if being married and being in love weren’t mutually exclusive. Love and sexual attraction were for young people, marriage was about creating a family and supporting that family. Marriage was the next step in a relationship to further your life (married people often get paid more, there are large subsidies for having children etc.) As responsible adults, a couple would get married by 30 or so to have children and protect the status quo. If you didn’t disturb that status quo too much; some cheating was allowed and often expected.

(My boss & I, sunglasses and all)

“Marriage is a result, not a destination” is a line my boss uttered to me. I was dating a girl who shared different views on marriage than I did. Our relationship was expected to end in marriage in a sense; her family knew of me and mine her. I didn’t want to get married but at the same I loved her so much that I thought the only way to show that was marriage. My boss thought there was a flaw in her and a lot of Japan’s way of thinking. He believed that marriage wasn’t something to strive for, but merely the result of a happy relationship. He also thought my love had an expiry date and his estimation wasn’t far off.

I don’t think his line of thinking is all that idealistic, the heavy expectation of marriage at the start of a relationship puts pressure on a base that isn’t that well established. Is there a line we can draw between knowing what you want from a relationship and expecting too much before you even know the other partner? Had Kinu and Mugi discussed their differences earlier on would that have saved them down the track or only led them to a faster break up where they could then move onto more suitable partners?

Looking at Mugi’s proposal from a purely western lens, it seems ludicrous and somewhat insulting. Looking at it from my own experiences, it’s still not romantic, but it has an appealing practicality that I’m sure some older people in the audience may relate to.

(Wise words, to translate it roughly: Young hearts, don't run free)

With all this in mind, the break up scene really is layered with expectations and differing ideologies. What surprised me the most was that after this tear laden break up, the two lived a plutonic and, by all accounts, friendly 3 months together whilst they both sorted out their individual accommodation. They both opt to move out and leave the old apartment and those old memories behind. The idea of living with someone for 3 months post break up seems almost ludicrous. The fact that they live these three months as if they’re in their honeymoon phase again is baffling initially, but once you remove romance and talk to the person you’re with, without the expectations you once had, it isn’t really all that surprising. These two had and still have more in common than they do apart. Whilst initially off putting, it’s charming that these two best friends can live together even though they’ve separated. I look at the countless times people break up; sides are chosen in friendship groups and efforts are made to not invite both people to the same event. Could you live with your ex after you broke up for 3 months? Doesn’t it make more sense for you to still want the person you shared so much of your life with to still be in it regardless of what once was? Regardless of what was, wouldn’t you still want someone you shared so much of your life with to still be around in some way?

Three months pass and we’re back to the cafe again, both Kinu and Mugi with their respective new partners. They leave the cafe at the same time, ride the same long escalator down whilst not acknowledging each other. They split at the end of the escalator, both of them raise their hand waving goodbye, not knowing if the other is waving as well.

There is something sobering and satisfying about such an anti-climactic ending. They didn’t run into each other’s arms, this meeting wasn’t the start of the second act of the film like I suspected it would be. It was simply two people that once were together continuing down a different road. We often watch romantic films to see two people fall in love and learn to live a life together. Depending on the film it can often seem too idyllic or fanciful but it always seems in reach…if you find that right person. Hanataba mitai na koi wo shita presents a more grounded argument. The right person isn’t always enough. Your situation, your beliefs and your respective flaws might get the best of you. Your own happy ever after might not be all you thought it would be, hell it might not even be one at all.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Letter from a disenchanted student of the Divine Principle

Many Unification Church members seem to think people who left the organization are like some kind of lapsed Catholics, but most of those people just recognized Moon’s absurd and contradictory rhetoric had absolutely no relationship to reality – I pointed out many of those obvious contradictions in my previous letter to Rev Moon. Even the vaunted Divine Principle was not his own teaching. Much of it came from a woman called Seong-do Kim whose revelations began in 1923. She stated that Jesus did not come to die (not new because other Christians had taught this previously), she also taught that the fall was a sexual sin (again not new because Jewish scholars suggested this long ago and anyone can recognize the association, even sex shops use a bitten apple to advertise their wares). She also taught about the change of blood lineage through the messiah – thus justifying all the deviant sexual activity involved in the pikareum rituals. Another source was a woman called Chong Deuk-eun who dictated a book called the Principle of Life in 1946-47. It was published in 1958.

The history parallels were taken straight from the teachings of Baek-moon Kim’s Israel Monastery – being the reason they finish in 1917, which was Baek-moon’s birth date rather than 1920 when Moon was born. The final Divine Principle book was composed by a committee guided by Hyo-won Eu with input from Young Oon Kim and various professors. So rather than being a direct revelation, the DP is actually an interesting amalgam of Christian theology, nineteenth century science, Oriental philosophy and shamanism – added to the insights and teachings that were taken from various Korean spiritual groups.



This was why I felt free to approach much of the DP as almost allegorical because the main thing to emphasize was personal spiritual maturity – the development of a loving parental heart. (The real meaning of ‘perfection’.) I never believed that absolute Cain/Abel rubbish spouted by Moon and Japanese leaders. I remember one itinerant worker saying, ‘If my central figure tells me this red dress is blue then it’s blue.’ Absolutely insane – but this is exactly the kind of thing that has been propagated by the Moon family and their minions, especially in Japan, and it leads to all kinds of abuses.



In addition to the DP we also have Rev. Moon’s great blessing theory, whereby through downing a glass of holy wine and being engrafted to his lineage we become capable of conceiving pure offspring, free from original sin. These ‘blessed’ children can then form the core of the heavenly kingdom on earth, of course with the ‘True Parents’ and their children at the absolute center. However, the proof of any pudding is in the eating – regardless of how good the recipe might sound. So let us look at the results, the fruits of the messiah and his teaching.

We can start with some of his own blessed children:   Ye Jin – (Divorced.) Hyo Jin – was a drug addict, I saw him give a sermon one time when he was so stoned he had to hold on to the podium in order to stand up. He punched and kicked his wife, Nansook Hong, watched pornography, walked around with a gun in his pocket and beat up church members. (Divorced.) In Jin – was forced to resign her position because it became public knowledge about her affairs with two married members and the illegitimate child she had with one of them. (Divorced.) Un Jin – said clearly on TV that her father was not the messiah, and that the church was just about power and money. (Divorced.)

 Hyun Jin, the kind-hearted business expert who wanted to cut the salaries of our church’s jewelry workers by a third – I saw a video of him calling a church leader an arrogant bastard and kicking him as the man knelt before him. No matter what the guy was guilty of, this was just one more example of the violence perpetrated by the Moon family. Which of course was epitomized by Cleopas, the black Zimbabwean supposedly embodying the spirit of Heung Jin, who went around the world viciously beating up men and women, putting some in hospital. He even threatened church members with a pistol. (All of it approved by Rev Moon who laughed at the beatings and had himself used a baseball bat on members.)



Kook Jin – an arms dealer who said Abel wouldn’t have been killed if he’d had a gun. Divorced his wife and had himself re-blessed with a Korean beauty queen. He now has his own group of armed ‘knights’ willing to do whatever he orders. (Divorced.)

