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charliejrogers · 4 years

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The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Or, Sorkin’s attempt to show you how nothing has changed in 52 years)

If you know anything about Aaron Sorkin, the much-acclaimed writer/creator of television shows like The West Wing, The Newsroom, you know that subtlety is not his strong suit. So, I was rather hesitant going into his newest film, The Trial of the Chicago 7, the infamous trial of eight gentlemen accused of conspiracy to incite violence/rioting in Chicago during the notorious 1968 DNC riots. Without diving too deep into the history, August 1968 was not Chicago’s finest hour. When the protesters chanted as a warning to the police, “The Whole World Is Watching!”, they weren’t wrong. Years ahead of the 24-hour news cycle, people all across America (and across the world) were glued to the TV watching the Chicago police beat the ever-living snot out of young folks protesting the Democratic Party’s decision to support the ever-controversial war in Vietnam. The film’s subject matter is sure to draw parallels to and resonate strongly with both the protests and civil unrest that took place this past summer following the death of George Floyd and countless other Black folk at the hands of police. So despite it’s appropriate timeliness, I was hesitant to watch this movie because I really wasn’t interested in watching Aaron Sorkin (who not only wrote but directed this film) try to mansplain to me that the trial of the Chicago 7 was all about injustice! Without knowing anything else about the trial beforehand (and I really didn’t), I already knew it’s a famous case of injustice. I wanted to watch the movie to learn about the people, the humans involved, and the nuance of the situation.

The film gets off to a rough start in the nuance department. After an effective montage introducing us to six of the eight members of the Chicago 7 (we’ll get to why there’s that numerical discrepancy), we meet the character who will be the lead prosecutor of the case: a straight-laced, clean-cut lawyer played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In an attempt to plant the seed early on that the eponymous trial is a sham, the first real scene of the film sees Gordon-Levitt meeting with Nixon’s newly appointment Attorney General John Mitchell who is pissed off that the prior AG didn’t resign from the office until an hour before Mitchell was confirmed. As retaliation, and in line with history’s understanding of Nixon’s pathologic paranoia, Mitchell decides to re-open the case exploring whether there was any conspiracy to incite riots in Chicago 1968. As JGL explains, this was something which Johnson’s AG as well as prior FBI investigations already decided did was not a viable case. The conversation that ensues is a little too on-the-nose. JGL shares his concerns that he doesn’t believe that the Chicago 7 are actually guilty, but Mitchell tells JGL, “then imagine how impressed I’ll be when you get a conviction.”

Of course, this conversation is largely a Sorkin invention, as is the weird decision to try to humanize the prosecutor played by Gordon-Levitt. I say "weird" because the film doesn’t do anything with it. We don’t get a real sense beyond that initial scene that JGL feels guilt or remorse for being a cog in the Nixon machine. The beginning of the film sets him up to be a similar character to David Schwimmer’s fascinating turn as Robert Kardashian in The People vs. O.J. Simpson. But in the end, it’s clear that Sorkin uses him just as a way in the beginning of the film to provide the thesis statement for the film, as if he were writing this script as a college term paper. This bothers me so much because it makes a late-film surprise appearance by Michael Keaton as Johnson’s AG lose a good deal of its impact. It would have been so much better if we as the audience came to the same revelation about the political origin of the trial at the same time that the defense lawyers did.

Sorkin’s lack of subtlety reared its ugly head in a few key moments that caused me to audibly groan while watching this film. Towards the end of the film, one of the more dramatic defendants, the merry prankster hippie Abbie Hoffman (played very well by Sacha Baron Cohen), is on the stand and is asked a particularly difficult question by the prosecution. He pauses. The prosecution asks what’s taking so long. Hoffman responds in a serious tone that runs opposite of his usual character, “Sorry, I’ve never been on trial for my thoughts before.” The film then slowly fades to black. I half-expected to hear the famous Law & Order “chun-chunn” sound next. That’s how cheesy and self-righteous the scene was.

The film’s ending too, where the defendants read off a list of all the fallen soldiers from Vietnam prior to their sentencing, felt a little too Hollywood to be believable… and indeed it didn’t happen that way. Elsewhere in the film, one of the more “prim and proper” defendants, the young head of the Students for a Democratic Society Thomas Hayden played by Eddie Redmayne, reflexively stands in honor of the judge’s exit as is court custom, forgetting that he and the rest of the defendants agreed not to stand. That’s not the bad part. The bad part comes later when Redmayne’s character travels to someone’s home and the Black maid who answers the door says to him, “I heard you were the only one to stand for the judge,” and then the camera just sorta lingers on her disappointment. We get it! The judge is a bad dude! Let’s move on!

Seriously, let’s move on. For all my griping, this is a very good movie. Those instances where Sorkin’s moral heavy-handedness is plain to see are so glaring because for the most part, the movie does a fantastic job of addressing the film’s (sadly still) politically controversial themes (police brutality, the culpability of protesters in starting riots, systemic racism, etc.) with a good deal of nuance. This mostly happens when Sorkin just sticks to the facts of the case, like when dealing with the whole saga of Bobby Seale, the eighth and only Black man of the Chicago 7. The day before the trial begins, Seale's lawyer required emergent surgery. Seale’s motion to have the trial postponed till he receive proper counsel is denied, as is his request to represent himself. Therefore, on trial without counsel, he frequently interrupts the court arguing about the unconstitutional nature of his trial, until the judge, played to chilling perfection by Frank Langella, becomes fed up with the interruptions and orders that Seale be bound, gagged, and chained to his chair. It’s a crazy powerful and uncomfortable scene, among the most haunting images I’ve seen in cinema. Finally, Seale’s case is determined to be a mistrial, changing the number of defendants from eight to seven. Hence, the Chicago 7.

But, the most inspired sequence of the film comes late in the movie when the defense gets wind of the prosecution’s plan to play a recording from the night of the riots where the prim and proper Tom Hayden can be (arguably) heard urging hundreds of listeners to “let blood flow all over the city.” Tom still believes that he would do well on the witness stand, but his defense lawyer (Mark Rylance as William Kuntsler) insists on showing him why this would be a bad idea. The ensuing scene sees Rylance role play the part of the prosecution cross-examining Hayden while the film intercuts scenes of a flashback of the actual events. the “truth” of that night, significantly muddies the water for this case. It by no means proves that the Chicago 7 are guilty of a conspiracy, but it certainly highlights the more human aspect of their situation. How is one expected to keep their calm when their best friend is beaten? And to what degree are people to be held responsible for decisions made in the heat of the moment?

The movie also has also interesting commentary on who should be the “face” or progressive politics, even today: the well-to-do and respectable Hayden or the in-your-face hippie comedian Hoffman? It’s an interesting question that never seems fully explored or resolved. Sorkin seems to land in the camp that Hayden’s respectability merely maintains status quo whereas Hoffman’s flagrant anti-establishment views is required for real change. But I don’t know how much of that is me just loving Cohen’s performance as Hoffman and finding Redmayne’s Hayden to be (appropriately) insufferably pretentious. Sorkin certainly gives Cohen the better lines.

Overall, this is a movie held up by its two primary strengths: its cast and its film structure. Aside from general inconsistencies of the script’s tone and the notable weakness I mentioned previously about overplaying the political motivation for the trial in the film's first 5 minutes, the film is nearly perfectly structured. We are sort of dropped in medias res into the trial and only get the facts of those few days shown to us in carefully placed flashbacks that help to flesh out the drama of the trial. It helps maintain pacing in what could have been a drag of a legal drama.

But really, it’s the cast and their performances that sell this movie. Sacha Baron Cohen is the star in my mind, so perfectly cast as Abbie Hoffman, but Frank Langella as the septuagenarian, prejudiced judge of the case is equally powerful. Yahya Abdul-Manteen II as the Black Panther Bobby Seale lends an air of desperate seriousness to the film, Eddie Redmayne shines as that white liberal dude who takes himself way too seriously, and Mark Rylance is wonderful as the courageous lead defense attorney, particularly in scenes dealing with Bobby Seale. While the whole trial weighs on him heavily as the film progresses, his genuine concern for Seale is palpable.

I spent much of this review telling you the things that were odd about this film, and I stand by that. But as I said, those things stand out because this is such a slick production that the cracks become that much more obvious. It largely avoids Sorkin’s penchant for blunt lack of nuance and offers a story that helps to greatly contextualize the very world we live in. It’s interesting that a story that sees ten men (including their lawyers) fail to win a fight against The Man still feels like an inspiring underdog tale. It resonated well with this viewer, especially as the ending makes clear that justice is eventually served. Yet, I recognize this may be a dangerous tale to tell these days, and why I think the movie is so successful is that it gives plenty of sobering evidence to suggest that justice (both then and now) is by no means guaranteed.

***/ (Three and a half out of four stars)

#trial of the chicago 7 #aaron sorkin #sacha baron cohen

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wiseabsol · 4 years

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WA Reviews “Dominion” by Aurelia le, Chapter 13: A Start

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6383825/13/Dominion

Summary: For the Fire Nation royal siblings, love has always warred with hate. But neither the outward accomplishment of peace nor Azula’s defeat have brought the respite Zuko expected. Will his sister’s plans answer this, or only destroy them both?

Content Warnings: This story contains discussions and depictions of child abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and incest. This story also explores the idea that Zuko’s redemption arc (and his unlearning of abuse) is not as complete as the show suggested, and that Azula is not a sociopath (with the story having a lot of sympathy for her). If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I would strongly recommend steering clear of this story and my reviews of it.

Note: Because these were originally posted as chapter reviews/commentaries, I will often be talking to the author in them (though sometimes I will also snarkily address the characters). While I’ve also tried not to spoil later events in the story in these reviews, I would strongly recommend reading through chapter 28 before reading these, just to be safe.

Now on to chapter 13!

CHAPTER 13: A START

Alright, on to chapter thirteen. Before I begin, since there have been some people in the comments expressing interest in my full reviews, they can be found at: wiseabsol (dot) tumblr (dot) com (slash) tagged (slash) dominion (percent sign) 20by (percent sign) 20aurelia (percent sign) 20le. I might also run the idea of setting up a forum for “Dominion” by Aurelia. That way, you all would have someplace to read my reviews on this website, as well as discuss the story with each other outside of the reviews section.

On to the review. Zuko has slept past sunrise, which may be an indication of how bad a shape he’s in, since firebenders are supposed to rise with the sun (Azula, note, still rose with the sun while hospitalized). But he managed to sleep the night through without nightmares, which is progress for him. Turns out he’s achieved that by drinking a sedating tea left by Iroh.

“The old man had even gone do far as to pretend Mai told him, to try to get Zuko to talk. It was the kind of thing Azula would do.”—Iroh and Azula are both cunning, strategic thinkers, which may be part of why she makes Iroh uncomfortable. She probably reminds him of himself when he was younger. If she’d been a boy, it’s possible that he might have tried to take Azula under his wing…but given that she was a girl, and thus had gender roles that she was supposed to conform to (hence him giving her a doll), he didn’t. That and Ozai snapped her up quickly, with Iroh soon afterwards writing her off as Ozai’s “creature.” But I wouldn’t be surprised if we later find out that part of why Iroh considered her so dangerous was because she reminded him of his younger self, rather than Ozai.

Apparently Zuko blew up at Iroh for the deception, and said some things he shouldn’t have. Old habits die hard.

“What his uncle couldn’t know was that there was no help for what he did.”—Yeah, sleeping with your sister is not something you can take back.

Zuko has some manservants in the room with him, who offer him fruit, foot washing, and hot towels, which he doesn’t accept. What even is the point of being royalty if you can’t enjoy some nice things, Zuko? Though you probably don’t think you deserve nice things. As the manservants go about getting him ready, Zuko has this pleasant memory of Mai: “Mai used to put his hair up for him, when she woke at the same time as Zuko. She wasn’t much good with hair, in truth, but that hardly mattered. More often than not, it was just thinly veiled foreplay”—So they were a genuinely sweet couple at one point.

But then it’s time to go to Squicktown: “But when he tried to recall those mornings now, it was his sister’s slim fingers that raked through his hair, her mouth that he tasted, the warmth of her skin—“—That’s gross, buddy. While we could chalk this up to being a sign of his continued obsession with Azula, it could also be a sign of trauma. Good memories triggering associations that trigger bad memories. If he was wanking off to the memory of Azula, then I’d say it was an obsession thing. As it is, it’s causing him distress, so trauma seems more likely.

“A memory made all the more painful by having to wonder how much of that Azula did at their father’s command, those years he abused her under the guise of training….”—Sadly, I think Ozai does believe it was training. Though this is also the dude who believes that suffering is instructive.

“With such dark thoughts as he had for company, he barely noticed the comings and goings of the palace staff anymore.”—Losing your situational awareness is not good, Zuko. Especially when you know there are people who aren’t happy with your reign.

“Uncle thought it started shortly after Zuko was banished. She would have been eleven.”—Ugh. That is vile. Though I suspect that Ozai was grooming her before then.

Ozai is dying from his burns. While I’m inclined to say “Good riddance,” if he dies, it means that Zuko will have committed patricide, which will cause a public outcry and earn him more enemies. Also, Azula will never forgive him for it.

“The man lived to plague him, he knew.”—Ozai is absolutely that spiteful.

“He remembered asking Iroh if his banishment might have been planned. If his father might have sent him away just to do that to Azula, to remove the last family member she might have turned to for defense, the last witness to his crimes. He remembered the look his uncle gave him then, when he said they may never know.”—I think it’s probable that Ozai was looking for an excuse to get rid of Zuko, just like he did with Mai and Ty Lee. He wanted to isolate Azula, but he also wanted to get Zuko out of the picture so he could make Azula first in line for the throne.

That being said, I don’t think Ozai believed that Azula would turn to Zuko for help. The siblings were already poisoned against each other back then. I think the look Iroh gave Zuko wasn’t because he knew the answer to the question—it was because he knew that it wouldn’t have mattered whether Zuko was there or not. Ozai would have done this to Azula anyway, and given how careful they were to hide it, I don’t think Zuko would have noticed that something was wrong until the abortion. I doubt that Iroh would have noticed either, since he was so focused on Zuko. While the idea of, “If I was there, I could have done something!” is a comforting one, it’s also naïve on Zuko’s part. He was a child then, too. And given Zuko’s disposition at that age—to confront evil head on, without thinking through the potential consequences—he probably would have ended up in a much worse position than he did in canon. He would have been a security risk to Ozai—a security risk that can’t lie well. No, I think Zuko being there would have resulted in disaster. Iroh, on the other hand, might have been able to figure out a quiet solution. But he wasn’t there, and so the possibility passed.

Iroh, in any case, left after receiving a letter from Rai, without telling Zuko the contents of said letter. Iroh says this is so Zuko can have plausible deniability, but because Zuko is in bad mental shape, he’s slipping into some paranoia about it—paranoia rather like Azula’s at the end of the series. He’s unkempt, he can’t sleep, he is wracked with self-hatred and guilt (Azula was, too, though her mind expressed it through Ursa’s hallucination). If he starts banishing people, it will probably start rumors that madness runs in the family.