 Hyung Jin, the heir apparent (according to him), lied about getting a BA from Harvard when he actually attained a lower qualification – and if he thinks the parable of the sower is referring to ‘absolute sex’ I think he needs to go back to Divinity School. His Sanctuary Church now promotes the owning of AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifles, and has ceremonies with participants carrying these lethal weapons while wearing bizarre crowns of bullets. According to one of his recent speeches, all the women of the world are ‘Brides of Christ,’ and he of course is now in that Christ position.

Don’t want to go into details about some of the others as I feel sorry for them.



So this so-called true family demonstrates clearly that there is no difference between blessed children and any others. Rev. Moon said as much in Korea when he was talking about Sammy Park, his illegitimate son. He said, ‘The sons from the concubine are better because there is more passion involved in their conception.’ So much for the value of the blessing. 



(Of course Mrs Moon blames the bad behavior of her adult, absolute ruler children on the poor church members, as though they could do anything to control it.)



So now lets look at the practical results of all the members’ sacrifice and offerings:

 This Parc One court case (the conflict that began between Kook Jin and Hyun Jin) resulted in at least 700 million dollars of church money going to lawyers and outside companies. This is at a time when Japanese church members were being bled dry; many could not even afford to go to the dentist. (They were commonly referred to as ‘the toothless ones’ in Japan.)



Cheongpyeong – you couldn’t make it up – they were selling apartments in the spirit world! People have to be completely away with the fairies to buy into that. Mrs Hyo Nam Kim (Dae Mo Nim or Hoon Mo Nim) after being denounced as a fraud, walked away with assets worth more than 230 million dollars (including one of the top golf courses in South Korea), so her spiritual real estate business must have been doing very well. It’s as crazy as charging money so that your ancestors can attend workshops with the spirit of Heung Jin, or paying thirty dollars for two bottles of Danjobi shampoo to get evil spirits out of your hair. (This all of course also being done with the consent of Rev Moon.)

Mrs Kim was supposedly channeling Dae Mo Nim, the mother of Hak Ja Han, which was actually a strange choice because Dae Mo Nim and another woman had spent two years in jail for beating a mentally ill youth to death in one of these frenzied ansu sessions (where they beat bad spirits out of people).

That whole Cheongpyeong providence is merely old Korean shamanism, and just because people have spiritual experiences there doesn’t validate what is going on. Something many members don’t realize is that God works to educate and reach people regardless of what religion they are following.



Rev. Moon often praised Korean culture but Korea was a slave society for most of its history. Although the number of slaves had declined during the nineteenth century the institution was not legally banned until 1894, and the system survived in practice until the 1920s. At least one third of the population were slaves in the past, and the children of slaves automatically belonged to their masters – with most wealthy men keeping concubines. The Koreans always had that tradition of the Yangban, or aristocrats, being served by everybody else, even having a caste of sex slaves for that purpose.



Another tradition was idol worship and shamanism. All this drumming and beating at Cheongpyeong is actually for drawing spirits into people, not driving them out. The disgusting business of putting Moon’s semen and blood into the holy wine is more shamanism. Shamans believe if you can get someone to imbibe your bodily fluids they will come under your control. By the way, Rev Moon’s children used to refer to Mrs Kim and her people as ‘the witches of Cheongpyeong.’ To put this in perspective there are still over 300,000 shamans or ‘mudangs’ plying their trade in Korea. 



Conferences. After working on some of them I was shown very clearly that all those big science, arts and other conferences actually had no purpose other than glorifying Rev Moon. He wasn’t at all interested in any results from those meetings, only in how many famous people attended.



About 500 million dollars is donated each year by the Japanese church, but where does it all go? What great world-changing projects do you see it used for? Of what use are all these glorious palaces? The one at Cheongpyeong cost over a thousand million dollars. Just think what good could have been done in the world with such funds. This particular palace is now adorned with giant statues of Hak Ja Han with Jesus kneeling before her and a much diminished figure of Sun Myung Moon in obedient attendance. She has effectively created a new religion centered on herself by changing the basic teachings and proclaiming herself as the Only Begotten Daughter of God, the wife of God, the mother of God and God himself/herself. (What kind of mental gymnastics the present members are doing to believe this utter nonsense is beyond me.)



I know each national church lives in its own little bubble, in effect creating its own version of the Unification society and cherry picking which headquarters’ directions to implement. Each country also seems to hold onto its own view of the ‘messiah,’ effectively editing out anything that does not conform to this ideal. However, with the advent of the Internet this can thankfully no longer be the case.

It is the very core of the Unification Church that needs to be examined. The whole church has been built on lies. Even Rev Moon’s life story is full of falsehoods. Remember that picture of him carrying the man on his back; he let it be known for years that it was him before finally admitting it wasn’t.

The stories about Heungnam – I heard a testimony from one of those early disciples where she went to visit him and found him drinking tea in a nearby village! Chung-hwa Pak had been an officer in the military and was put in charge of the prisoners. He designated which tasks the prisoners should do. He was able to give Moon time off so they could talk together about his beliefs. Moon was not always being worked to death as he later stated.


He said he graduated in electrical engineering at Waseda University in Tokyo, but he actually only attended night classes at a technical high school.


The Church made out that Moon was arrested in North Korea for preaching against communism, but the charges were really for bigamy and adultery. Chong-hwa Kim, the married woman involved, was also jailed. His anti-communist stance came much later.



The story about him meeting Jesus on the mountainside is also untrue. It was Seong-do Kim who first told people she’d had these Easter revelations, then Baek-moon Kim claimed them as his, and finally Rev Moon – whose lies gave him away as Easter did not fall on the date he gave for that year. In his most recent account of that meeting he calls Jesus a bastard, and originally taught that Jesus should have had sex with his mother to restore the fall. He also claimed to have met and talked with Buddha, but until his first visit to India he thought Buddha was Chinese. 



The Tragedy of the Six Marys. This book described the pikareum, or womb-cleansing, ceremonies conducted during the early years of the Unification Church. For years we were told it was untrue, but before the book came out in Japan they started giving lectures explaining the providential reasons why Moon had to have sex not only with the Six Marys, but also with all the wives of the 36, 72 and even the 124 couples. Some of the members listening to those lectures left the church afterwards so they stopped giving them, but they started them again in Korea from what I heard.

The Israel Monastery was a pikareum church with Baek-moon Kim doing the womb cleansing by having sex with the female members. Another similar one was the Olive Tree Movement started by Tae-Seon Park. This had 300,000 members and the churches had special rooms to practice the pikareum rituals. So there were plenty of examples of this grotesque idea for Rev Moon to draw on.



The holy wine ceremony is a symbolic sexual act, but for the first years of the church Rev Moon actually had sex with the female members. This is the core of the church and it is both vile and ludicrous.



I don’t say these things lightly because I needed plenty of evidence before I believed them, but I know people in both Japan and Korea who attended lectures where this behavior was justified. In America Hyung Jin and Kook Jin have admitted such things happened. It was admitted by Young Oon Kim, Papasan Choi, Chung-Hwa Pak, President Eu’s cousin (Shin-hee Eu), Annie Choi (the mother of Sam Park), Deok-jin Kim and many others. Rev Yong also went around the world giving lectures explaining the dispensational necessity of such sex practices.



God of Day and God of Night. There used to be a shrine to this primitive Korean god to the east of Seoul. (Moon was incorporating any kind of rubbish into his mythology by the end of his life.)

I could report on even worse activities and crimes but I think this is enough for now. The Divine Principle itself is a wonderful construct, (Hyo-won Eu being something of a genius) the only problem being that it isn’t true. So much of the numerology, four position foundations, triple objective purposes and so on, is actually meaningless. There was no sexual fall and inherited original sin and Satan are non-existent. The history parallels are extremely contrived, and although interesting, prove nothing at all. There are many more aspects of the book that don’t make sense. Some parts of course are helpful, Jesus not coming to die and so on, but none of these are original ideas, so the book certainly doesn’t prove that Moon is the Second Advent.

▲ Baek-moon Kim was born in 1917. He devised the parallels of history.



As predicted nothing happened on Foundation Day apart from a few pointless ceremonies. The church leadership knew this would be the case, which is why they were already telling people to prepare for 2020, the 100th anniversary of Moon’s birth. Mrs Moon is emphasizing witnessing now. (Because tithes are an ongoing source of revenue.) She recently told the Japanese wives in Korea that if they don’t do well then their descendants will pay lots of indemnity. She seems to have forgotten what her husband said on October 27, 1999, ‘No more indemnity is needed. The providence of restoration is completed.’



I personally think anyone still teaching the Divine Principle has to examine all of the above, and then ask themselves if they are just helping to propagate a gigantic destructive fraud? Thousands of people have gone through real suffering to enrich Moon and his family. Many of them had their lives ruined by being matched and married to people they could not relate to. It’s hard to believe but Moon’s church even advertised for any Korean men who wanted wives to come to one of those big blessings – just to make the numbers up, although he charged them between two and ten thousand dollars for each purchased bride. He then matched dedicated Japanese sisters to men who weren’t even church members – some of whom were unemployed drunkards or worse. (One of these wives eventually killed her Korean husband after suffering years of abuse.) Again, ask yourself whether these matchings were the action of a loving father, or an evil despot with no concern at all for the happiness and well-being of others?



If members were matched with someone they could love and be happy with, then they were in the minority, as it was mostly a matter of luck. Remember he matched physical brothers and sisters on at least four occasions that I know of, then changed the matching when he was told about it, so it certainly wasn’t God guiding him.



If people want God in their lives all they have to do is invite him in. Knock and the door will be opened. You don’t need to go to God through Moon or anyone else, and heaven is a place for heavenly people, so if you aren’t heavenly then no blessing, white robe or inseminated wine is going to get you in there.

And just to be clear, arrogance and avarice are not heavenly attributes.



I believe anyone who has sincerely tried to serve God and create a better world has certainly not wasted their time, because God will remember their efforts whatever religion they followed, but the Unification Church, FFWPU, or Hak Ja Han’s new name for it ‘Heavenly Parent’s Holy Community,’ is nothing but a despotic money-making, power-seeking, destructive scam that should not be supported in any way.



My apologies people, no jokes this time, I’m too disgusted by the whole sorry mess.



Sloe Gin

______________________________________________

Newsweek on the many Korean messiahs of the 1970s

Hwang Gook-joo and his orgies

The Divine Principle is constructed to control members

Sun Myung Moon’s Theology of the Fall, Tamar, Jesus and Mary

Sun Myung Moon – Restoration through Incest

Shamanism is at the heart of Sun Myung Moon’s church

Japanese member, Ms. K, was forced to marry Korean man she did not like

Sun Myung Moon makes me feel ashamed to be Korean

The Fall of the House of Moon – New Republic

Sun Myung Moon’s secret love child – Mother Jones

Cult Indoctrination – and the Road to Recovery

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Descending into Madness An Anarchist-Nihilist Diary of Anti-Psychiatry

Just sayin’... The opinions expressed in this text represent no other than my own. My position against psychiatry is based on my own personal experience and should not be taken as an authority on the subject. Psychiatry, medications, and or psychiatric incarceration is considered helpful by some, and I wish them the very best experience with it.

But also... To the ‘freaks’, the ‘weirdos’, the ‘delinquents’, and the unruly... To those who embrace these words like daggers drawn against civility, To the insubordinate youth who refuse to tranquilize their play with meds, To those who riot in the asylums, and those who dare to escape from them...

Let the moonlight illuminate our iconoclasm, witches and savage animals spellbinding fire in the night, for the destruction of society, with the courage of unmedicated confrontation.

Any society that you build will have its limits. And outside the limits of any society, unruly and heroic tramps will wander with their wild and virgin thought — those who cannot live without planning ever new and dreadful outbursts of rebellion! I shall be among them!” — Renzo Novatore

I’m sittin’ at a big round table with about three nurses and two doctors. My eyes are sensitive to the light cus I haven’t slept in days. A nurse directly beside me has been gently nodding at me with the same look of concern for about an hour. My vision keeps blurring and then re-focusing. My hands are slightly trembling. I’ve been fighting the urge to lay my head down since I sat down. It appears this awkward meeting is almost over, and I have some papers to sign. The doctor who has been talkin’ since I got here is still talkin’ and I admit, I haven’t really been paying much attention. Finally the talking stops and everyone stands up. The nurse beside me helps me up by my arm. I start to feel dizzy. We begin walking down a long hallway and eventually enter a room. Another nurse in the room greets me with a pillow, a blanket, and a pill to “help with rest”. Before sittin’ down on the bed I’ve been assigned, a nurse calmly requests my belt and shoe laces. I comply and decide while I’m up I might as well take a shit before I go to sleep. About five seconds after my ass hits the toilet seat I hear a commotion - frantic pounding and demands to unlock the bathroom door. Confused and startled, I jump up, trip over my pants, and unlock the door. Apparently I’m not allowed to lock the bathroom door - or have it totally closed while I’m in there. I quickly finish shitting in plain view of a nurse and walk back to bed. I notice a different nurse has pulled up a chair right beside it and sits down with a clipboard and pen. I lay down and try to get comfortable while accepting the awkward close watch by this nurse beside me. As I start drifting off to sleep I reflect on everything that’s goin’ on. Oh that’s right. Earlier today I tried to hang myself in my apartment and this is my first night in a psych ward.

**** INDIANAPOLIS, March 18 th 2018 — Resource Treatment Center Riot Nearly a dozen Indianapolis police officers were called to respond Wednesday night to a riot at a juvenile psychiatric treatment and addiction facility on the city’s east side.