“He wondered if his uncle began to mistrust him around Azula. If he knew what you did, he would never trust you with her again, he reminded himself.”—Which would be fair of him, Zuko. But Iroh is too convinced of your goodness to suspect that you would hurt her intentionally. He was ready to handwave away you killing her as an act of self-defense.

“And Mai would not receive the old general at her parents’ house, sparking rumors she had left the palace to avoid him, rather than her husband.”—I think because Mai knows that Iroh will side with Zuko in a conflict, and that’s not something that she wants to deal with right now. I do not blame her.

Zuko continues to contemplate Iroh’s visit, sliding into self-pity as he thinks of how tired Iroh must be getting of him: “[Iroh] was probably just as relieved to go as Zuko was to see him away….”

“‘It isn’t fair,’ [ . . . ] That one mistake with Azula should poison the only healthy, loving relationship he had with any blood relative. It wasn’t fair.”—Zuko thinks this, but he’s the one who is pushing Iroh away. I think he could have told Iroh a portion of the truth—that he and Azula argued, that he got angry and intentionally hurt her, and that he feels horrible about it now. I think that would shake Iroh’s faith in Zuko, but I think he would still be supportive, and would understand, finally, that Zuko still has lingering behavioral problems from Ozai’s abuse that need to be worked through. It might have opened up some routes to healing faster…though I daresay that Mai wouldn’t have been pleased with Zuko giving his uncle a sanitized version of the truth.

Zuko’s chamberlain comes in, with a list of what sounds like some very important meetings that Zuko should go to, but Zuko has other plans for his day. He’ll still keep the meeting with the “Advisory Board for the Reformation of Asylums,” which Zuko created sometime in the last few weeks. For now, though, Zuko is going to see Mai and Lu Ten.

We transition to Iroh meeting with Rai. Apparently, Iroh recruited her after her banishment from the Fire Nation. Rai catches Iroh up on how her time with Azula went, but feels that she could have done more for Azula. Iroh interrupts her by placing a hand on her knee—weird choice there, Iroh—and says that it was for the best that she didn’t reveal that she knew who Azula was, because, “‘She might even have killed you.’”

Rai, though, has more faith in Azula than Iroh does: “‘No.’ The cook shook her head, surprising Iroh. ‘She makes threats when she’s under duress. And she certainly knows how to sell them [ . . . ] But she never struck me as particularly bloodthirsty, either then or now. She would avoid unnecessary violence, if only to keep a low profile.’”—Thank you, Rai!

Rai, bless her, also dismisses Iroh’s question of whether the wounds could have been self-inflicted. I see why he would ask this, given the self-harm Azula committed in the asylum, but it does make it clear that he hasn’t seen her any time recently, after she started getting better. He then wonders if maybe the asylum had been mistreating her and covered up the signs, since his visits were announced in advance and he only ever saw her from a distance.

Then he wonders if Zuko was the one who injured Azula—ding, ding, Iroh, you are correct! “It would go a long way toward explaining his obvious guilt, and Zuko had always been given to emotional excesses.”—No kidding. In regards to the burn, he thinks, “He could not see what purpose it had served, except to hurt her…”—CORRECT AGAIN!

Rai, meanwhile, wonders about Azula being sent to the asylum. She thought that Azula might have been jailed or banished by Zuko instead. This ticks Iroh off: “Her brother showed her compassion,” he insists, but Rai is not convinced, since the workers at the asylum might have hurt Azula. When she expresses that, Iroh responds hotly, “‘He knew naught of this, woman,’” and breathes out flames. I’m not fond of him calling her “woman” here, because when men do that, it’s often meant to be dismissive or demeaning. The show of flames is also not cool of him. Control yourself, Iroh.

Rai isn’t impressed by him and plans to leave, but Iroh has more questions. He asks what happened to the man who assaulted Azula, and Rai responds: “‘Dead,’ Rai told the woodplank floor, her voice barely breaking a whisper when she crossed white arms under her ample bust.”—Why are you noticing the size of her breasts, Iroh? But also, this does seem hard for Rai to talk about.

Iroh assumes Azula killed the guy, but Rai corrects him, telling him that she did it herself. “The woman raised her eyes to his, and Iroh was reminded uncannily of his missing sister-in-law.” Oh, I hope that Ursa kills Ozai. I feel like it’s improbable that that will happen, but I want it. Also, the phrase “silk hiding steel” comes to mind here, both for Rai and Ursa.

Rai discusses her reasons for killing Lee—both to give Azula a measure of protection and for justice—and how her own husband, Shou, abused her. “If she had been abused, of course this cook would look coldly on what she likely viewed as excuses for the abuse of Azula. Her own husband probably made her parrot lines like that, that it was an accident, she did it to herself….”—As much as I obviously empathize with Azula, I should point out that there is, theoretically, some danger in Rai doing the same. If Azula had continued to behave abusively towards others, Rai’s empathy for Azula’s suffering might have made her inclined to excuse Azula’s actions, much like Iroh currently does for Zuko. And if she’s excusing those actions, then she might have been caught off guard and hurt by Azula during their time together.

That being said, in this case, Rai’s empathy is refreshing, and also lends itself to a more accurate reading of Azula’s character than Iroh has. Iroh, very confused by this point, asks Rai why she would go to such lengths to help his niece. As it turns out, Rai worked in the kitchens at the palace, while her husband was an imperial firebender. She couldn’t accuse him of abuse or get away from him, but when Azula started banishing people, Rai was banished before he was—and so she managed to escape and stay ahead of him all of this time.

“‘Rai,’ he said quietly, a little concerned for her sanity at this point, ‘you must know she didn’t mean to help you. She banished her servants because she was crazy, not out if any altruistic urge.’”—It rubs me the wrong way that Iroh thinks that Rai might be crazy. There’s a part of me that wants to throw at him, “You only think that because you’ve never known what it’s like to be helpless,” but I know that’s not true. It’s not like Azulon was compassionate to Iroh or cared about his emotional needs, and losing Lu Ten would definitely have made Iroh feel helpless. Still, this grates on me, possibly because Iroh is a very privileged man and hasn’t faced the same hardships as Rai. I feel like Ursa would understand Rai, though. I don’t know if they would get along—somehow, I doubt it, since Rai has faith in Azula and Ursa does not—but I’d love to see a conversation between them someday.

Much to Iroh’s discomfort, Rai talks about how the palace staff knew that Ozai was mistreating Azula, and hints that there were rumors about the sexual abuse, too: “Those years Prince Zuko was banished, her father kept her so close [ . . . ] She turned up all manner of strange injuries [ . . . ] and even disappeared for a week once. There were some as said he killed her. And those were the least of the rumors. [ . . . ] There was something…wrong there. [ . . . ] Everyone knew it. And no one did anything. [ . . . ] Not even me.”

When Iroh points out that Ozai was the Fire Lord and there was nothing that she could have done, Rai is not consoled: “‘And she was a piece of work,’ Rai finished bluntly, holding his gaze. ‘I know. She was also a child, with no one to treat her like one. I thought I might be someone to look out for her, even years too late’”—God, it’s so nice to hear someone point out that no matter how cruel Azula was, she was a kid and didn’t deserve what happened to her. It’s so good to see someone want to look out for her and help her. I’ve never thought that Rai could have been an inspiration for Tam, but she’s hitting the same points, even if she’s a very different person. I wish we had more of Rai in this, but I suspect her role in the story is done by the end of this chapter.

As their conversation winds down, Iroh reassures Rai that she did help Azula and pays her for the information. Rai urges him to help Azula, even if Azula pushes him away. “‘She really seems to hate you,’” Rai says, and I think that’s due to, A.) Ozai turning Azula against Iroh, B.) Iroh’s claim of killing the last dragon, C.) Iroh sending Azula gifts that catered more towards who Ursa wanted her to be, rather than who Azula wanted to be, and D.) Iroh choosing Zuko and telling Zuko to confront Azula and take her crown from her. Iroh says his goal is to help Azula, but he inwardly admits that he’s not sure how.

We shift back to Zuko, who is just arriving at Mai’s place. Mai’s uncle, the warden from the Boiling Rock, is there, and isn’t happy to see Zuko. He escorts Zuko in, and there is a brief exchange with Mai’s parents, during which her mother seems to imply that Mai’s uncle better not mess things up with the Fire Lord. Once the rest of the family is gone, Tsutomu quickly establishes that if it weren’t for Mai, he’d gut Zuko, because Mai has told him everything.

I’m not sure this was a wise call on Mai’s part—the more people who know a secret, the harder it is to keep—but I understand why she did it. She knows that her uncle is loyal to her. She knows that he doesn’t like Zuko. It would feel safe to go to him with this. That and he has contacts who could help her.

“Zuko was glad Mai had him to support her through this. But the warden would have done his utmost to poison her against him”—You did that yourself, Zuko.

“But then, a man who lays with his sister and tries to kill his father, what would you know about [family]?”—Woof, yeah, Zuko is a walking Greek tragedy. I’m curious about what Hu Xin did to be considered an equivalent.

“And I’m not sure that’s something I can allow in my niece’s life, regardless of her wishes.”—Fair, but you can’t support Mai if you’re executed for committing treason and regicide, Tsutomu.

Zuko asks if Mai’s parents know, but Tsutomu dismisses the idea: “‘They still think you fucked that waterbender.’” I am slightly amused by the confusion there, but not amused by the warden calling Katara a “nubile little savage” right afterwards. Gross and racist, Tsutomu.

“Zuko could only stare at him, sick with the realization that Mai’s parents suspected he cheated on her, even if they didn’t know with whom. And they still treated Zuko better than their daughter.”—More evidence that monarchies and patriarchies are terrible. The warden acknowledges that, saying that Mai’s parents expect this sort of thing from a noble husband, and that they think that Mai should suck it up and make sure her son’s and her family’s futures are secure, rather than let her hurt feelings get in the way. Which the warden thinks is bullshit, and as much as I don’t like him, I agree with him.

“‘Be the man that she deserves,’” he tells Zuko, and I’m like, “You tell him, Scary Warden.”

Zuko goes to find Mai, who is still wearing her crown. “She wouldn’t if she meant to desert him, would she?”—Dude, she earned that. I wouldn’t give it up without a fight either. Like, I don’t like monarchies, and I’d set up a council if someone gave me a crown…but like hell if I’m giving up that crown! It’s shiny!

Mai has been waiting for him to approach her to talk. I don’t know if I’m supposed to find the bed exchange amusing, but—Mai, come on. The bed needed to go. How could you sleep in it again knowing that Azula was raped and impregnated there? No, let it burn. Throw some oil on it while you’re at it. There’s bad juju in that mattress. I don’t think making Lu Ten in that bed erased the aura of squick. Though also, Zuko, you should have offered her a different bed. Come on, my dude.

“‘Really?’ Mai sprang like the jaws of a trap snapping closed. ‘So you were thinking of me the whole time you were with her?’”—Yikes!

Mai continues to press him on why he slept with Azula, with him getting “unaccountable angry that she wouldn’t just accept his explanation.” She doesn’t buy that the fight spun out of control, though that was a part of what happened. But that isn’t why it happened. Zuko reveals the ugly truth of it: “‘She made me so angry [ . . . ] I just lost control.’”—Meaning that Zuko didn’t have sex with Azula because he loved her. He did it to punish her.

Mai then asks why Azula would sleep with Zuko, and Zuko tries to explain that it’s because Ozai abused Azula. Mai isn’t convinced by this—maybe she thinks that this is some kind of Morgana plot on Azula’s part—and doesn’t believe that Ozai would admit to the abuse, either.

“‘He just let it slip, in a moment of anger!’” Zuko says, to which Mai responds, “‘Really? Because that sounds a lot more like you.’”—Yes. Yes, Mai, Zuko and Ozai are very similar people. Similar explosive angers, similar self-centered natures, similar disregard for Azula’s personhood. Yes, you got it in one, even if you don’t realize it yet.

“‘You’re a fool if you think it ever happened.’”—This is so ugly. Mai, don’t be this person. Don’t be the person who thinks that the rape victim is lying.

“‘Because I know Azula, I know how she thinks [ . . . ] She makes you feel sorry for her, you give her want she wants. You let her bend again when she starved herself, maybe you’ll give her a royal pardon when it turns out Daddy fu—’”—Mai, I don’t think you’ve ever understood Azula. Not really. Right now, you sound like all of the Azula-haters out there, who see Azula as a conniving snake, rather than a deeply troubled girl. And honestly, when did Azula ever act weak to try to get what she wanted? And why would she want this story to be spreading about her? It will make everyone look at her differently. At best, they’ll pity her; at worst, they’ll find a way to blame her for what happened, or say that it served her right, even though she was a child.

Zuko raises a hand to strike Mai at this point, almost adding wife-beater to his sin list, but Mai intercepts him and tries to kiss and come onto him. When Zuko pushes her away, Mai asks him why he didn’t push Azula away, too—which HE SHOULD HAVE. Which he had opportunities to do! But he didn’t and he doesn’t know why.

Mai has a theory, though: “‘It wasn’t just the fight. You wanted her. You lusted after her. Your own sister. [ . . . ] You act like you caught some disease that impaired your judgement. [ . . . ] But people don’t do what you did without feeling that way for a long time. And you never said a word to me.”—I think Mai is correct here, though this doesn’t touch on how his resentment towards and his desire to dominate Azula pushed him over the edge. I also want to sit her down and say, “He didn’t know, so he couldn’t have told you,” because I don’t think that Zuko knew on a conscious level what he felt for Azula, besides anger. Also, Mai, would him telling you have made it better, somehow?

“‘You would never talk about her! I had no one I could talk to about her—’”—Ty Lee is glaring at you from the other side of the planet, Zuko.

Mai accuses Zuko of raping Azula, which he denies, but Mai asserts what I’ve been saying for chapters now: “‘If she was crazy, how could she give consent?’”—Thank you, Mai! Thank you for calling him out on this!

Mai wants to play the blame game, either having Azula or Zuko be entirely at fault for what happened. It’s not that simple, though. The truest answer here is probably Ozai—he’s the one who messed both of his children up—but at the same time, Zuko was in full control of his actions, unlike Azula. So we can’t and shouldn’t absolve him of responsibility.

As Mai starts to cry, Zuko tries to hug her, but she pushes him away. “‘I want my husband [ . . . ] I want the man who would never do this! I want the man I trusted!’”—This reflects the pain that people feel when they find out that one of their loved ones has abused someone, except without the denial that usually comes with it. It feels impossible to reconcile the person you thought you knew and cared about with who they’ve been revealed to be. As much as I don’t like how Mai demonizes Azula, I understand and feel for her here.

Zuko asks if this means that she won’t come back, but she clarifies that she will, with some conditions. After all, there’s Lu Ten to think of. “‘He asks for you every day.’ A tear dripped from her chin, and watching this, Zuko needed a moment to realize she was talking about their son.’”—Dude, think more about your son! You barely seem to!