Eleven officers were dispatched to 1404 S. State Avenue just before 11 p.m. Wednesday on a report of a disturbance at the facility. The location is home to the Resource Treatment Center juvenile psychiatric facility, as well as Options Transitional Living, which provides sober housing for homeless or at-risk youth.

Police arrived to find that a group of juvenile residents had done more than $50,000-worth of damage to the facility and assaulted four staff members. Officers took nine juveniles ranging in age from 13-17 into custody on preliminary charges of vandalism, rioting, battery and disorderly conduct.

****

During my time at this psychiatric prison I was subjected to what’s called ‘one on ones’ which basically means I’m at risk to myself and therefore require 24 hour observation by staff. Two different nurses watched me shit, sleep, cry in my sleep, and eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I was required to take meds and a sleep aid everyday. I had face-to-face therapy once a day. I was only allowed one 15 minute phone call per day. I wasn’t allowed outside at all. I was told to “set anchor” because the faculty had no intentions on releasing me “anytime soon”.

All the reasons I was originally depressed took a backseat to this new horror show I found myself in. Everyone in my ward talked about one day gettin’ out, despite being told they would “never make it on the outside”. I couldn’t help but notice the striking similarities to incarceration at a prison for criminals. This was a prison. The more I heard stories of attempted escape, violent physical repression, and hopeless isolation, the more I realized this was not a place to ‘get well’, nor any hospital I ever been to. These prison guards wore scrubs, enforced order with chemical warfare and physical restraint jackets. “The hole” was the padded room. Those who resisted were tackled to the hard floor causing cuts and bruises. And to the nurses and doctors, we were all just “case files” or “subjects” to be talked down to and humiliated. We were in their world now and it was their rules.

“We need a program of psychosurgery and political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated. The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electrically control the brain. Some day armies and generalswill be controlled by electrical stimulation of the brain.” - Dr. Jose Delgado, a Spanish professor of neurophysiology and author of the book ‘Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society’

The era of institutionalized ‘care’ for those with ‘mental illnesses’ began somewhere around the 19th century with heavy support from the state. Public asylums were built in Britain after the passing of the 1808 County Asylums Act. This created an upsurge of asylums being built everywhere. These asylums were known for inmates havin’ to live in filthy conditions with bars, chains, and handcuffs.

The Lunacy Act 1845 was known to have changed the status of ‘mentally ill’ people to ‘patients’ who required treatment. This led to the eventual chemical treatment of people as ‘medical patients’ – despite the fact that lab tests, X-rays, and brain scans have never verified psychiatric disorders as medical diseases or brain damage. Over time, this inspired the emergence of psychiatric medical experiments on ‘patients’ in order to chemically ‘cure’ their ‘disorders’. The 20th century saw an explosion of psychiatric drugs. The first anti-psychotic drug, Chlorpromazine (brand names: Thorazine, Largactil, Hivernal, and Megaphen) was first synthesized in France in 1950.

Psychiatry, asylums, and prescribed drugs contributed heavily to reinforcing social order and individual submission through fear. As the years went on psychiatry and asylums expanded, re-defining and strengthening the power of state repression and civilized control.

Along with this came an ever-expanding culture of publicly calling out those who were considered ‘disturbed’ or ‘mentally ill’. The first to be targeted were those who didn’t fit the narrowly defined behavioral expectations of society. In the 18th to early 20th century, individuals assigned female at birth were often institutionalized for damn near everything including unpopular opinions, social unruliness or a politicized refusal to be controlled by patriarchal society. Other individuals of various assigned identities who sexually deviated from hetero-normativity were institutionalized and considered “confused” and in need of being converted.

One major marketing scheme deployed by the pharmacology industry was the social construction of an ideal emotional state that every ‘normal’ individual was expected to experience. Today this same ideal can be found everywhere – from televised entertainment to billboard advertisements and so on. The ‘happy’ and ‘depressed’ binary was used to create social pressure leading people to feel isolated or out of place for not happily accepting the conditions of society on a daily basis. Being “sad all the time” was, and still is frowned upon and ridiculed – regardless of its complex nature and the reasons behind it.

Despite being emotionally fluid by nature, the individual human (animal) is expected to fulfill the civilized role of positivist supremacy. This normalized obsession with positivity plays a key role in suppressing emotional responses of outrage to the multitude of oppressive experiences. The obsession with - and normalization of - positivist performance also encourages people to overlook the deep-seated trauma caused by civilization on a daily basis. Everything from the fear of flying, car wrecks, workplace injuries, to being late on bill payments – all examples of fears attributed to trauma. But because civilized life requires wage-slavery and commitment to continue, these forms of trauma are trivialized and written off - usually followed by something like “that’s life” or “it is what it is”.

As techno-industrial society advances, new laws are constructed to create new definitions of ‘criminality’. This means there is an ever-narrowing idea of legalism. The same can be said for psychiatry. As more labels and identities for ‘disorders’ are created, the pharmacology industry expands. And as the conditions of capitalist, industrial society continue to worsen, more misery becomes available for exploitation with the sale of “feel good” prescriptions.

Under capitalism, where there are ‘correctional’ facilities, there is a profit motive to keep them filled. Where there are ‘inmates’ to fill those institutions, there is financial gain or cheap labor. And where there is any potential for social unrest, there is an ideology and identity to categorically define an unruly individual as ‘anti-social’. Society turns ‘disorders’ into categorical identities assigned to those it considers ‘undesirable’ in order to reinforce the social conditions that pressure people into behavioral uniformity.

Today, within the realm of identity politics, psychiatric-assigned identities garner social capital where ever victimhood is glorified for social benefit. As with any form of identity politics, I have seen many individuals exploit psychiatric identities by brandishing them as reasons to rid themselves of responsibility for their actions. And as this plays out in the all-too-familiar social cannibalism of identity politics, individuals personalize these psychiatric- assigned identities and create inverted hierarchies of social entitlement.

Ultimately, a new identity-based movement is formed, gaining media recognition and becomes assimilated into the broader prison of society.

****

Thursday, September 4, 2014 Riot at Central New York Psychiatric Center A dozen staff members were injured when several inmates started rioting in a kitchen area at the Central New York Psychiatric Center on Wednesday.

Four people were hospitalized for their injuries, authorities stated. The fight broke out at about 11:45 a.m., when five to six inmates started attacking staff in one of the kitchen areas using kitchen utensils as weapons, according to the state Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association. The inmates tried to fight their way into the mess hall.

At the same time, another fight broke out between inmates and staff on the floor above the kitchen, officials said. The emergency alarms were raised, and security personnel inside the facility were able to break up the two fights, with help from the state police.

****

After careful planning, I was released from psychiatric incarceration much sooner than originally set. The walls were closing in on me and the monotony of daily under-stimulation, medicated numbness, and confinement started breaking me down. Witnessing the prison cannibalism of infighting between incarcerated individuals, I began spiralling worse than I had prior to being there. On top of that, my two attempts to secretly organize a rebellion had failed miserably; the wards or ‘bunks’ were so small that an artificially constructed bond was easily created between most staff and patients. Snitching was heavily rewarded.