Mai’s conditions are reasonable: Talk to her before telling their son about what’s going on. Give her her own quarters. Don’t come into them unless she summons him. Keep her in the loop about the search for Azula. She’ll probably have more requests in the future, but this is a good start.

We switch over to Aang and Katara, who are visiting Bumi in Omashu. Bumi captured Azula at one point and she escaped, which is what the pair are here to discuss with him. We get the detail that there are now bounty hunters looking for Azula, and that the people of the Fire Nation aren’t thrilled with the search.

“[Aang] began to realize that he was not these people’s hero. He wondered if Azula might be.”—Honestly, Aang? Yeah, she is. Their princess is the youngest firebender master in centuries, she has blue fire (which could be seen as a sign of Agni’s blessing), and she conquered Ba Sing Se with only two comrades, after their most famous general failed to. Iroh and Zuko are also, technically, traitors to the Fire Nation, since they defected and helped overthrow the king. This isn’t even touching on the dismantling of the Fire Nation’s military, the trials against many of the Fire Nation’s nobles and generals, or the massive amounts of reparations that Zuko has given to the other countries. Are these things, in the broader sense, justified? Of course. The Fire Nation’s imperialist regime brought 100 years of suffering to the world, suffering that is still fresh for the other countries. But from the perspective of the people of the Fire Nation, this looks like a deep betrayal from their leaders. The fact that the economy is tanking and the crops aren’t good must look like further signs that Zuko is bringing disaster onto the realm. Of course the people would look up to Azula instead. She brought them glory. Zuko is forcing them to feel shame. It’s little wonder that they prefer her to him.

Moving on. Bumi is apparently 117 years old now. I know that Kyoshi lived to 230, but this is still wild to me. It’s also wild that Bumi became the king of Omashu, considering that he was a commoner and is still illiterate. Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those things—I think that compassion is a much more important quality in a leader, and Bumi has that in spades—but I’m surprised that the Earth Kingdom allowed it. I have to assume his prodigious earthbending was part of what elevated him. I bet there’s a whole story there, which we’ll sadly never see.

Katara is offended to learn that Bumi shared a meal with Azula, but Bumi reminds her that he shared a meal with them, too, when they were prisoners. “It’s the little things that count, you know, Aang [ . . . ] Never forget that.”—Bumi knows how important kindness is, and probably suspects how little of it Azula has been shown in her life.

Bumi doesn’t buy that Azula is crazy and dismisses the danger she poses if angered: “‘Oh, all Fire Nation people are like that’”—Which is too much of a generalization for my tastes. He thinks that Iroh might be an exception, but given that Iroh breathed out flames at the suggestion that Zuko put Azula into an abusive environment, I’m not convinced.

When Bumi compares Azula to her “prince” brother, Aang worries that he might be going senile, but Bumi gently corrects him. They then get back to business—Bumi reveals that Azula stowed away in a cargo caravan and was caught by inspectors when she fell asleep. Aang is surprised by this, but Bumi reminds him that Azula was sick during her stay in Omashu. Azula was with Bumi for two days—god, I would have loved to see that—before he let her go. Aang and Katara are shocked and ask why. Bumi confides that he’s worried that Azula’s capture and death will lead to war, since Zuko threatened as much.

Aang and Katara don’t believe Bumi at first, with Aang going so far as to say, “‘He wouldn’t endanger [the peace] for personal concerns.’”—I’m sorry, Aang, but have you met Zuko? Family is super important to him, even if that family is dysfunctional. Katara understands, since she’s the girl who went on a revenge quest to murder her mother’s killer, but only stopped when she realized that the killer wasn’t worth damaging her soul over. But if Sokka’s life was on the line, you better believe that she would start a war for him. Katara is just as ruled by her emotions as Zuko is, and just as inclined toward dramatic gestures. Aang’s own culture works against him somewhat here, since it emphasizes the communal over blood relations (which are functionally erased, though there must have been someone keeping records of who was related to who, to avoid accidental incest). It makes it difficult for him to grasp how deep a bond with a family member can go, even one who you have a bad relationship with. Zuko and Azula are parts of each other’s identity, difficult though that is for both of them to accept.

Bumi points out that the Earth Kingdom is part of why he didn’t turn Azula over to the Fire Nation or Aang—the Earth Kingdom is more of a collection of countries in a trench-coat, rather than a single, organized government. If Omashu defied the wishes of Ba Sing Se by turning Azula over to safety, rather than to them, the people of Omashu would pay the price. We also learn that since Bumi outed himself as a White Lotus member, he hasn’t had access to privileged information, like Azula’s trial in absentia.

Regardless of who catches Azula, though, the Earth Kingdom sees it as a win. Either they catch and kill her and restore their honor, or Zuko shelters her from them and they can start a war over it—a war which would help them seize Fire Nation resources and recover from the occupation. Zuko has, apparently, suspended reparations to them.

Bumi adds that a war with the Earth Kingdom would be extremely difficult to fight: “‘A continent this vast supplies almost unlimited troops, and plenty of places to hide private armies. And our chain of command is more convoluted than the 52nd Earth King’s family tree.’” The technological gap between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom has also been closing since the war ended, and with the Fire Nation’s military gutted, it would be challenge for them to get an edge on the Earth Kingdom again. Overall, our heroes are in a bind, but there’s still time for them to find a way out of it. Until Azula is captured, that is—that will force the issue.

At this point, some letters arrive. The Gaang, thinking that Azula went to Kyoshi Island to recruit Ty Lee, are relieved that Ty Le “refused.” In truth, Ty Lee would have gone with Azula, but Azula told her no, because she understands the pain that she caused Ty Lee by forcing her to choose between her friends, and doesn’t want to do that again. Zuko tells them that he’s going to Kyoshi Island himself to ask questions, and that they shouldn’t waste the trip, which they accept…but Aang is starting to feel like he can’t trust Zuko, which troubles him.

We cut to Zuko as he arrives on the island. It turns out that Kaede actually bought that Azula and Ty Lee were fighting, and gave Ty Lee some light work to cheer her up. Zuko thinks that maybe Azula told Ty Lee everything and that’s why she’s not acting like herself. I wish that Azula had told Ty Lee, since it would be good for her to have someone in her corner who knows what happened from her perspective. But I understand why Azula didn’t say anything—it’s a memory that causes her shame, she’s used to keeping stuff like this a secret, Ty Lee might have let it slip to someone else, and it would have driven a wedge between Ty Lee and her other friends, something Azula is being careful not to do. But even so, I wish Azula had someone who knew and was supporting her in the aftermath, rather than her carrying it on her shoulders alone. But Azula isn’t used to accepting help from others, especially with things that are this sensitive.

When Ty Lee and Zuko meet, Ty Lee says that she didn’t think that Zuko would want to see her, and Zuko contradicts this with, “‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’” I don’t think that is true, given how Zuko thinks about her and how dismissive he’s been to her in the past. Zuko tries to apologize for that, but Ty Lee is more upset about how he’s treated Azula than with how he’s treated her. Zuko gets to the point: he wants information about Azula, such as why she was crying. Ty Lee refuses to give him that info because it’s personal to Azula, which tells us that Ty Lee wouldn’t have shared what happened to Azula if Azula had told her.

When Zuko says that he’s just trying to help Azula, Ty Lee calls bullshit. “‘You’re just trying to help yourself! She never would have ran if she thought there was any chance of you ever letting her out! But you never saw her; you wouldn’t even answer her letters! [ . . . ] Even I could tell you just dropped her there to forget about her—”—So true, Ty Lee. Especially the part about him never seeing her, which works on both a literal and figurative level.

“‘I never forgot!” Zuko insists, but this is actually more damning. It suggests that he kept Azula there so he would always know where she was and have control over her life.

“‘You never helped her, either [ . . . ] I know she didn’t always treat you right. I know, because she hurt me too. [ . . . ] But that’s not all she was. She’s not a monster. [ . . . ] She feels remorse, and she can repay kindness with kindness. She’s just—seen so little of that, I don’t know if she knows what it looks like anymore.’”—Clearly Ty Lee dumped most of her character creation points into Wisdom (and Dexterity). She might not be cunning, but she understands people, Azula included, much better than most of the other characters do. She has a lot of empathy, which I deeply appreciate.

Interrupting their conversation, though, June the bounty hunter storms into the clearing, with her shirsu paralyzing Ty Lee with a lash of its tongue. And that brings us to the end of another chapter! As always, thank you for the read, Aurelia!

Sincerely,

WiseAbsol

#Dominion by Aurelia le #Azula #avatar: the last airbender #Fanfiction #Review #WiseAbsol

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bewareofchris · 5 years

Text

Public Relations 6/??

PG-13 atm | Alec Hardy/Dr. Bill Masters | Broadchurch, Masters of Sex | Strong language, eventual sexual situations

“The fact that Alec Hardy was not currently, had not ever, and did not want to date the American sex research did not seem very important at all to the town of Broadchurch. They did what they had always done with a little bit of juicy gossip: they made a spectacle of it.”

<<prev

It was not paranoia to say that Bill was being watched. The whole of Broadchurch seemed as if it had a hive mind, and every eye in the place was tracking his movements with the same incredible scrutiny as a spy network in a television show. More troubling than the sensation of being watched, was the fact that no matter how intently he was stared at, nobody seemed like they wanted to tell him why.

And then there was Olly Stevens, a boy with a press badge, that invited himself to sit across from Bill at his table-for-one at lunch. He had the look of having just graduated high school and the swagger of an idiot child. “Hello,” the boy said before he stuck his hand across the table, “I’m Olly Stevens.”

Bill glanced sideways, toward the door, the waitress and the hostess who had greeted him when he came in. None of them seemed as if they were very interested in how his lunch had been interrupted by a stranger. When he glanced back, Olly’s hand was still stretched across the table at him. Bill set his silverware down and wiped his mouth with his napkin, “do I know you?” he asked.

“I’m Olly Stevens,” the boy repeated with his hand still lingering in the air.

“Then I don’t know you.” Bill had never had a problem getting people to leave him alone. Where he lived, his face was well known as one of the least likable but most competent professionals in any field he’d undertaken. But here, the best his glower managed was to get Olly’s embarrassing hand to lower back to his side.

The boy was still smiling, “No, I guess you don’t. I work at the Broadchurch Echo.” (Bill was going to write Betty a very strongly worded letter when he got back to his hotel room, explaining all of his feelings about being sent away to a town where his mere presence seemed to excite some sort of frenzy.) “I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions?”

“No,” Bill said. He picked up his utensils again, because they added a nice punctuation to the end of his denial. And the idiot boy was still sitting there, caught in a moment of confusion, but showing no signs of being deterred in the slightest.

“I was just wondering--forgive me if I’m being forward--but I was just wondering why an American sex researcher was here in Broadchurch?”

“I did say no,” Bill reminded him. “Why would you ask permission to ask questions if you were going to ask them anyway?”

“Are you thinking of relocating your sex research?”

To Broadchurch, the town that was so excited by a visitor it lost its fucking mind? Bill set his utensils down again and smiled at the idiot who couldn’t take a hint. He said, “excuse me,” as he slid out of his seat because he had been raised to appreciate the importance of manners.

“You don’t have to go,” Olly said in a rush, “you see what I really wanted to ask you was how you know DI Hardy.” The words were spoken so fast there was almost no spaces between them. And Olly had only turned in his seat to look at Bill, he hadn’t even had time to stand up to follow. His arm was hooked over the back of his seat as his lax-worried face slowly turned up into a smile. That was a reporter’s instinct, the moment they all seemed to know that against all logic and good intentions, the person they had come to harass was well and truly hooked.

“DI Hardy?” Bill repeated. The very man who was ignoring every bit of medical advice he must have received. The one that was a walking ghost at this moment. The one that accosted him in a public space to tell him to stay well away as if Bill had shown up here just to annoy him. “Why do you think I know him?”

“Oh come on,” Olly said.

The waitress that had been ignoring them was listening so obnoxiously it was amazing her ears hadn’t overtaken her head. Bill was grasping at some realization that was just beyond his understanding. He was on the verge of making everything make sense. All those knowing stares, and the cryptic giggles, and the slightly strange small talk. “I really don’t know what you’re implying.” But it certainly didn’t seem to have anything to do with Alec Hardy’s heart condition. That left him wondering what else there was to--

“Olly,” the hostess said, “leave the man alone or I’ll call your Aunt Ellie and Maggie.”

Aunt Ellie. Bill turned to look at the woman and then back at Olly who still hadn’t managed to be even slightly ashamed of his horrendous behavior. The name was so close to being familiar that it felt like he knew it without knowing why.

Olly managed a half-realized attempt at saying, “sorry,” as he stepped around him. When he left any chance of figuring out how he’d become linked to Alec Hardy went with him. Bill was left standing in place, searching out any sort of logical idea and finding none.

Miller was looking at him. No, that wasn’t the right way to phrase it. Miller wasn’t looking at him, she was glancing at him. She was sneaking peeks at him when she thought he wouldn’t notice. They were the smug, knowing sort of glances that she spared him whenever she thought she knew something about him that he hadn’t said.

No, these quick looks had guilt in them.

And she should be guilty, for shifting her focus away from the murder a boy that she knew to him. As if his imaginary sex life was more important. (And they were close, he could feel it, they were so close.

“Miller,” he said when he couldn’t stand it a moment longer. He dropped the file he’d been reading (again) to stare back at her with none of the attempted slyness she’d been employing. “What is it?”

“Sir?”

He hated that about her, the coyness, as if she hadn’t been caught outright. Now he had to say that he’d seen her, and that implied that he’d been looking back at her and they would have to argue if someone was paranoid or not. Hardy said nothing, just stared at her with skepticism that he hoped conveyed that he was simply too business to get sidetracked again.

“Alright,” she said, “before I tell you, don’t go off getting all,” she dropped the file she was looking over on the seat next to her as she turned to face him more fully, “grouchy. I’m sure that it can all be resolved, and remember that I was not involved at all so if you are going to get grouchy, you should do so at the right person.”

(That person most definitely being Miller herself.)

Miller drew in a breath, pressed her hands against her lap, and then said, “I heard,” so whatever she was saying was hearsay, “my nephew Olly,”

“The reporter?” Hardy asked.

“Are you going to let me speak?” Miller asked. He motioned at her to continue, “he works at the Broadchurch Echo. Well, I heard that he interrupted Bill,” it seemed impossible for Miller to say the man’s name without a tone of disbelief and amusement, “while he was having lunch. I don’t know what was being said, but now there’s a rumor around that Bill is Bill Masters, who is apparently a somewhat famous American sex researcher.”

For Christ’s sake.

Hardy didn’t have the energy to react to the news. He couldn’t even lie and say that he had known, because he didn’t know the man from any other stranger. It had been an accident that they’d met at all, and a disaster that the man had ended up here. And of course he was an American sex researcher. Of course he was, because the town of Broadchurch had decided that Hardy was fucking him, and he couldn’t just have a perfectly normal gay fling with any man, he had to have one with an American sex researcher.

Hardy pulled his glasses off and dropped them on the desk. His fingers were dry and rough, pressing against his eyes like he could make the whole stupid thing come undone.

“I’ll call him as soon as we’re done here, sir. I’ll talk to him. And Maggie Radcliffe--”

Maggie Radcliffe was another reporter, and regardless of her apparent morals and her adherence to some ethic code, she was still a reporter. A reporter with access to an American sex researcher and his lover, a somewhat disgraced detective working on a murder case. Even if Maggie wouldn’t sell the headlines, Olly would because the boy was made of ambition.

Even if Maggie didn’t, there was Karen fucking White to think of. By the time his hand had fallen away from his face, Miller had returned to looking at the file she’d be rereading. As if nothing had been said, and an innocent man’s life wasn’t going to be completely upended by the misconceptions of these little fucking minded people.

“Aren’t you going to ask?” Hardy asked.

Miller looked properly ashamed when she looked at him then, and good for her since she was the one that started it all. “No,” was the sound of the woman that did want to know, but wasn’t going to ask now that the whole thing had gotten out of hand.

He nodded, and thought how nice a drink would be, and then pushed himself out of the chair. “I’m getting a cup of tea.” He didn’t offer or imply that he meant to offer, and Miller was good enough to say nothing at all.

next >>

@marvelmisha, @may-darling, @it-is-ineffable if anyone else wants to be tagged just leave a reply on the post.

#illogical husbands #alec hardy #bill masters #grouchy bastards in love #public relations: the fic

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theeternalspace · 4 years

Text

Title: Infinity // Eternity

Chapter Two: Eternity in an Hour

Pairings: Virgil/Roman. Hints at past possible Virgil/Remy, or thoughts of it at least.

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings:Character Death Pre Story. The death is not shown, or talked about in detail as to how it happened, only that Remy is dead. Blood, violence, thoughts of past experimentation on living beings. General all round angst. Near death.

Hello! Hello! Welcome back! To the second and final part of my gift for @gilby-the-grad-student for @sanderssides-secretsanta. I really hope you enjoy!

This story only features Virgil and Roman, with the briefest mention of Remy. Who, I repeat. Is dead. This is Angst with a happy ending. It also has werebears because… I wanted supernatural bears instead of wolves.

Thank you for sticking with me.

—

Summary:

“To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour” - Auguries of Innocence, William Blake.

A fairy tale in two parts.

(This isn’t a fairy tale, Virgil warns him once.

It isn’t going to have a happy ending.

Being right doesn’t make him feel better.)

—

If anything, the fact that it takes Roman as long as he does to invite him to the village is the only surprising part of finding himself walking down one of the quiet streets. Virgil has long ago resigned himself to the fact that he can't refuse him anything and Virgil though Roman knew that. He would kill or die for Roman. He would rip out his own heart and hand it to him if his human smiled and asked nicely enough so getting him to visit somewhere is small potatoes. All he has to do is ask, the knowledge unspoken between them, like so many of the conversations they don’t have.

It still takes Roman a very long time to ask.

They dance around the subject. Virgil often walks with Roman to the edge of the forest. He lurks in the shadows of the trees, watching as the other part of him leaves to return to the human settlement.

Time after time, Virgil opens his mouth only to close it again without a word, unable to offer. The forest is dangerous, and that is one of the reasons why he insists on walking with him to the edge of his territory. He has to keep Roman safe in the only way he knows how and no matter how much some part of him yearns to follow him all the way home, Virgil just can’t. He isn’t part of Roman’s world which is human and mundane and so very perfect. He is an exile from any sort of real life, a ghost who cannot be seen, who cannot touch Roman past the trees.

Time after time, Roman lingers on that invisible boundary, waiting for him to offer perhaps. Or unwilling to end their time together perhaps, Or just admiring the view perhaps. Virgil doesn’t understand how his mind works and gradually he is coming to accept that.

All he knows is that Roman lingers, he remains silent and tries to shake the feeling that he is doing something wrong here. Not doing something is still doing it wrong, a sin of omission but he can’t bring himself to offer. The words feel heavier than any other Virgil might speak, the idea of being seen, of being noticed and connected to him. It's more than just his normal paranoia, more than fear for himself or distrust and dislike of the townsfolk. Its fear for Roman as well, a fear that someone will see them together and act accordingly.

When Roman finally does ask, all Virgil can do is nod wordlessly. He adopts a grumpy expression, emotions midway between relief that he can make sure he is safe all the way home and terror of having to walk the streets and be seen. At least it comes with the warmth of a few more seconds with Roman, of feeling the human close by. His bear is always more settled when he is close by. The dark bangs which fall artfully over his eyes give him a few precious seconds of delaying the inevitable while he plays with them, trying to rearrange them to his liking. It doesn’t save him from actually having to take that first step.

With a deep breath, Virgil finally steps over the invisible line that separates the forest he knows and the village he doesn’t.

The world doesn’t end. There are no screams or howls, no alarms blaring and scientists popping up from behind rocks. There is no trap, no red cloak falling to the ground and a wolf under the mask. Instead it is simply a smile, a forest fire of warmth rushing through him at the sight of it. There is nothing to fear here beyond anything the woods might offer. For the first time out of danger, Virgil is the one to reach out first, to take Roman’s hand in his own, a surprisingly gentle squeeze his only hint of nerves.

(Virgil is going to be the death of Roman.)

They turn left, a short cut through a small path and out into a quiet street, minutes away from the theatre where he works as a director slash costume designer slash whatever he needs to be at the time. Roman loves to talk about his work and Virgil loves to listen although he understands perhaps one word in five. All that matters is his human is passionate about his job. It seems very important to Roman that Virgil sees where he works. And where he lives, where he spends his time when he is here instead of in the forest, as if Roman can somehow cram Virgil into all of his life. Virgil might not understand why, but that doesn’t matter. The important thing is to keep that smile on Roman’s face.

As always, Roman is chattering away. Telling him about this and that, a place he visits regularly, a favoured corner to have lunch. And then places that Roman hasn't really spent much time in but knows about. His very own personal tour guide, showing him around this new place. As though Virgil cares. As if there is anything here he would ever be interested in beyond the person beside him. He nods his head when there is a pause in the river of words. Makes the occasional grunt to let Roman know he is listening and simply lets him have his way.

Virgil finds himself doing that a lot lately.

They are almost at the next intersection when Virgil shifts to a sudden stop, every inch of him going stiff, alert.There is a scent in the air, a danger that makes him want to pull Roman behind him. Virgil doesn’t need to look to the side to know that he is opening his mouth, a question forming on lips, something that will only distract. Virgil lifts his free hand, finger on his lips to silence her. A little way down the street stands a male, slight but strongly built, a sneer twisting his features, head dipping up and down a little. No doubt picking up Virgil’s bear but he has never seen him before. Yet. That scent... he knows that scent.

Vampire.

His power and energy is almost a physical presence on the street, pounding and swirling around them. Virgil can all but taste it and it makes him feel ill. It's been a long time since he's come into contact with another like him. The possibility of such is intoxicating and it would be so easy to simply give into that, to drink deep on the power and for a moment to be the beast of old. He would be lying if he said he wasn't tempted to become what he had once been, just a taste, a final taste. There is still Roman to think about, and it is more than the feeling of shame that comes with the idea of him seeing what he had once been. It is wanting to be better, to be worthy no matter how futile. It is wanting to keep Roman safe.

Even as he thinks that, Roman is moving. He slips out of his grasp in a graceful motion, water trickling between fingers and he has never been able to hold the other against his will. Just like every other aspect of Roman, the physical is impossible to define or pin down. He wants to move and so he does, stepping around him to face this threat head on. Only, Virgil realises with a mounting sense of horror, he doesn't know that this is any kind of danger. As far as his Roman seems to believe, he is simply talking to a neighbour, defusing a situation that is weird but only because Virgil has made it that way. It might even have been enough, the vampire and bear slipping back into tired robes and old roles, except they have each seen the others face. They cannot trust that the other will back down, not when Virgil has his human to think about and the vampire has a chance to drink.

Not when the vampire has no way of knowing if they will be safe or if Virgil will hunt them down. Better to attack first. In order not to be struck, strike.

Right in front of him, as though in a play, Virgil sees the vampire reach out, everything around them slowing in time. In his mind's eye, he can see what happens next, can see the pale man’s hand catch at Roman’s shoulder. The way fingers would bite with fierce hunger into skin leaving bruises - if there is any blood remaining tomorrow. Virgil can hear the startled gasp as he is spun around, drawn close and the way their bodies would dance before Roman is bent over or pushed against a wall. Teeth teasing at tender flesh and the final jerk as they break skin, how hands would grip tighter still. He's seen countless vampires feed before, he knows the moves, the fight and the submission of the victim, those moments of pain tinted pleasure. He stops fighting the pale man's grasp, arcs into him and for those few moments it is more than the desperate struggle of a fight, it is something akin to lovers. Then the cards tumble down, the final curtain and Roman is as cold and as dead as the vampire itself. A blink of thunderous applause and he is back at the start.

Fingers touch Roman’s shoulder.

And the world

turns

red

(Roman is going to be the death of Virgil.)

He comes back to screams of pain and a voice frantically calling his name. He comes back to the rank scent of vampire blood clogged in his nostrils and an ache in his body that means a fight. He comes back to Roman kneeling in front of him, palms open, between him and his target. He's put himself between him and his goal. Into the path of danger and he has never told Roman how deadly that is, how it could ruin him. Virgil never told his human how he could break him without ever meaning to. How humans are so easy to reshape in any image, how he can imagine what he would look like unmade. Virgil’s never told him that he's a monster and made Roman believe it so he can leave for his own safety. Because this was bound to happen sooner or later. It's just some weird twist of fate that he didn't go right through Roman in his quest to end the bastard. All because he was too scared to be honest with him, too selfish and focused on what Roman could give him.

He's never told Roman how he felt about him - he's never told him how he felt - he’s never told him.

Roman is just standing there and looking at him and there is still so much trust on his features. Like he knows with the utmost certainty that Virgil won’t hurt him. It makes his heart bleed at how wrong he is about him. Why isn’t he running away from Virgil?

Why isn’t he leaving when the broken and bloody ruin of what they could have been is lying on the ground behind him?

There is a steady look in Roman’s eyes. A determination that he has come to associate with him. Roman reaches out, motions slow and steady, an action that he has repeated constantly throughout their time together. As though Virgil is some wild animal certainly but the skittish kind, a victim, prey instead of predator.

Almost as though Roman could be the one to hurt him. It's the same calming motion he uses every time he reaches out to touch Virgil. There is a carefulness in every touch. All his own touches are good for is violence and pain. The vampire makes a noise behind Roman . Still a threat, still a danger and if Virgil can't contain the danger, he can at least get them away from it.

Fight or flight?

Virgil grabs that offered hand, blooded fingers curling in his own clean ones, and together, they run.

(this isn’t a fairy tale, Virgil warns him once.

It isn’t going to have a happy ending.

Being right doesn’t make him feel better.)

No matter how hard Virgil tries, he can’t get his heart under control. It is as wild as the animal inside of him, screaming bloody murder. Virgil wants to go back and finish off that vampire. Wants to keep running and never stop. Fight, fight, fight. Flight, flight, flight. His heart carries on its frantic beat and Virgil doesn’t know how long they run. Only that they do until his lungs are on fire. Until the shadows of the trees cover them both once more. Until he wants to collapse on the ground. If this is how he is feeling, then how badly must Roman feel? Virgil needs to pause, to breathe.

He needs a moment when there is none on offer but the fact that they have made it back to the woods is something.

Virgil is drowning. In everything. The scent of that vampire still curls around them both. Endlessly chasing them and that alone would have driven him mad. But the memories of what had just happened haunts him, pressing up against his mind and he knows it won’t fade any time soon. It is too raw, too vibrant and no matter how much time passes, at this moment it feels as if that vampire will always be there. A tiny part of him thinks maybe not, maybe like every other wound in his life this one would eventually heal. But the wound could have been so much worse, it could have been losing Roman and that could never have healed. Even the woods are tarnished by the smell and where there should be peace there is panic.

Roman touches, fingers smudging against drying blood and Virgil can't help but flinch. It is a soft touch but it is no less painful for that. He stinks of vampire, of that never future and his bear rebels, precious control snapping clean in half. In one graceful motion Virgil is spinning, the flinch and fear replaced by determination, pressing him back. They are almost dancing, forcing Roman against the tree, legs between Roman’s own.

Even now, when the monster is out and in control for the first time, he isn't struggling or showing fear. Roman trusts the monster. He trusts something as wicked as that man who wanted to drain him dry, snarl rattling through his chest and up and out.

Breath is ragged, Virgil’s head dipping as he takes in that scent which is still tinted vampire. No. No. He cannot let this pass, cannot run the risk that another might show up and think they can just take and take and take. The world needs to know Roman is protected, taken, safe, whatever the term they want to use. He needs to know that he is Virgil’s because otherwise he is hopelessly Roman’s without any end. Virgil cannot be his if it is not equal and even.

The bear monster has all manner of ideas on how to fix this.

Virgil cannot agree with most of them. Not here, in the wild, with no choice involved and it is a strain to pull back a fraction of control. To stop his hands and legs moving independently of his wants, to tell the monster no. He might have kept it caged all these years, just as he was kept caged but he has never refused its wants before. Roman is more important.

The bear monster roars angrily in his head, and Roman is important, they agree he is important. Therefore, he needs to be theirs. Roman needs to not smell of that vampire and its claim. The scent is enough to drive Virgil mad and he presses forward. All but rubbing himself on Roman, consumed by need, need, need. It isn’t as good as some of the ideas from his bear side, but it rubs away the scent of death and replaces it with Virgil’s own. It settles him. Heaven help him, but it settles Virgil as he marks Roman. Cheeks are flushed red, ashamed but now that he has started, Virgil finds he cannot stop. He simply holds Virgil. It makes him want to scream, yell and tell Roman to stop him but he is a prisoner in his own body. The bear monster is in charge. It is taking everything Virgil is to just do this, filling the air with his scent and ensuring that if anything else comes along, it will know Roman is already claimed.

Virgil tries to ignore the fear that a claim like this might not be enough, that they might just ignore it because it will just make the monster more vicious, more out of control. All he can do is hold on for the ride and stop himself from doing anything worse.

(Roman’s hands touch his skin and it feels like coming home.)

He did it for him. Virgil has just gotten himself under some fragile control and then Roman cracks him back open with a few delicate words. The animalistic nature of Virgil or the fact vampires are real doesn’t seem to make Roman pause. It doesn’t make him doubt or ask any of the questions Virgil can see bubbling away in those beautiful brown eyes. All Roman seems to care about is explaining why he did what he did. Put himself in the path of an oncoming storm unheeding of the danger because Roman believed he was worth it, because he didn't want Virgil to have another's life blood on his hands.