Nobody wanted “any problems”. So instead I turned to another method of emancipation; using my own high school knowledge of psychology to convince my therapist I was merely suffering from “a broken heart” due to a “recent romantic breakup”.

Despite the full spectrum of my hatred for society, the life I was living at the time, and the complex emotional storm that raged in my head on a daily basis, I was able to convince my therapist and the other nurses I was just upset over a breakup. The humiliation of having to role-play such a lie paled in comparison to my desire for freedom from that place. Released into my mom’s custody, I was required to continue taking my medications three times a day and seeing a counsellor once a week.

Against the wards request, I went back to living in my apartment. I could see where the police had went through all my notebooks as well as a pocket book of phone numbers. The noose I worked so hard to construct and attach to a wooden beam along my ceiling was gone. To this day I don’t know if my landlord took it or if the police did. My rent was overdue indicated by the notes in my mailbox. Luckily I was working a self-managed painting job at the time so I couldn’t get fired. I could start back up the next week.

That night I masturbated for the first time in what felt like years. But I couldn’t orgasm. The next day I called the doctor who dealt my meds. According to him, my impossible orgasm was common with people on psychiatric medication. A week went by and I continued to feel numb. Nothing was interesting to me. I often found myself watching the hands on clocks move or staring out my window at passing cars. I didn’t feel sad. But I didn’t feel good either. I just existed.

After about a month of being out of the psych ward, I decided to stop taking my meds. The hassle of getting them filled as well as keepin’ up with taking them everyday just wasn’t worth it. And neither was feeling numb. I didn’t know what would happen. Would they find out and send the police to take me back? A couple weeks went by without meds and I started to feel slight changes. I was scared but prepared for the hellish withdrawals I had heard all about. I got dizzy a bit, and some headaches but nothing more. Soon I stopped gettin’ calls from my counsellor. I expected her to be upset and leave me angry voicemails. It never happened. Eventually I felt my appetite change and I could experience emotional reactions to things easier and more frequently. And I finally had an orgasm!

For the next couple years, I reflected on those experiences and began exploring the origins of my suicidal thoughts, the origins of the morbid depression that caused them, as well as the consumerist life I lived as a wage-slave law-abiding citizen.

****

A Riot on Thanksgiving Morning 2016 at Springfield Hospital Center (a regional psychiatric hospital and former slave plantation located in Sykesville, Maryland) In the early-morning hours of Thanksgiving Day, Catherine Starkes and April Savage huddled in an office with several other employees at the Springfield Hospital Center in Carroll County as patients rioted around them.

Starkes and Savage said patients threw chairs, knocked over file cabinets and tried to break into the staff's Plexiglas-enclosed refuge. The patients poured cooking oil over the floors, making them slippery. One patient tried to crawl into the office through the suspended ceiling, Starkes recalled.

It was like no other night she could remember in 22 years of working with dangerously mentally ill patients at Maryland state hospitals.

"They wanted to take over the unit. They seized the unit," she said.

****

“What we say is the truth is what everybody accepts. ...I mean, psychiatry: it's the latest religion. We decide what's right and wrong. We decide who's crazy or not. I'm in trouble here. I'm losing my faith.” -Dr. Railly from the movie “12 Monkeys”

Similar to religion, psychiatry assumes a powerful role in defining “right” or “wrong” in terms of “normal” vs “abnormal” behavior. The standardization of a particular, socially expected behavior is essential for creating categories of people defined in terms of their contribution to the collective success of society. With psychology as a basis for analytically outlining ‘problems’ and suggesting “potential cures”, mass society becomes dependent on its authority for deciding who is “normal” and who isn’t. Certain behavioral characteristics unique to an individual become outlawed in order to maintain this social conformity.

Speaking from my own experience, psychiatry and all its theories, roles, and chemical prescriptions at best aims to merely manage ‘symptoms’ of ‘disorders’ - not eliminate the sources of their creation.

By ‘symptoms’ I am referring to any set of behaviors or emotional responses that indicate an individual’s struggle to conform to societal expectations or ‘normal’ behavior.

By ‘disorders’ I am referring to the set of behaviors or emotional responses that have been selected and condemned by society, and therefore declared a ‘mental illness’ by the authority of psychiatry.

By ‘sources’ I am referring to any and all prisons, societal forms of coercion, and civilized society – all of which pressure individual subservience and ideological conformity.

The conflict of interest in ‘curing’ the ‘mentally ill’ becomes apparent when acknowledging that successful cures to particular behaviors and emotional responses would require the abolition of civilized society all together - the same civilized society that creates trauma, followed by the concept of mental illness and subsequently a ‘solution’ via many forms of emotional anaesthesia.

Another factor of social control built into psychiatry is its ability to distort and control dissenting information. Social systems that require the subordination of individuals are always sharpening their ability to suppress or demonize information – especially information derived from rebellious experience. When it is individuals themselves who are considered living examples of this information, those seeking total control will portray them in such a way that renders the nature of their rebellion a mere product of mental illness. For example, the Soviet Union responded to rebels with psychiatric wards called “Psikhushkas”. One of the first Psikhushkas was a psychiatric prison in the city of Kazan. In 1939 it was transferred to the secret police. Psychiatric incarceration was used in response to political demonstrations and attacks. It was common practice for soviet psychiatrists in Psikhushka hospitals to diagnose those who rebelled against soviet authority with schizophrenia.

Just as religious authority figures speak of purging people of their sins and demons, psychiatry seeks to purge people of their ‘sickness’ and ‘bad’ habits. In the church of psychiatry, only those most committed to social conformity (or emotional suppression) can enter the heavens of being socially recognized as ‘sane’ or ‘normal’. Normal or civilized behavior is rewarded with social capital and easier access to survival resources. And in the eyes of those who fear unbridled freedom, without the church of mental psychiatric authority, ‘the masses’ just might descend into madness...

****

Sept 5 2016 John George Psychiatric Hospital Riot Nurses at Alameda County’s embattled mental hospital say three patients tried to incite a riot overnight and escape the facility. Staff members are blaming chronic overcrowding at John George Psychiatric Hospital’s emergency room. It’s the latest in a string of troubling incidents at the hospital uncovered by 2 Investigates.

Nurses – who didn’t want to be identified for fear of jeopardizing their jobs – tell 2 Investigates that two male patients and one woman demanded to be discharged from John George’s Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) department Sunday night. But when they were refused, they turned violent, according to staff.

The patients allegedly tried to encourage others to help them push the facility doors open to escape.

****

“The Law, social expectation, and psychiatric tradition and practice point to coercion as the profession’s paradigmatic characteristic. Accordingly, I define psychiatry as the theory and practice of coercion, rationalized as the diagnosis of mental illness and justified as medical treatment aimed at protecting the patient from himself and society from the patient.” - Psychiatrist turned anti-psychiatry, Thomas S Szasz, M. D.

While reflecting on my experience with psychiatry, including being on three different medications and my stay in the ward, I started asking myself questions I had never thought to ask before: what are the social conditions contributing to my feelings of misery? What type of behavior is characteristic of ‘mental illness’ and ‘normal’ functioning? Who enforces these definitions as universal truths to begin with? Is it the same psychiatric authority that at one point considered homosexuality a mental illness – then changed their minds in 1973?

I couldn’t help but notice that despite all the therapy, meds, and psychiatric hospitality the world outside my head was still the same. Poverty still dominated my hood, rich billionaires were still playin’ golf while the government continued bombing other countries. Millions of non-human animals were still bein’ mutilated in slaughterhouses on a daily basis, and the environment was still bein’ devastated by industrial expansion. I still needed to wage-slave away to pay my rent. And like everyone else, I needed to do this until I got too old and eventually live out my days in a nursing home. But somehow I was supposed to be ‘happy’ - or at least apathetically accepting of it all without a fuss. Obedience without incident. Without question. Or as the others in the ward had said to me “no problems”.

Currently in my life, I am still angry, still depressed, and still sometimes suicidal. But rather than seeing these things as what’s broken about me, I see them as a reflection of how fucked up the world is around me. I find little things to help me channel the anger, depression, and suicidal thoughts. I exercise, practice mixed martial arts, enjoy a walk in the woods at night. I star-gaze from park benches, rooftops, and moving freight trains. I indulge in stolen food and cherish the excitement of criminal activity. Managing my emotions is a daily activity coupled with observation and growth. I listen to the stories of others and learn from their experiences. I listen to my emotions and source their origins, making it easier to understand my needs and desires. My emotions – my madness - manifesting as anger, depression, and so on remain sharp and act as the best tools for understanding the effects of this imprisoning society on my well-being.

My disposition lacks evidence of being broken or brain damaged – if anything, it would suggest the contrary. My emotional state is a complex response to the anxiety that occurs when recognizing society for what it is – a prison propagating itself as ‘normal’ life. And integrated within this prison is a web of altered realities that materialize the logic of control and domination: Wage-slavery masquerading as productivity and personal responsibility. Coerced submission and obedience to law and order in “the land of the free”. Pictures of happy cows on packages of mutilated body parts. Borders, bio-technology, cyberspace communities of friends interacting with the emotional vacancy of digital communication.

And it is here, in this same social prison society, that the word insanity is used to describe an individual person rather than industrial civilization - the epitome of mechanized social control.

“The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon” ― Ken Kesey, from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

I believe deep down all people are ‘insane’ - not in terms of mental illness - but in terms of individual, unique differences that remain defiantly incompatible to behavioral order. In society, some people hide these differences better than others. And many people I have come across express frustration with having to keep themselves locked up inside, aching to break out. The fear of being socially labelled insane or crazy keeps people passive and submissive. But some people experience difficulty assimilating themselves. And while society attempts to frantically control and eliminate certain undesirable people and behaviors, natural responses to environmental conditions continue to produce both.

If one were to really examine the social interactions between individuals, one can see the subtle tip-toeing of animals peeking from within the wardrobe of humanism. It is the fear of being too loud, too angry, too sad, too imaginative – the fear of allowing oneself to exist at full bloom – that incarcerates the animal individual. It is the fear of exhibiting any personal qualities or characteristics that would violate the boundaries of socially expected behavior. Breaking the laws of psychiatry could be punishable by chemical injection, imprisonment, or even death.

This fear also plays a vital role in creating an obsession with relying on institutional specialization rather than peer to peer support. This obsession is normalized when, in response to someone reaching out for emotional support, friends suggest ‘professional help’ as if to surrender themselves ineffective by default. It says something about the nature of one’s confidence, ability, and will to support another when that support is often outsourced to an elite group of ‘professionals’. I’m not tryin’ to say that every individual has the capacity to support others at all times: I am suggesting an examination of the inferiority complex internalized by people in the face of institutions, and how individuals often find themselves too busy obeying the demands of capitalism, or too distracted by consumerism to make time for supporting their loved ones – let alone themselves.

If one were to examine society as a whole, one can see how over-simplified, quick-fix solutions to complex problems is built into it. If one were to examine this even on a personal level, one can see how everything about industrial society reduces personal time to the point where one often neglects their own emotional health. Against the demands of technological addiction and wage-slavery, making time for supporting one’s self and or those they care about is, however under-rated, nothing less than an act of personal revolt. “You need professional help” is often the quick response to an individual simply looking for support from close friends. Not all people (including myself) enjoy being pathologized or assigned a diagnosis like a broken machine. It is this ‘professional help’ that replaces intimate support with capitalism where someone struggling is treated as a profitable ‘case file’ and dealt a bottle of pills.

From a vibrant friend struggling with a unique history of complex emotional experiences, to a patient branded with an over-simplistic set of psychiatric identities – the individual becomes merely a unit of diagnostic measurement.

Diagnoses act as identity configurations defined in terms of symptom-based sameness. These identity assignments are constructed by the specialists of psychiatric authority, and are enforced socially by those who uphold its power. The same way that leftists are quick to use statist terminology to publicly label and shame “undesirables” or those unwanted by The Movement (for example, using the word “terrorist” to describe proponents of anarchist attack), they are equally quick to call people ‘mentally ill’, or ‘toxic’- demanding they seek ‘professional’ help. Perhaps without realizing it, leftists socially reinforce the validity of the state and psychiatric authority by reducing the complexity of individual behavior to mere psychiatric constructs and moral condemnation.

Psychiatry provides a comforting sense of order in the refusal to accept the chaotic nature of behavior. By asserting psychiatric terminology and morality many leftists seek control over social interactions with the intent to sterilize and homogenize them. This attempt at behavioral uniformity goes hand in hand with the treatment of individuals as members of monolithic, identity-based groupings. Behavioral uniqueness and variety are often discouraged or condemned when they don’t fit neatly constructed scripts. One’s behavior or emotional expression could be trivialized by being socially called out as ‘problematic’ - a label which itself requires the conformity of a generalized consensus to define and enforce.

Society and all its defenders require the dam of psychiatry to subordinate and control the tidal waves of individualist variety and social unrest. I can only imagine what would happen if the mechanisms of control failed on an individual level - if freedom of emotional expression took aim at the crystal castles of psychiatric authority, shattering the illusion of sterilized permanence. One after another an individual cannonball weakens the continuity of the structure, an ungovernable individual compromises the strength of collectivized subservience.

****

Jan 31, 2006 Riot at the Riverview Hospital For Children and Youth Five male patients at a state-run psychiatric hospital for children face rioting charges after they ripped out a phone line and tried to steal a worker's car keys before barricading themselves in a room over the weekend, a state official and other sources said Monday.

The incident at Riverview Hospital For Children and Youth occurred less than a week after employees protested over conditions in the facility, contending that the hospital is increasingly unsafe because of the volatile mix of patients.

Sources said that between 11 p.m. and midnight Sunday, a group of boys in the hospital's 11-bed Lakota Unit came out of their rooms and started confronting and arguing with staff. A male clinician and two female employees were assigned to the unit at the time.