What is one more?

He wants to say the words aloud, what is one more tiny tick on that side for him, one more life taken by his hand. What is one more sin for a soul that is already drenched in them? Not that Roman knows his sins, he looks at him and sees - Virgil has never understood what he saw when he looked at him, only that Roman is always looking and somehow, he is always passing his tests.

He doesn't want Virgil to kill for him.

The idea is so funny, Virgil has to drown that urge to laugh at the absurdity. He doesn’t know what is that makes him want to laugh so much - that Roman thinks he has never killed before or that Roman thinks he shouldn’t have that burden, when his main role in life is to do just that. To be the killer, to do the dirty jobs so other people don't have to. A strange wheezing sound fills the clearing, Virgil tensing for a moment in case it is a threat. It takes him a few seconds to realise the noise is coming from him and a few more to understand he is laughing.

It carries on bubbling out of him, a poisonous spurt of noise that refuses to be silenced.

Virgil waits for the punchline, for him to reveal the price and there is always a price. Always. Roman’s played the long game but he can't take this anymore, dancing around the topic, always on edge because nobody is kind. Not without reason. Without cause. Roman closes the distance between them and for once he is silent, letting him have this although there is concern on his face. Dimily, Virgil is aware he is still laughing and that it isn't healthy. There is a small part of him separate from that laugh, from waiting and that part looks at Roman.

Maybe, for the first time ever, he really, really looks at him. Looks at what Roman has actually done and not done instead of what he expects the human to do. Looks at his words and his actions over everyone else. Looks at his Roman, his knight, his sun, his, his, his and it's a roaring refrain that is glorious.

Gradually, the truth dawns. Roman really doesn't want him to kill for him. Roman isn't just saying that... he isn't wearing a mask and hiding what he wants in fair words... he... he...

Roman is releasing him from chains he doesn't know he wears, invisible cuffs springing open at the words. Virgil feels light, so dizzyingly light for the first time in longer than he knows. The world is suddenly light, a pressure off his shoulders as he struggles to bring in enough air, as though he is up high and the oxygen has grown thin. Legs tremble, now made out of jelly and they fold up under him without the chains holding him in place. He cannot stand but Roman is right here with him, sinking to the ground as he lets himself collapse. His arms wrap around Virgil with fingers gently threading through his hair as they half sit, half lie in the forest and all Virgil can do is focus on breathing. And ignore the strange stinging sensation in the corner of his eye. He doesn't know how long they remain there, new thoughts and ideas pooling around them, Virgil finally allowing new wishes, new wants to take root. A brave new world indeed.

“I want to live for you.”

(and this bed was just right.)

~fin~

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #roman sanders #aca writes #infinity/eternity #long post

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lj-writes · 6 years

Text

IMPORTANT LONG POST: How to deal with Aspies, by an Aspie

Note: This is a post submitted to me, and after reviewing it and consulting with an autistic friend I’ve decided to publish it because it is potentially useful information and good advice in general. As with most accommodations, it would make life easier for neurotypical people as well.

One thing I think this essay is missing is that, especially where the person uncomfortable is a woman or girl and the person with Asperger’s is a man or boy, there are good reasons for the woman/girl to fear giving an outright rejection. Most men and boys will not turn violent, obviously, and it’s most certainly not Asperger’s or any other form of autism that makes anyone violent, it’s the general culture of entitlement and objectification that has been taught to men and boys in general. The problem is that she would have no way to tell who is safe and who is not.

Therefore I’d like to emphasize that every situation is different and there might be valid reasons for people to fear setting boundaries in a clear way. I wish we lived in a better world where everyone felt safe having clear and straightforward conversations like the one outlined here. I agree that it’s a good idea for neurotypical people to take the initiative when they judge that it is safe to, and I hope people with Asperger’s will also stay aware of these dynamics and take initiative, such as asking for opinion and advice from neurotypical friends who might catch the nuances better. I’m rooting for you all to be safe and happy in your interactions!

So an Aspie is doing something off-putting. They could be telling jokes that make you squirm. They could be popping their knee to make a weird sound. They could be strongly opinionated and make you wish they’d shut up about it.

Maybe they have a crush on you. You’ll be able to tell. They might act like you guys are way better friends than you are. They might hug you too much and/or at awkward times. They might stand behind you, waiting for you to finish talking to someone so they can have a private conversation with you. They might hang around you at a dance, just kind of keeping an eye on you so they can snag a slow song with you.

And in case you’re wondering, I have done all these things. I still do sometimes, but I’m getting better.

Crushing on you or not, if an Aspie is bothering you, there’s something very important you have to do:

TELL THEM.

THIS. IS NOT. OPTIONAL.

I mean, technically it is, but here’s what happens if you don’t:

1. They keep bothering you because they don’t know they’re doing anything to make you uncomfortable.

2. You get more uncomfortable and distance yourself from them.

3. You break off your friendship (if you had one) and basically do everything you can to block them out because you can’t take it.

4. They realize they screwed up and react accordingly. (Personally, I lower my self-esteem a couple hundred notches, blame myself and listen to Little Lion Man on repeat until anguish becomes depression, depression becomes apathy and apathy dissipates into normality and the pain goes away. I don’t recommend this. The self-esteem scars will linger for a long time.)

Is this your fault? I’m going to say no, because you’re responding naturally and we were bothering you. It’s an annoying neurotypical habit, but we understand your considerate nature makes you loath to admit we’re putting you off. In fact we probably like you because you’re so nice, and we don’t let go of that perception easily. We’d rather assume we’re the exception (and we probably are.)

But the point is, that cycle is internalized and you need to cut it out. We won’t fault you for it. But it’s still a mistake.

I know it’s hard. I’ve experienced it myself, actually, because something utterly unprecedented happened to me recently. Someone had feelings for me. She was nice but not my type and I was a little put off by her forwardness (but having been in her situation myself, combined with the fact that I was starving for this exact experience, I didn’t mind too much.) And it was hard to go up and talk to her about it. It was very similar to when I would try to ask my crush if I’d been making her uncomfortable recently; you look for an opportunity to talk in private, you see what might be a chance to get them alone, you freeze up. I don’t know if this will help, but in my experience an Aspie is pretty much always down for a private conversation about your feelings if you need to take them aside. This is important to us.

If you think they’re crushing, ask them straight up. Honestly, answering yes to that question is way easier than telling you first. Let them down easy. If they don’t have nice guy syndrome (coughs in direction of Aspies who use their awkwardness as an excuse not to change, or worse, to be actively creepy) they’ll understand completely. Although Aspies tend to think if they completely stop making mistakes and be as chivalrous as possible, they just might be able to turn your heart to them. The key distinction here is that those guys understand your favor is something to be earned, whereas NGS types think they only have to be nice to you once before they’re automatically entitled to it. An Aspie recognizes they might never succeed in winning your affections, but what’s the point in not making sure you’re as happy as possible? We’re like dogs. We’ll do literally anything for you, so if you don’t want us to go out of our way to be helpful, you gotta say “down, boy.” Not with those words.

Also, VERY IMPORTANT, we’re not as totally clueless. We learn to smell when something’s up. Problem is we feel paranoid doing it. That’s because neurotypicals don’t always KNOW an Aspie bothering them and their subconscious could be driving you away. Aspies shouldn’t be ashamed of paranoia when it comes to this kind of thing because it’s rarely unjustified. If they come to you, for glory’s sake, DON’T LIE. My crush did this all the time and it turned out awful for both of us. She only got slightly better before our paths separated; she stopped lying but she’d usually ignore the question and let the ‘seen’ speak for itself. (‘SEEN’ does NOT speak for itself! It confuses the HELL out of us 9/10, so DON’T leave us on read! ESPECIALLY IF IT’S A QUESTION!) If she’d communicated better, we might have had a conversation like this:

Her: Hey ___________, can I talk to you for a second? Me, if this is in person, which is ideal and should always be your first choice: Sure, let’s take this somewhere private. [We do that.] Me: What’s up? Her: I don’t know if you know this, but you’ve been doing some things that make me uncomfortable. Me: Oh no! I’m so sorry! I’d never do that on purpose. What have I been doing? Her: Well, you’ve been following me around a lot. Me: I had no idea that bothered you. I just wanted to hang out. I’m so sorry. Her: It’s alright. You’ve also been hugging me a lot? Me: Yeah, I had a feeling that was bothering you. I was going to ask about that. I’ll stop. Her: Thanks. Me: _______, I want you to know that I care about you a lot and I don’t want you to be uncomfortable because of me, ever. Is there anything else I’m doing that’s bothering you? Her: No. Me: Are you sure? I’ve learned from experience I can’t be too careful. I promise I’ll understand. Her: Well, you have been telling dark jokes and they make me uncomfortable. Me: I promise won’t do that around you anymore. Thank you for telling me. Is there anything else? Her: No. Me: Often, people will be put off to Aspies subconsciously because we’re different in subtle ways. I need you to be careful to take that into account whenever I make you uncomfortable and you don’t know why. But if you do know why, then just take me aside again. I’m always willing to listen and I’m so proud of you for having the courage to talk to me. If it makes you feel better, I feel nervous trying to talk to you alone too. Her: That reminds me— do you have a crush on me? Me: Yes. Thanks— I would have been too nervous to tell you without you asking. Believe me, I tried— remember last time we danced, when I changed the subject and then didn’t say anything? Her: I remember that. To be honest I’ve kind of known for a long time. I don’t feel the same, I’m sorry. Me: That’s alright. We’re still friends, right? Her: Actually, I don’t think we’re that close. Friend isn’t the term I’d use to describe our current relationship, if I’m not being broad. Me: Would you mind if we got to know each other better and hung out more, so we could become friends? Her: I’m willing to try that. Me: Thank you. I won’t expect anything more to come of our relationship than that, even if I may hold out hope that it might. Her: Alright. Will you understand if being friends doesn’t work out? Me: Right now, I don’t think I can honestly say if I will, but I’ll be willing to break off completely if it makes you happy. Her: Alright. Good talk. Me: It certainly was. I’m glad we’re being open with each other.

If we’d sat down and done that, we wouldn’t have had the train collision that happened instead. (Again, I take all the blame on myself; communicating this openly is a learned practice. And obviously, it’d be awkward if your conversations were as specifically and literally honest as the one above.) This applies to romantic and platonic relationships alike. Heck, try this with non-Aspies even. It’ll probably help your relationship with them and help you unlearn the practice of saying what they want to hear and doing what you really mean. Hypocrisy is terrible for interaction and relationships.

tl;dr: If an Aspie is bothering you, TELL THEM.

#autism #asperger's syndrome #long post #advice #submission #anon

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girlswillbeboys-ep · 4 years

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a letter to my parents

Dear Mom & Dad,

They say the hardest step in resolving a problem is admitting you have one. I have never been the type of person to run from my problems, I usually like to fix whatever the issue is as soon as it arises so that it doesn’t build up or get worse. Time and time again, throughout my entire life, and in the last three years especially, I have been trying, by any means possible, to escape this specific problem. Despite my efforts, I haven’t been able to. For a long time now, I have been trying to build up the courage to not only come clean about this to you guys, but to myself as well.

In short, my brain has not, does not, and will never align with the anatomical sex that I was assigned at birth. In other words, I am transgender. This diagnosis is called “Gender Dysphoria.” Unlike most other medical conditions, you can’t see what I have on the outside; blood work can’t measure it, ultrasounds can’t detect it, and MRI’s can’t scan it. Like many diseases or birth defects, there is no clear cause, although there are theories.

Popular belief outside of the medical community holds that people with “Gender Dysphoria” are merely “Gender Confused.” This is far from the truth. No one would choose to undergo something so drastic and life-altering as this. If I had the choice, I would choose for these feelings to go away and for me to be like everyone else. I am making the choice to come out to you, and to move forward with transitioning, because if I don’t I will live miserably and as something I am not for the rest of my life, and I cannot do that. Yes, I am choosing to come out and live authentically, but I am certainly not choosing to be trans. We are born with this and it is inherent with us from our earliest recollections.

This probably comes as a shock to you both, and that was never my intent. I am sorry I kept something so important and serious from you for such a long time, but because of how negatively you both initially reacted to me being a lesbian, I was too afraid. I thought to myself, “If being a lesbian was extremely difficult for them to accept, being trans will be one step too far.” I had to move out of the house before I told you in case you responded badly. I didn’t want to go through what I went through back then again, I couldn’t. I am worried that after reading this letter, that you two will no longer want to be my parents or love me at all. I am worried that you will be embarrassed of me, disgusted with me, think I’m delusional or just going through a phase. I have been living with this fear inside myself for a long time now, but now I finally have the courage to say that with or without your love and support, I am going to take the necessary steps to become who I’ve always been.

From the outside looking in, I suspect that one would have thought I lived the good life. In many ways I have, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. They say, “never judge a book by it’s cover,” and unfortunately, you, and everyone else in my life was just seeing the cover. Inside was something much different. Nobody, not even those closest to me, could see my internal struggles and pain. I have been hurting for a long time now, but I couldn’t tell anyone out of fear of rejection.

In retrospect, I can see symptoms of me being trans from all the way back to my early childhood, as young as three years old. I will discuss this further with you if you would like. The real symptoms began around the time I started puberty, because that’s when my body began to develop in a female way and not a male way. Although I did not have the vocabulary at the time to describe what I was feeling, I now can look back and pinpoint exactly what was wrong. I was disgusted with myself due to the development of breasts specifically. While all the other girls my age were trying to emphasize their feminine bodies, I was trying to hide. At the time, I didn’t know exactly why I was so uncomfortable with myself, again, because I didn’t have the vocabulary. While most other 13 year old girls were insecure because boys didn’t like them and their boobs weren’t big enough, I was insecure because I didn’t fit in with the boys, and my boobs were growing. Most girls at that age were also insecure because they were “fat,” so I began to think that was what was wrong with me too, because what else would it be? Around this time is when I began to cut myself and starve myself; I never told anyone. I hid my pain because I didn’t understand what I was feeling, and I didn’t know what would become of me if anyone were to find out. I was ashamed of myself and how I felt. I tired to mirror the behavior of female role models and peers, thinking my actions would ultimately program my thinking. This was a false assumption, but as a child I knew no better. My brain could not relate to women, yet I kept going through the motions, playing a role so that I could be accepted.