Sources said the boys surrounded the man and tried to get him to turn over his keys but he refused. When one of the female workers tried to use the phone to call for help, the boys pulled the phone line out of the wall, sources said. The youths then barricaded themselves in a room and tried to smash a large exterior window, which broke off its hinge.

Sources said the boys intended to escape through the window but were stopped by a Connecticut Valley Hospital police officer who was called to the scene and was outside near the window .

Authorities would not release the names or ages of the boys involved. All face charges of inciting to riot, disorderly conduct, criminal mischief, unlawful restraint and threatening.

****

When, in expressing themselves, individuals let their emotions rupture the confines of psychiatric authority, and fan the flames of their contempt for social control, psychiatry begins to resemble the shell of a burnt out police car. If psychiatry is the agent enforcer of mental law and order - let it die along with every cop and agent of the state. As with identity politics, I refuse to participate in the use of psychiatric terminology when describing other individuals. As with all other socially constructed assignments, I reject psychiatric labels as they seek to limit the horizon of emotional complexity.

When, in expressing themselves, individuals become wild with nihilist hostility toward all ideological roles and identities, what is left of a society without individual conformity? What is ‘male’ or ‘female’ without being fixed to an aesthetic or performative role? What is ‘black’ or ‘white’ without the social construction of race? What is the sane/insane binary without the commanding authority of psychiatry? What is social law and order without anyone willing to obey?

My anarchy is found in the obliteration of these social constructs and the rejection of their ‘social contract’ that universalizes their false existence. I use the phrase social contract because that is precisely what accepting these identity assignments is. It surprises me to see such little prisoner solidarity with those incarcerated at psychiatric facilities. I imagine total anarchy looking like all prisons - including every manifestation of the educational-industrial complex, every zoo, and every asylum – being burned to the ground.

****

On New Year’s Day, 2018, 10 Children as Young as Age 12 Riot and Escape from Strategic Behavioral Health Center in South Carolina During the New Year’s Day incident, patients broke furniture to make weapons. The state report suggest Strategic staff missed warning signs that patients had planned to escape. They did not question residents who were wearing multiple layers of clothing that would allow them to change what they were wearing when they left the hospital.

In a less than five-hour span beginning in the late afternoon, there were seven “Code Purple” incidents in which workers are alerted to trouble. A state investigator reviewed video showing patients going from room to room, throwing a trash can, tearing up paper and tearing schedules off the walls. When one employee arrived, according to the report, he heard loud noises and cussing and saw trash all over the floor in the hallway. Patients had barricaded themselves in a room and had weapons he described as boards with six-inch screws.

“There was no staff trying to get into the room and he was told by staff, ‘They have weapons. Don’t go in,’” records say. “The nurse described the situation as a ‘riot, complete breakdown.’”

By the time police arrived, the south Charlotte psychiatric hospital had descended into chaos. Patients at Strategic Behavioral Center — some wielding wooden boards — attacked one worker, barricaded themselves in a room and escaped through a broken window.

**** For many years I paraded psychiatry as a valuable scientific instrument for understanding the inner workings of human behavior. I no longer find it useful after learning to recognize people as complex beings with unique emotional responses to this civilized nightmare. I have come to recognize psychiatry as, at best, another form of identity politics that ultimately attempts to force the infinite complexity of emotional expression into rigid categorical boxes.

Individual people are far more than ‘bipolar’, ‘psychotic’, etc could accurately express. While a person may experience combinations of emotions socially identified by a psychiatric category, their emotional state can not be summarized or represented by any list of fixed terminology.

My refusal to define a person by the emotional struggles they experience is similar to the reasons I refuse to identity people struggling with intoxication as ‘addicts’. An individual's struggle in coping with society is complex and unique. Psychiatric labels and identities are tools of the state – an entity which I reject. As a tool of civilization, psychiatry creates alienation and violence by treating people found to be emotionally unfit for society as ‘broken’, and therefore socially inferior. I personally refuse to disregard an individual’s struggle for survival by assigning them a psychiatric identity that puts blame on them as ‘mentally ill’ - rather than focusing attention on industrial society itself. Like prisons for ‘criminals’, the ‘correctional’ facility of the psychiatric ward seeks to condition submission through coercion and confinement. Solving or curing ‘mental illness’ in the societal sense often ends up becoming a re-defined ability to condemn, suppress, or sterilize emotions.

Like all governments, presidents, and authority, psychiatry never gave me freedom. Assigned psychiatric labels didn’t help me – they only filled me with an internalized sense of victimhood and inferiority. Medication didn’t ‘cure’ or ‘fix’ me – only damaged me, numbing me to my own senses in order to create an emotional void between me and the fuckery of civilized life. So instead, with nihilist celebration I descend into madness, taking aim at social order and civilization. With armed animalism I realize now that there was nothing to fix - my natural contempt for domestication and social control reminds me that I was never ‘broken’ to begin with.

With maniacal laughter I mock the conventional standardization of human behavior. I reject the authorities of psychiatry, their holy book (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5)), and their prisons. I refuse to continue being a test subject for their ever-expanding pharmacotherapeutics. I am an individualist against the collectivized consensus used to materialize institutions of psychiatry. I am a nihilist - hostile to the ideological sane/insane binary and all social constructs that, with pathology, attempt to categorically subjugate individuality. I desire nothing less than a feral revolt against civilization. If civilization and psychiatry marry at the church of morality, then let my anarchy be a fiery black smoke that chokes their gospel of social control.

[zampanobra]

An Elegy For Cyberpunk

The genre isn't gone, but the silver lining sure is.

William Gibson's Neuromancer is one of those books that I can't remember ever not having read. But I do remember that it wasn't long after I read it that I was introduced to Shadowrun, which quickly supplanted D&D as my go-to RPG. I'm not sure how well I understood what was going on in the plot, and was probably too young to understand a lot of what was going on. (Later on, when I started to understand self-loathing, it made a lot more sense.)

Even then, I loved the world, the technology, and the aesthetic. Gibson is fantastic at showing an entire scene through a couple of hints. He doesn't lean into a lot of what we've come to think of as "cyberpunk" aesthetic, and I prefer his much more understated settings more than a lot of his more over-the-top progeny.

Aside from how it looks, though, a common trope is its focus on people on the fringes of society--the "low life" going along with the "high tech." It's not always criminals, although these lines get a tad blurry due to the increasing corporate dominance that is another common trope of the setting. This is even more the case in the Shadowrun RPG, where your characters ("runners") are mercenaries for hire by all the corporations vying for an edge, where law enforcement has itself been privatized, and where governments' roles in their citizens' daily lives are steadily eroding. (Although a dragon is elected president of one of the major North American countries, so there is that.)

Those familiar with this setting and the tropes associated with it may have raised an eyebrow when I said that there was a silver lining associated with cyberpunk. I'd even venture to say there's an actual optimism in many of these stories.