The feelings only continued when I got to high school. In 9th grade, I joined the basketball team, and on the team was a handful of “butch” lesbians if you will. Instantly upon meeting them, I related to them. They were girls like me, who dressed, behaved, and carried themselves in a more masculine way than other women. Before meeting them, I didn’t even know that it was possible for me to break outside of typical gender norms, especially now that I was getting older and being a “tomboy” wasn’t so normal anymore. I didn’t know that there were other people like me out there. By sophomore year, I had fully realized that I was a lesbian. I never have had any emotional or physical attraction to a male before or after that. Time went on, and I continued to dress in boys clothing and be attracted to girls. Although dressing in that way and being aware of my sexuality helped me feel far more comfortable than I was prior, those same feelings from years gone by still lingered, and got increasingly worse the more feminine my body became as it developed. Keep in mind, at this time, I was completely unaware of what transgender even was. I had never heard of the term before. Furthermore, I would try to minimize the appearance of my feminine features, such as breasts and hips, in any way I could. I would wear multiple sports bras to compress my chest and wear sweatpants or a long baggy t-shirt so that I could hide my hips. I’m going to be bluntly honest with you when I say this: I was absolutely horrified for you to find out I was a lesbian. With my Catholic upbringing, it was ingrained in me from an early age that heterosexual relationships were the only acceptable form of attraction or love. Along with that, and homophobic remarks I would hear you both occasionally make, I knew you would not be okay with it. I honestly cannot describe in words how deeply afraid I was of what would happen to me if I was to be outed. I didn’t plan on telling either of you until after I graduated from college so I wouldn’t have to deal with the repercussions, which obviously didn’t go as planned! This is around the time that I started to develop paranoia and anxiety about you finding out. I was constantly, and I mean constantly, thinking about it. For a long time, the fear would already be in my mind the moment I woke up in the morning, and wouldn’t leave until I fell asleep at night. Sometimes I would even have nightmares about it and would wake up with my heart pounding, covered in sweat. This was an extremely difficult time for me. I really struggled a lot and didn’t know how to help myself. Due to this high amount of paranoia, stress, and anxiety that was put upon me, the thoughts I had about how strongly I disliked my body were dulled, and moved their way from the front of my mind to the back. Then eventually you guys found out about my sexuality in July 2016, the summer before my senior year. Although it did take awhile, you came around eventually, especially in the past year and a half, which I am really, really happy about because I thought it would never happen. I didn’t have to worry about being outed anymore, and all that paranoia and anxiety I had been experiencing slowly faded away. I felt a weight lift off my shoulders and my heart felt lighter. Unfortunately, as those feelings faded, the thoughts about my body moved from the back of my mind to the front yet again. Toward the end of my senior year, a friend introduced me to her friend, who happened to be a female to male transgender man. This was my first time meeting a trans person, and this was the first time I became aware of the term. After meeting him and hanging out, I immediately started doing research on what being transgender was and what it entailed. Instantly, I was putting the puzzle pieces together about why I felt the way I felt. It slowly began to make sense. A few days later, I reached out to the transgender guy I had hung out with, and was telling him that I thought I could possibly be trans too, and that I wanted to know more about it from someone who is actually going through it. He started telling me about how he felt, his experiences he had as a child, feelings about his body, etc. Again, I related to everything he told me. This was almost a relief because now there was a name for what I had been feeling all along, but also horrified me because it’s a huge, life-altering change that involved medical intervention, as well as socially transitioning. But what really scared me the most about being trans was the fear that you guys wouldn’t accept me, and that you would not want to be my parents anymore. I had already been through so much with coming out as a lesbian, and I didn’t want to throw any wrenches in the gears when things just started to get better, so I kept quiet and didn’t tell anyone else for a long, long time.

I kept quiet, but I kept doing research, and the more stories I read the more I related, and the more these stories sounded like me and my life experiences. As I began to realize more and more that I was trans, I also began to be more and more afraid all over again. Afraid of what you would think, afraid of what others would think, afraid of changing my name, afraid of surgery, afraid of being discriminated against, and afraid that I was wrong about being trans all together. I worried that I was simply trying to fit in somewhere; I worried that I wanted a male body so much that I was conjuring proof of my transness by taking a bunch of unrelated issues I had throughout my life and forcing them to be trans related; taking a bunch of symptoms and deciding the root of them. Mostly I worried that there was something wrong with me and that I was trying to sabotage my own life. At the same time, though, I knew that these thoughts always started up late at night, when I had a bad day, and that if I transitioned I’d be alone, die alone, and never be loved again. In other words, I was terrified of a future I didn’t know. Still, knowing that fear was likely the cause of my doubt, it took me a year of back and forth, a year of confiding in friends I could trust, and a year of therapy to finally sit down and write this letter. Getting to this point has been far from easy, and there will be many more hurdles to jump over down the road. Just getting to the point where I can write this letter is a huge milestone for me, as it shows just how far I have come in understanding myself and accepting myself for who I am, despite it being the road less traveled by.

I want you both to know that this is absolutely without a doubt, in any way at all, your fault. You did absolutely nothing wrong in raising me, and that is the last thing I want you to think. I know that as my parents, you probably had an idea of who I would become when I grew up, and I know that this is definitely not what either of you had in mind. But I want you to know that although I didn’t turn out to be exactly what you pictured, I will always, always, be the same person you have known and loved—just a happier, healthier, more authentic version of myself. I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart if this has hurt you in any way; that was never my intent. You are receiving this letter because I love you unconditionally, no matter the ups and downs, and I care about you both enough to share something so vulnerable, emotional, and raw with you. I don’t tell either of you enough how much I love you and how grateful I am for you and everything you’ve done for me in life. I desire nothing more than for you both to stick by me through this and love me for who I am, but I recognize that that may not be the case. I am okay with that. However, I want you to know that you both will forever have a special place in my heart and I will always treasure all the memories and good times we have had together, even if you choose not to support me.

Thank you for reading the entire way through, I know it’s a lot to digest all at once, but I am willing to talk to you about this even more in-depth if you wish. I want to be as transparent as possible so that you can understand what I’m going through to the best of your ability. There are no wrong questions to ask, all I ask is that you are respectful of me when discussing it further. This isn’t going to be easy for you or for me, but having the love and support of my family would help tremendously, but if not, I understand. Reach out to me and let me know your decision.

With love,

Luke

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madegeeky · 6 years

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HEY GUESS WHO IS SHAKING WITH RAGE AGAIN

So, my brother-in-law’s wife (my sister-in-law-in-law?) just fb messaged me about possibly having dinner because they happen to be in Chicago until tomorrow. This pisses me off for several reasons, all of which I’m going to write down so I can get them out of my system and move on with my life because fuck all of Mr. Geeky’s close relations. (Behind a cut because it got long.)

Mr. Geeky has had an incredibly strained relationship with BIL since he found out that BIL was cheating on SILIL. Mr. Geeky is an absolute sweetheart and cannot imagine betraying anyone’s trust like, especially someone that he loves, so it very much disturbed him.

None of that even takes into account the fact that SILIL moved here from another country with her young son and thus BIL holds a lot of power of SILIL. Although, as far as I’m aware, he never actively held that over her head, it’s hard not to be aware of the fact that he could.

And none of that goes into what SILIL told me about the emotional abuse and manipulation BIL pulled whenever SILIL would dare to express her anger toward that breach in trust.

We have not heard from either my BIL or my SILIL since we told them that we were not longer talking to Mr. Geeky’s parents.

When we did tell them, literally the only thing BIL did was to guilt Mr. Geeky by implying that they were respecting our wishes and were waiting for us to contact them.

I have a copy of that email and reread it after BIL said this. It is very blunt and states in no uncertain terms that it is all on them to reestablish contact so that’s a line of fucking bullshit. I have no idea if BIL knew he was trying to guilt Mr. Geeky or was just repeating MIL’s bullshit but I don’t care.

The last I heard of SILIL was when my brother’s wife told me that SILIL had contacted her out of the blue, after not having talked for several years, to ask her about Mars’ fb page which she had suddenly realized she no longer had access to. (For several reasons, most of which having to do with Mars’ privacy, I do not post pictures of her on public sites. The two places that I do post to, including fb, you must request access to.)

About a month or so before SILIL contacted SIL I had finally decided to kick SILIL from the group for multiple reasons, the biggest of which was my lingering worries that she was showing the pics to MIL.

The fact that she went behind my back to figure out what was going on implies, to me, that she doing exactly that, showing MIL pics of Mars even though we had explained that they were not to pass on any information about us to MIL and FIL. In order for her to notice the page was gone, she would have to actually go to the page. Since I very rarely post pics there, so she would have been used to not seeing pics of Mars on her dash so there was no reason for her to be suspicious yet. Since she never commented or even liked pics of Mars, I see no reason for her to go out of her way to that page unless she was doing it at someone else’s behest.

It’s not paranoia if someone is actually out to get you.

Luckily my SIL is smart and quick and wonderful and immediately lied and stated that she’s very rarely on fb so had no idea. She is a good SIL and I adore her.

It’s highly insulting and thoughtless to give people so little notice that you are visiting and want to do something with them. It shows not only a lack of common sense but also a lack of respect for the people that you are springing this on.

BIL and SILIL live at least six hours away; this is not the type of thing that you generally plan last minute, especially when you have a kid to plan around. There was no reason to wait to the last minute.

When I pointed this out to SILIL, that it was shitty to spring this on a person last minute, I got a litany of excuses and no apology. Which I immediately pointed out. I’m sure it surprises no one to learn that she never replied back to me, especially not with an apology.

There have been multiple times that BIL and SILIL have visited Chicago and never told us nor attempted to even attempt to see us.

The one time that they did tell us and we did see them, we were the ones who did all the work, dragging Mars who was then only a few months old out to a beach an hour away in the middle of summer because fuck meeting us halfway or anything.

This all took place before we stopped talking to MIL and FIL so they can’t even use that as an excuse.

That fact that it was SILIL who was the one that contacted me, rather than BIL contacting Mr. Geeky, is maddening to me. If BIL wants a relationship with Mr. Geeky, he needs to starting pulling his fucking weight and pick up the fucking phone and, at the very least, text him. Getting his wife to do his work is fucking lazy and disrespectful.

I told SILIL that if they want to see us, BIL will have to contact Mr. Geeky, because this entire situation is bullshit and I’m done with BIL using SILIL and I this way.

I strongly suspect that he does not really care about seeing us. Fuck knows he hasn’t in the past. I strongly suspect that SILIL is largely behind this, which leads me to my final point...

I find it highly suspicious that the very first contact that MIL and FIL have extended toward us (the highly manipulative, disrespectful, shitty fucking card and check they sent) is immediately followed by an attempt at contact from SILIL who, last I knew at least, was very attached to MIL.

Again, it’s not paranoia if someone is really out to get you.

IN CONCLUSION I’m so fucking done with this entire fucking family. Fuck each and every one of their manipulative shitty selves and if I never see or hear from any of them again it will be too soon. They are not welcome nor wanted in our lives and they especially are not welcome nor wanted around Mars. It’s my fucking job to keep Mars as safe as I can from the evils of the world and I take that task very seriously and part of that entails keeping her contact with people who would use her to an absolute minimum until she’s old enough for me to teach her how to deal with them.

I am just so fucking angry that they feel they have any right to us and I am so fucking done.

#geeky talks #mari rants #mari talks real #i really do feel better after writing this #so thanks to anyone who actually read the whole thing #you're a trooper and i love you #and hey!#another incentive to get that paperwork drawn up for if something happens to mr. geeky and i #got keep mars far fucking away from bil and silil #i feel better but i am still so fucking mad

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thepillareddark · 7 years

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Radiohead’s new Man of War video speaks to me very deeply

Radiohead have always had an odd relationship to vehicles. Most vehicles are modern, and so they don’t sit in essential categories. Walking, running, maybe swimming, are essential categories because you don’t need anything to do them, just your human body. You need to be at a point in history where the vehicle in question has been created, however, to drive, to ride a train, even to ride a bike. This is important to Radiohead because OK Computer, which “Man of War” was left off of originally, defined an era because it felt (and I can’t quite know this, but it felt) like computer-dominance and technological paranoia stopped being categories and started being what most modern people were feeling at all times. So crashing in one machine (a car), and being saved by another (a seatbelt), became something weird because it felt like man being bounced around by machines had become an essential category.

And yet, not quite, because the pre-requisite for dystopian-technological-urban fictions, like OK Computer, is that the knowledge lingers that we have done this to ourselves. So it’s an album made in an age of transition, and things like neon signs and trains and cars hover around the lyrics. Essentially, Radiohead are not nearly being as simple as saying “break away from trains because they put you on tracks, man, be individual and fuck the machine”, it’s more like “this technology makes me feel just a little more emotionally disconnected”. Radiohead tend to use bleeps and bloops and tech sounds in their songs not as enemies to the narrator, but as proxies for human emotional disconnection. In a rough sense technology is impersonal and inhuman, but that’s more a symptom of increasing inhumanity post 1995 as Thom Yorke may have seen it. Man vs the Machine, much like Man vs Fascism, tellingly, is not entirely black and white across Radiohead.

So what happens in the Man of War video? A man walks around some London looking streets, and as the scene flips from day to night he gets chased by a group of people to some train tracks, where he collapses, then gets up when they catch up to him, and ambiguously continues walking along the train tracks with them. Is this a basic “fall in line or be hunted down by the Karma Police” sort of narrative? To me it’s more about paranoia and the ambiguity of paranoia. As good as any Radiohead song from the OKC era it makes the point that paranoia very often means being scared of nothing. Before the threat is overt this is communicated brilliantly because we have no idea what’s going on, and neither does the man. We are all a little bit more scared walking at night, but not for any good reason. Then he reaches the point of highest panic, as we all do, in a rhythmic kind of way, and then he, and us, sort of have to move on. Are they taking him down the line to kill him? In a fatalist sense, yes, but isn’t he more happy and less panicked for not running? The video poses the question of whether technological paranoia is all in our heads or not, or whether this is not technology’s fault, but yours, whether or not your contrarianism is genuine or paranoid.

I think that’s why Radiohead were never really punk, and why their personal commentary feels like social commentary, and why that social commentary doesn’t tire. It’s never as simple as “watch your back”, even on Hail to the Thief. The overtly punk songs like 2+2=5 get gaslighted by the calmer songs on the same album, as if it can never be all that bad. There’s a question of excess and overreaction, there’s a dampening of the punkness. Why it speaks to me, and the rest of this is all a personal point, is because I often feel that kind of flitting from the day feeling to the night feeling, as portrayed in the video, and I often feel like I don’t want to be told to calm down, or be told that my morning commute doesn’t mean anything because everyone has a morning commute. No one, me included, likes to have their personal narrative taken away from them. In the opening shot the man is calmly writing a crossword, then in the night shot of the same thing, it’s like he’s figuring out a code, like he knows that everyone is coming to get him, like he knows that the events of his life have transpired to have people chase him.

I never feel like anyone is ever coming to get me. I feel pretty calm all the time. But looking out the window coming into Victoria Station every morning, and seeing all the other tracks that all meet up at the Station, while listening to OK Computer, I often felt like there was some way in which trains did and didn’t speak to the lyrics and to the experience of the album, like it would make sense that it would all come together on the train tracks, with the vague threat of a train running you over from behind, the vague idea of everyone being cattle-carted to work, while knowing full well that none of that was true, that it was just a bunch of people going to work. There’s a kind of flitting effect created by that sort of self narrative, like the flitting between day and night in the video- paranoia, simple narratives of totalitarianism and resistance in daily life and being chased, are all weighed against their realities: the relative safety of modern life, the truth of choosing a career which imprisons you, the seeing of shadows. For me those oppositions, which may have to eventually be thrown away as childish things, or perhaps not, are all at the heart of OKC.