The Cyber Trickles Downhill

There's a public intellectual of sorts named Eliezer Yudkowsky who started a ~~cult~~ website called LessWrong, and who talks a lot about technology, science, and what-not. He has various "laws" attributed to him, one of which is that "Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point." The idea is that, over time, increasingly powerful technology will be in the hands of everyday people. It's kind of like the cliché about how we all walk around with smartphones that are orders of magnitude more powerful and capable than the computers used to send people to the Moon.

Unfortunately, this is not how it generally works out. When better computers and connectivity end up in people's hands, so does a great deal of capture: DRM, surveillance (both corporate and governmental), monopolization, and more recently the move to software-as-a-service (where you have to pay a subscription to keep using something on your personal devices). You can get around much of these, but only but devoting significant time and effort to doing so, and you may often have to do without some aspects of those services. It's rarely going to be as convenient as the more intrusive version, and in some cases you may be outright prevented from communicating with people without using it. And this is without getting into situations where your information is turned over to third parties without your even having an option. In my own life, two of our doctors' offices use third-party portals that include some aspect of record keeping, schools and daycare facilities use them, and I'm of course subject to any of the national things like credit reporting agencies.

Meanwhile, things like artificial limbs and the like have generally made their greatest advances in times of war. Prosthetics in at least some form go back to Ancient Egypt, but a formal industry focused on their production would not come into being until far later. In the United States, it was the Civil War that would drastically increase demand, with thousands of amputees surviving the war and seeking prosthetic limbs: one study estimated that 70,000 men lost limbs during the war. Part of this was the development of the Minié ball, a more modern bullet that caused more irregular wounds to flesh and was heavy enough to shatter bone. Medical science being what it was, doctors generally decided that amputation was a better approach than trying to piece the patient's body back together. After the war, the federal government created the means for the prosthetic boom by agreeing to provide prosthetics for any veteran who needed them.

One veteran, James Hanger (who had himself lost most of a leg) was dissatisfied with the available options, and so developed an artificial leg that hinged and was shaped more like a human leg. He went on to establish the American Artificial Limb Company after the war (which still exists as Hanger, Inc.). Mass production of artificial limbs wouldn't come about for another 60 years or so. Nonetheless, this next development was again spawned by the same combination of factors: a massive conflict leaving thousands upon thousands of amputees (World War I in this case) combined with the federal government providing the money. (War is, indeed, a racket.)

Little seems to have changed into the present, when it's now the perpetual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with military-oriented welfare programs being the only ones not under constant attack by austerity.

So it is that cyberpunk's dream of widespread limb replacements seems unlikely without coming on the heels of years of additional thousands of traumatic amputees and billions of dollars in subsidies. Under our current system, after all, there is no incentive to continue improvements to artificial limbs without government footing the bill, and the government in turn seems largely unwilling to pay attention to the needs of its citizens that don't have any connection to the military.

The other technologies that epitomize the cyberpunk genre are equally captured. All the improvements to computer technology in the world don't help without the infrastructure to connect them to each other, and service providers have made sure that they can maintain their monopolies (the lucky few have two options). So it is that we get things like data caps, which Comcast introduced for its customers just a few days ago as of this writing, during a time of pandemic when more and more people are reliant on broadband internet access to work and go to school.

In a similar vein, computer and communications technology has become only selectively easier to use. The basics are much simpler, to be sure, but the kinds of things depicted in cyberpunk--hacking and maintaining some semblance of privacy to name two prime examples--are harder and harder. Privacy in particular requires a near constant battle against the hydra of corporate interests that are constantly trying to chip away at it. And not just in terms of taking data itself, but even the expectation of privacy.

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube--they're all predicated on making us share. And of course we do exactly that. Why wouldn't we? We have an innate need for community and connection. But just as advertisers long ago figured out that they could turn our own wiring against us, so-called social networks (anti-social networks?) took our desire for connecting with other people and purified it until it became a freebase. It's difficult to avoid and even harder to quit.

It takes money, knowledge, and work to even slightly escape, and even then it's not really possible unless you happen to only interact with similar privacy-minded folk or cut yourself off from society entirely. It takes almost nothing to be entirely mapped.

Meanwhile, the task is made that much harder by the fact that it's not entirely clear why our data is worth anything. The conventional wisdom is that it's for targeted advertising, but I have to wonder if that's actually worth anything anymore. Then again, it could be completely ineffective but still something companies want to do, since marketing believes that someone has to see a product multiple times before they'll actually seek it out. Plus, there's always the possibility of Facebook et al. cooking the books, as they did in the case of view counts on videos some years back.

Regardless, this lack of knowledge makes it harder for us, because we can't target our defenses. We don't have a clear idea of what's valuable and what isn't, what data is already out there and what data is still being sought. We can't, for example, make digital chaff to flood the collectors with junk.

Chains of Chrome

I'm told that essays should have some part of the author in them, and I can't help but notice that this approach--intertwining personal anecdote with the overall point--is used all over the world. Maybe it's a matter of not getting outside my own writing, but it seems to me that simply what I'm writing and how says more about me than talking about the smells in the bookstore where I bought my first copy of Neuromancer, or some story about my relationship with the friend who introduced me to Blade Runner. I personally have more faith in readers than that.

Having written what I have already, is it really surprising to know that what draws me to the genre more than anything is freedom? It may seem strange to associate freedom with the extremely powerful corporate entities and material conditions of most cyberpunk. But notice, these stories don't focus on the corporate bureaucrat trapped in a structure they'll never escape. Instead, it's the technologically-enhanced ronin, whether their particular weapons are blades or computer viruses. They ultimately answer to no one but themselves, and can generally find a way to live their own lives within the cracks in the business edifice. Sure, drama demands that this not always be true in some way, even if it's as simple as the criminal's reputation.

It's not difficult, then, to see the appeal. I have no skills to sell even if there were still a market for such things (instead of credentials). Mercenaries are rightly outcast, since chances are they'll be put to worse use than even a state-sponsored military. There's a reason that Blackwater has had to change its name two or three times by now.

Cyberpunk allows us all of the freedom of a new frontier by finding that frontier within an existing structure. Its characters aren't constrained the way we are in our daily lives, and can overcome both human nature and human society through the technology available to them. What is now considered experimental or only the purview of DARPA is to them a child's toy, with far better ready for purchase on the streetcorner.

In many ways, cyberpunk is a product of its time, when technology seemed to offer at least as much possibility as threat. Now, we don't really trust technology to be enough. We see the slow-motion apocalypse of climate change and don't believe that we can invent our way out of it; recognizing that even if the device existed, someone would figure out how to capture its benefits. I'm not sure it'll be anything so stark as having clean cities and then a burned wasteland surrounding them, but we'll only be saved to the extent that we're useful.

Cyberpunk showed us an increasing commodification of our lives, but even those imaginations couldn't foresee the degree to which this would be true, while they simultaneously underestimated its subtlety. The trackers on every website that form pieces of the economic puzzle that is ourselves feel too small to fight, and so we sell ourselves in a thousand pieces. Even being a corporate spy in a future dystopia is more honest.