Being told to calm down is more scary, more ambiguous and more enduring than a resistance narrative. Walking along in the day, feeling like you’re walking at night, wondering if any of it is real, but not being affected strongly enough to point out a problem, and not having enough potency to attack a vague idea. I do think I’m right about this, but maybe I don’t quite have the words to describe the OKC feeling. It’s not sleepwalking or daydreaming, but it’s like waking up into an imperfect future, but it being half your fault and half not-so-bad, and therefore being unable to do anything about it. There are no matrix-pods to smash, because it’s real life, but you might just get hit by a car, and then saved by the machine in that car, and then realise that we have all come too far, but also that there is no sense in going back, that something weird is happening and a huge price has been paid, the glimpsed sense that an enormous eternal category has been shifted, that life itself as a human has changed, but only really being able to gesture at how you feel, to feel more disconnected without gaining potency. That’s not how you have to feel about modern life to enjoy or to agree with the album, it’s not what anyone but silly people fully believe, but it’s the glimpsed sense that the album arises from, and I think that’s where Vaporwave as a genre comes from as well. Vaporwave is so distant and weird and posits so many alternate realities because there was always a sense garnered from Windows 98/ME, and from old graphic design programs, and from Muzac, that new and whole utopian realities for humans, like the ideal of the modern technological utopia which we are notionally moving towards, had been created too inhumanly.

I like the Man of War video so much because 20 years after the album release it seems to match my feelings about listening to the album while staring out of a train window, the same train window as hundreds of times before, and knowing that other people both do and don’t get it, that you are and aren’t special, that maybe falling into line is pretty good, that there’s something weird and non-essential about iron lines being welded into the ground which carriages of people pass over, but then you share that idea and someone either entertains it or laughs at you, and then you move on again.

#Radiohead #Man of War #OKC #OK Computer #Vaporwave

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jasontoddsreanimatedcorpse · 7 years

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I can distinctly remember a time in my life where I felt constantly empty.

Music has always been a great passion of mine, right from when I was 5 years old dancing around my living room to a kid’s compilation of music that my mum had picked up at the store up to now when I’m fifteen years old and I live off of rhythm and melody. I sleep best with music playing, and it can help me focus as it provides this complex but calming background noise for my brain to keep itself busy with. It helps me with whatever mood I’m in, whether that means listening to classic rock to hype me up or drowning out my thoughts with electronic beats, or even collecting together a playlist of the most beautiful songs I know to help me feel everything when I feel numb.

Music has always been a great passion of mine, which means that my greatest fear has always been losing that passion. The worst day of my life so far was when I realised that I had lost that passion.

Under the cut is the story. I must warn you that there is talk of anxiety (including panic attacks and minor OCD behaviours), paranoia, a difficult relationship with food (I wouldn’t call it an eating disorder as it wasn’t nearly that bad, but just in case), depression, suicidal thoughts, plans of suicide, thoughts and actions of self harm.

I want to spread my story, but, please, if you could be triggered DO NOT READ.

To those reading: if you come across anything at all that triggers you because I missed it in the tags or above warnings, please stop reading IMMEDIATELY and contact me so that I can add the warning for others.

I was pretty depressed during year eight and nine, due to how rocky the past couple of years had been for me. Long story short, I went from a small community in a city and a tiny private school (class of 7 students) to a slightly bigger community in a town and a large public school (class of 30 in a year of 90). The move meant that I had no friends for a couple months, though I eventually found a couple. I was then unfortunately bullied by people who I considered somewhat friends during most of year six. They spent a month or so gaining my trust, only to systematically destroy my confidence and sense of self-worth, which only decreased when starting secondary school (class of 27ish in a year of 210). I wasn’t a good person to be around because of it, but luckily my wonderful friends kept by me and tried their best to support and help me despite the fact that we were only eleven and had no clue what was out there in this great big world.

During the end of year eight/beginning of year nine, I hit rock bottom. What would have been a slow spiral turned into a lightning fast plummet as I realised my sexuality and didn’t get to see my friends for the whole six weeks of summer holidays. When I came back, I could tell I wasn’t good, but I tried to keep it up for my group of friends that was now 3 + me.

I came to terms with the fact that I am bisexual and now, two years on, I am out to everyone except my family (excluding my sister, who was the first person I told). However, that didn’t help that my self-esteem was completely shot to hell. I’d wake up every morning and see myself in the mirror and think “how could anyone, guy, girl or whatever, look at me and want to be with me?” I was disgusted with myself.

And then, one day, I woke up and thought that maybe listening to some music might cheer me up, as it had so often before. I unlocked my phone and realised that I hadn’t changed around the albums on there in a while. I then put on an album which I remembered finding quite uplifting before and was surprised to realise that I had forgotten all of the songs which I used to know so well. I then started to feel a sense of despair as I realised that this music, my last resort, did nothing to make me feel anything. Which then caused me to feel slowly worse. I started to feel numb even as I kept up pretences - singing along to songs I barely listened to anymore, smiling and laughing with friends and family, eating on a relatively normal schedule, etc.

I decided that I wanted to die.

I considered my options, and, once, I tried testing out to see if I could handle drowning myself. I run a bath and got in once it was deep enough. I then pushed my head underwater and breathed out. I lasted a whole 40 seconds before I panicked and resurfaced, immediately jumping out of the bath and draining it. I wondered if my reaction meant that I really wanted to die. I haven’t managed to answer that so far, but I do know that I have stuck to showers and avoided swimming pools ever since (however I do still go in the sea to a limit because I know that my family is watching). This did cause me to have a panic attack during a school trip in which we went into caves and had to swim through some rapids very briefly.

The next thing I considered was a slow, steady starvation. I am mentioning this one specifically because I gave it more thought than others and actually didn’t eat more than a cereal bar in the mornings for three days. I then dismissed the idea because I decided that it would be extremely difficult to get away with during the highly attentive family meals (“Why didn’t you eat all of your potatoes? Are you feeling okay? Are you sure?”). This idea still lingers in me even now, and sometimes I can’t even think of food without feeling nauseous or I have to distract myself and eat bland foods just to get my body the nutrients I know it needs. I am still quite a picky eater, and I’m still not sure whether that is due to this lingering thought of food being bad sometimes or just because that is who I am.

By this point, I was the lowest of the low. I was spending most of my time doing meaningless activities just because everything else seemed so dull and boring. Nothing held any enjoyment for me. I felt completely empty. So, one day, when I was home alone sick and felt worse than usual, I went downstairs and retrieved a small knife. For two days, I obsessed over it, not hurting myself purely because I knew it would be hard to explain away. However, I had previously harmed myself in year six, and I wanted to feel that again. I don’t know whether it was because I thought I deserved it or because I just wanted to feel, but one day I pressed the knife to my thigh and cut myself so shallowly that the blood could be wiped away with a tissue and the cut was gone within a few days. I remember not liking it as much as I thought I would, deeming it not worth the trouble of explaining away the cuts, and cleaned and returned the knife without anyone noticing.

But this wasn’t the end when it came to my hurting myself. I purposefully put myself in mentally compromising positions (reading graphic stories about depression and suicide, watching a movie called ‘@Suicide Room’ a lot, deprived myself of water to cause illness, and depriving myself of sleep). The deprivation of water and illness that resulted caused my immune system to weaken to the point where I have had about three or four viruses in the past two years alone, and I still significantly struggle with keeping normal sleeping patterns, especially after an incident in which I did not sleep for two days but still forced myself to go to school and do physical activity which I may have struggled with on a full night’s sleep. I also came up with a game where I would light a match and watch it slowly burn down, challenging myself to hold it longer each time. Thankfully the matches soon ran out, which stopped that habit very quickly and effectively.

Now, that was the worst of it. However, little did I know was that over this time I was starting to develop anxiety. It formed in a couple of ways, including some very minor OCD actions (light switches were a thing up until a couple months ago, but I still sometimes return. I also struggle with a routine of having to repeat sentences until I pronounce them right [not helped by the fact that when I get nervous I develop a slight stutter] and being unable to enter a room first unless I am on my own or leading a group in a specific order), and slight social anxiety (thankfully mostly gone now. I only get nervous with authoritative figures and the rest of my awkwardness is just due to the fact that I was very recluse during the period of my life that I was meant to develop a lot of those skills). It mainly manifested, however, in Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD). I have personally worked a lot on this since which has been helped along by my sister dealing with her own stress-induced anxiety and her and others sharing their techniques with me.

Unfortunately, I have started to develop mild paranoia, which is especially present at night time when I am most vulnerable. This comes from something that I started to do because it helped me to experience stronger feelings: horror films and tv shows. I still watch these, though mainly for enjoyment, though they can cause me to be extremely tense. However, it is less so than before, meaning that I think that I am managing to nip this in the bud by using reminders and calming techniques whenever I feel unsafe.

Now, back to the music. The jump-start that the horror genre gave my emotions has had amazing results. I now enjoy music to the same standard as, if not more than, before. Sometimes I can listen to music and feel so strongly that I am overwhelmed with emotion. I would describe it as a tingly wave that spreads through me like a cold breeze - it always starts on my right side and spreads throughout the rest of me, often bringing tears to my eyes. An example would be the songs ‘Disappear’ and ‘You Will Be Found’ from the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack. Like chills, but stronger.

Music helps me a lot these days. As mentioned before the cut, I often use Jack Garratt or Avicii to drown out my thoughts if they are getting too intrusive and threaten to take me down that path again. I also like listening to artists such as Gabrielle Aplin to wind down, and I especially love Panic! at the Disco and Neon Trees to work too. I’ve also found that Bastille and You Me At Six are good for me to listen to after a panic attack (which are all very minor and are decreasing in frequency - I haven’t had one in two months or a serious one in over a year).

After hitting rock-bottom and regaining some of that love of music, I started to rise anew from what was, metaphorically, the ruins of my life. I have since gained another two friends for my little group, and instead of thinking it as 5 + me, I think of us as 6 (I also have other groups of friends that have built up around me - I recently counted over 30 people who I would consider close enough to me to invite to a party and around 15 who I would ask to go wherever with). My group and I have been endlessly supportive towards each other in all of our own personal battles with mental health, gender and sexual identity, difficult decisions and jarring life changes. Together, we have helped each other to rise from however far we’d fallen with bonding sessions, brutal honesty, and a lot of hugs. We may not be where we want to be, but we’re helping each other get there.

See, the crazy thing is, is that I don’t remember quite how my life became so much better. I just slowly inched along, drowned in stress and throwing as many punches as I’ve been given, and somehow grown into someone who fights for what she believes in, is mostly comfortable with herself, and has the ability to roll with the things that are not yet in my power to change or control. I may still have my breakdowns and crises, but I am still growing and developing and becoming stronger (hell, I’m only fifteen). I rediscovered passion and what it’s like to feel genuinely, completely happy in a way that I never thought I would. I may have days when those dark thoughts don’t feel so long ago, but I also have days when they seem like an evil long defeated.

I am stronger, and smarter, and happier than I have ever been, and things are only looking up. I am hoping to go into a career of psychology, more specifically helping teenagers like me to heal and return stronger. The future is mine.

I can distinctly remember a time in my life where I felt constantly empty, but I can also see myself filling up more and more with every day.

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ocdrantings · 7 years

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hi, i just wanted to ask you for consultation (this will probably be in more parts). i think i might have ocd. i chech if i’ve turned off the lights, closed the fridge etc before i leave the house a few times. i have recently started to clean my eyes, mouth and nose frequently because i think i might get some germs. sometimes i squint away at some touches and rub that place(example: someone touched my hand) so i don’t have the lingering feeling the whole day. 1/3

i also started getting intrusive thoughts, harmful and sexual ones. a few days ago, a friend repiled to me but used thx even tho they never type like that and i became paranoid, unfollowed, blocked, and changed my password because of suspition, only to realise later how stupid that was. i read about ocd on google and here on tumblr and realised some syptoms. but what confuses me is that these things don’t really affect my daily life because they’re not that distracting. can that be ocd? 2/3

because of that i’m not sure if it’s just overthinking/paranoia. i know i would have to see a proffesional to confirm it, but i’m 15 and i don’t want to see anyone, at least not yet, just because it doesn’t affect my routine much. what is your opinion on this? thanks in advance :D 3/3

Hi!

As you probably know I can’t diagnose you (I don’t think that was the intention of your ask either but I just want to put a disclaimer), but I will answer as well as I can.

Yes, strictly speaking your daily life has to be impacted for it to be clinical ocd. This is a guideline I found on ocduk:

“Diagnostic Guidelines For a definite diagnosis, obsessional symptoms or compulsive acts, or both, must be present on most days for at least 2 successive weeks and be a source of distress or interference with activities.“

This I don’t know if it applies to you, but I believe that there is no definite way the ocd has to manifest itself. It is not necessary to be stuck with compulsions for hours for it to be ocd. However it does sound like it affects you, when you write about having to clean your eyes etc, and squinting to prevent an uncomfortable feeling as well as the intrusive thoughts.

I, personally, also get very anxious when someone uses words they don’t usually or act in a way they don’t usually. I don’t know if this has to do with my ocd, but I suspect it does or with my anxiety in general (I never talked about this with my therapist so I don’t know for sure.) This also seems to affect you since you reacted so strongly to it. And even if it is not ocd it can be good to keep an eye on.

Based on what you have described I think it is possible it is ocd, but it could of course be other things too.

As far as seeing a therapist or psychologist go it is completely up to you and if you don’t feel like you need one or want one that is okay. I would advice you though to be observant if any symptoms get worse so they don’t escalate (this happened to me, it doesn’t have to happen but it is good to be aware of).

There are plenty of tests and texts that you can look at yourself if you want to look into the alternatives further.

I hope this was helpful at all!

#long post #ocd #intrusive thoughts #ask #anonymous

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clarenecessities · 7 years

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spooky first aid

Word Count: 1994 Rating: PG

Summary: Meet the Parents Chapter Warnings: some blood, mild pain, food discussion

[First] [Previous] [Next]

The bell jangled merrily as they entered, and the rush of warm air accented the chill at their backs. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like a simple bakery—if it weren’t for having met Marinette, and for the hum of magic in the air, Adrien might have thought it was.

“I’m home!” Marinette announced to the room at large, which seemed empty aside from the various baked goods and counters. “I brought Alya and Nino and—”

“Cat sídhe,” came a rumbling voice. From behind the counter rose a truly massive man with a bushy mustache and a stony expression. Only the color of his eyes and the dusting of freckles across his nose gave any indication of his relation to Marinette. Magic and the smell of bears rolled off him in waves.

“What—” Marinette began, confused, only to be interrupted by a diminutive woman entering the room at a brisk stride.

“Blond cat sídhe,” she said, in the same tone as her husband. They stood shoulder to shoulder (or more accurately, shoulder to diaphragm), watching Adrien like pale-eyed hawks.

“Yeah,” said Marinette, making a face at them. “This is the new student, Adrien. He’s—”

“Adrien what?”

“What?”

“What’s his last name?”

“I don’t know!” said Marinette, groaning. “Does it matter?”

“That depends entirely on what it is,” said her father, making eye contact with Adrien, who straightened his posture a little.

“Uh, I—”

“You guys are being weird,” said Marinette, scowling now. “I’m perfectly capable of—”

“Marinette,” said her mother, and Marinette closed her mouth, scowl melting into a frown of concern.

“Adrien of the meadow carline,” Adrien supplied in a rush, before anyone else could break the silence. “Born at Maen Du, fostered by Plagg of Oweynagat—”

“Plagg? As in Phláig mac Irusan?” Marinette’s mother asked, visibly relaxing.

“Y-yeah,” stammered Adrien, looking between her and her husband in bewilderment. The man’s fierce face was changed drastically by the smile that was growing there—his cheeks looked warmer, his shoulders softened as the tension melted away, and he leaned into his wife slightly. Adrien hadn’t realized his posture had been so defensive until it was gone. His resemblance to Marinette increased dramatically with the friendlier expression. “Do, uh—do you guys know Plagg?”

“In a loose sense of the word know,” said Marinette’s mother, chuckling.

“So that’s how he knew my name!” Marinette exclaimed, hitting a fist against an open palm.

“You know Plagg?” asked her father in surprise.

“In a loose sense of the word know,” Marinette echoed slyly, prancing over and kissing them both on the cheek. “What’s the matter with you two? You were acting like he was going to eat us or something.”

“There’s been a lot of strange things happening with the aos sídhe this week,” her mother explained, unabashed. With Marinette standing between her and her husband, it became clear how short she truly was—something in the way she held herself had made her appear at least the same height as her daughter.

“Better safe than dead,” said the husband, grinning down at them.

“I think I’d know if he was the murderer,” Marinette protested. “I mean, the emotion thing alone… Don’t you trust my judgment?”

“We always trust you,” said her mother fondly. She turned back to Adrien, Alya, and Nino, who were still clustered awkwardly in the foyer. “I’m sorry, Adrien. We’re letting our paranoia get the better of us. I’m Sabine, and this is Tom—please, feel free to come by any time.”

The warm sincerity in her voice helped Adrien relax despite his lingering questions; it was impossible to bear a grudge against a welcome wagon so transparently apologetic.

“Thank you,” he said, perhaps a little too formally, but hell, he was nervous. He just got stared down by an enormous muscleman who smelled strongly of bear. To say nothing of his somehow even more intimidating wife.

“Oh, and um—speaking of strange things happening with the aos sídhe,” said Alya, looking pointedly at Marinette.

“Oh, yeah, uh… we kind of… got attacked?”

“What?” hissed Sabine, rearing back to look her now wincing daughter in the face, sharp gray eyes scanning for any sign of injury.

“To be fair, they weren’t attacking us directly,” Nino supplied, taking off his cap and twisting it in his hands. “We just sort of, uh… stepped up.”

“Where were your teachers?” Sabine demanded. Satisfied that Marinette was unharmed, she began scrutinizing the other three, zeroing in on Adrien’s knees with an unhappy tutting. Immediately, she headed for the back, not waiting for an answer.

“Uh… they were unconscious,” said Marinette, looking between the back and her father, who was frowning somewhat anxiously.

“Why didn’t you call us?” he asked, visibly tightening his grip on her shoulder. “Or Marlena, or Plagg?”

“We didn’t want to put you in danger,” said Alya. Adrien blinked; he just hadn’t thought of it.

Honestly, even if he had, he wouldn’t have done anything differently—Alya was right. If whatever this thing was could kill Nooroo, Plagg would be in jeopardy too, even as a member of the court. Maybe especially as a member of the court.

“Please put us in danger if there’s ever something like this again,” said Tom, grimacing. “I’m sure the four of you are a formidable team, but—”

“Oh, some of the other students helped,” Alya rushed to assure him. “Alix and Ivan and Juleka. If it was just the four of us I think even Marinette might have had trouble coming up with a plan.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” said Marinette, wrinkling her nose at her best friend and burrowing farther into her father’s side. “I’ll have you know, my luck is foolproof.”

“It most certainly is not,” Sabine put in sharply, bustling back into the front of house with a small kit and coming around the corner, gesturing Adrien up onto the counter. He complied immediately with a nervous gulp, rubbing his fingers against his palms to try to dispel some of the sweat. “You can’t depend on your luck, Marinette. It can only get you so far.”

“I was kidding, Maman,” she groaned, throwing her head back in exasperation. “I’m very aware that luck runs out—you’re talking to the clumsiest witch in Paris, remember?”

Sabine didn’t respond, simply tutting some more and opening her kit on the counter next to Adrien. He started to roll his pant legs up over his knees, but she stopped him with a shake of her head, pulling out an elegant, dark-wooded wand instead. She cut the fabric on both legs neatly, just above the knee.

He really hoped she was good at fixing pants. He looked a little ridiculous.

“Is there any particular reason Adrien here is wearing one of your earrings?” she asked Marinette with one arched eyebrow, fingers hovering over the loose red ribbon that still adorned his neck.

“He doesn’t have a phone,” explained Marinette with a shrug.

“Just as well,” Nino put in, “you’ve stolen everyone elses’s like four times at this point.”

“Listen, I lead a very hectic life—”

“What’s this?” Sabine interrupted, fingers drifting to Adrien’s second neck adornment, a small golden bell on a black cord.

“Oh,” he said, blinking as he looked down at where it hung on his chest, “that was my mother’s. She had a lot, I guess. It’s pretty common for the aos sídhe, either you love bells or you can’t stand them. Got to be a lot of trouble when they started building cathedrals and things, actually. Church bells or something.”

“But your mother liked them?” asked Sabine, smiling at him with a warmth that surprised him, even in the face of their earlier hospitality.

“She loved them,” he affirmed softly. “Plagg says she used to tie them in her hair.”

Sabine smiled over his shoulder at Tom, then began to inspect his wounds. He allowed himself a cursory glance; his right was still stinging, and his left was still pulverized. The blood on that leg had actually been pouring for a while before it stopped bleeding—there were huge streaks of crimson down his calf, matting up his (admittedly sparse) leg hair and pooling in an unpleasant crust at the top of his sock.

He was torn between ‘ew’ and ‘ow’.

She pulled a vial of something purple from the kit she’d brought out, removing a square of gauze and tipping the liquid onto it, which she then began using to dab at the dried blood. It came away clean, no smears, no weird bleach marks on his sock—it tickled against his skin, the magic buzzing like the wings of an insect.

When she got to the wound itself, Sabine applied a second potion to the gauze, this one a pale green, and pressed it evenly but firmly against his knee, holding it in place with the palm of her hand. Adrien let out a hissing breath from between his clenched jaws; it stung, but less like an injury and more like the shock of touching ice water. He adjusted quickly, and could feel his skin writhing beneath the gauze, and the magic pressing insistently into his bones.

“That should do it,” said Sabine finally, removing the gauze to reveal his knee, good as new.

Well, mostly good as new. His old scars were still in place, and his pants were wrecked, and everything smelled like dock leaves and spells, but otherwise perfect.

His right leg was much quicker to fix, just a quick swipe of the gauze and he was all patched up. She fixed his pants with a single wave of her wand, and he hopped off the counter with a grateful smile.

“Thank you, Madame,” he said formally, bowing his head a little. “I really appreciate it.”

“It’s nothing, dear,” said Sabine, smiling back at him. “Now why don’t you kids run along upstairs? I’ll close up the back and come fix you some lunch.”

“Oh, shoot,” said Marinette, frowning, “I left the pastries back in the classroom.”

“Yeah,” said Nino, in a very high, slightly strangled voice, “I definitely didn’t eat all of them already, no sir.”

“Nino!” Alya scolded, swatting his arm.

“Look, you try a full physical transformation sometime! Unlike some people, I can’t just go all ‘bippity boppity boo’ and poof! Be a wolf. We’re talking serious carb requirements here,” Nino protested, patting his stomach. “You have any idea how much mass I gotta put on, man? It’s ridiculous.”

“A nightmare,” Tom agreed from behind the counter, gesturing them all through the shop. “My transformations are physical too, he’s not exaggerating. You need to bulk up, son.”

“I’m doing my best, dude,” said Nino. He heaved a dramatic sigh. “I miss grapes. You know I can’t eat grapes now?”

“What about chocolate?” Adrien asked, laughing as he followed the girls up the stairs. Nino trailed behind him with a wistful expression, shaking his head.

“It’s not so bad as people say, but it does make me kind of sick. Won’t stop me, though.”

“Of course not.”

“How ‘bout you, man? Any weird cat allergies?”

“I’m allergic to feathers, but that’s it,” said Adrien, shrugging. “Weirdly it’s worse when I’m in human form, even though my nose is better as a cat. I think it might be a magic thing.”

“With you, everything is,” said Alya from the landing ahead of them, grinning down at them. “You boys ready for the full Dupain-Cheng experience?”

“I’ve been here before,” said Nino, scowling at her.

“Yeah, but they didn’t feed you,” Alya teased, slipping through the door sideways so it wouldn’t open too fast and reveal more than she wanted them to see. “Adrien, close your eyes.”

“Really?” he asked nervously. Nino sighed in exasperation beside him.

“Go on,” she prompted. He obliged, licking his suddenly dry lips, and Nino steered him through the door.

“Alright, one… two… three!”

#miraculous ladybug #spooky ml au #clare's writing

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dexwxx-blog · 7 years

Photo

what you give up to cross the VEIL will make you wish for death instead

They told you death was a person, a reaper to collect the souls of humans who’d outrun their fate for too long. A ghostly figure deciding whether to allow you an eternity of sorrow or an eternity of dreams. You were no longer human— long ago you thought God had judged you for eternal damnation. Then you thought death was a feeling, empty and hollow as the years ticked on, violent delights the only way to send your message to the sky. For if you had been damned you would fight like a devil, with bloody knuckles and stained fur. Bottle up the desires too human for a demon to daydream about. Then you met him and for the first time in forever you believed that God loved all his children.

Death was a strange place indeed, the sting of silver no longer coursing its way through your bloodstream, the flame of pain instead felt light. It was a hazy darkness, a promise of something coming, yet still out of the grasp of your fingers. You could continue on, march into the fog and accept wherever the winds take you— heaven or hell, doesn’t matter much anymore. Either way, damnation will follow, for you’ll never be able to gaze upon eyes clearer than spring water or be touched by the tender fingers that saved you from yourself.

It’s true what you said— without him you die inside.

Somebody asks you if you loved him, and God you do. He is your everything, a home inside a person, the boy you’d throw yourself in front of silver because you want him to live more than yourself. He picked up the broken pieces of your soul and put them back together with soft fingers and softer kisses. You will forever be his, no matter how far you are separated.

Even if you are separated by life and death? Yes, even if he was an angel and you were a demon. Yes, even if he was a god and you were a mortal. Yes, in all the ways you could of been born, in all the ways you could of died. You cannot stop loving him, even if time won’t allow. You will be miserable and lonely every moment he’s no longer with you.

You’re told you can go back, but you must give something up. You’ll do it, you’ll take it— anything is worth a glimpse of his smile again, anything is worth the feeling of his arms around your waist, his hot breath in your ear. They say you won’t last long, it’s futile to make the journey back. What you give up to cross the veil will make you wish for death instead. You can’t bring yourself to care. You’ve always been a fighter, you’ll give up anything for the things you want.

And they can never take that from you.

You cross through the veil, anyway.

Light glazed through the tips of Dex’s fluttering eyelids, the dream he had still lingering in the corners of his eyes. And then it hit him, the searing pain bubbling underneath his flesh, the agony of it all pushing at his now clamped lips. It’s a kind of pain he’d never before felt— memories of the silver ripping through his flesh fresh in his memory. He wanted to scream, verbalize the torment burning in his chest. Memories flooded back like a tidal wave, images of Sebastian covered in his own blood, tears prickling against his eyes as he tried to say a lifetime’s worth of words in a few brief moments. Jerking himself upright, the sudden movement causing his head to go fuzzy, he realized he was no longer in the crumbling ballroom. It was clean and white and smelled so strongly of antiseptic Dex thought he was going to puke.

“Jesus Christ, if you sit up that fast you’re going to hurt yourself.” It came from behind him, so Dex quickly swiveled around to face the voice, only for his vision to blur out the moment long strands of hair entered his field of vision. The other woman, clearly a lycan at this point, chuckled at his misery, obviously taking delight in his inability to listen. “Tell me your name and date of birth.”

“Dexter Minsoo Woo. October 23rd, 1956.” It came out hoarse, his throat burned with the same vigor his chest did. His vision settled along with his stomach, allowing him to look at the woman sitting opposite him. Between the bright colors she wore and the deep hue of her lipstick, Dex thought he was going to get a headache all over again. The lycan, Dex vaguely remembered her from years and years ago— sent to give him a warning from the Glasgow pack he’d promptly decided to ignore. She seemed amused with him then, almost as amused as she was now. “Where am I?”

Sighing, she got up from her seated position, from the way her legs wobbled Dex could tell she’d been seated for a long time. “The Paris Estate Infirmary, darling. You were, let’s say pretty severely injured,” she replied, her tone not matching the seriousness of the conversation whatsoever.

“I’d say taking a silver bullet to the chest is a pretty severe injury,” Dex sighed, already deciding he was over and done dealing with the Glasgow pack enforcer.

The woman put her hand squarely across his chest, pushing him back down on his back. “Good, good. You remember that at least. Can you tell me anything that happened after?” Raking her fingers over his chest, Dex vaguely realised she was trying to do a physical exam. The whole process was seared into his memory, the only doctor he ever saw so horrified by tissue that stretched over his torso Dex saw no reason in returning.

“I got shot, so I shifted back from my lycan form. Then I told Seb that I—”

“That you love him?” She smirked again and boy did Dex really wanna punch it off her face. “Yeah— we all know. It was pretty obvious from the scene we all walked in on. Let me tell you, I didn’t expect it, Dexter Woo, the little fighter who’d never show loyalty to anything or anyone falling madly in love with the lycan heir? I almost didn’t think you had feelings.”

She was trying to get a rise out of him, get him to lash out towards her because his tolerance for bullshit and patience was low. Instead he just felt drained, tired enough to want to sleep forever. “I told him I loved him— and then I blacked out. I think. Time was sort of fuzzy after I got shot.” Remembering how he had confessed what he’d done to Edmund right before he passed out, he could physically feel the change in his heartbeat. Though it wasn’t like all the other times his heart had practically beaten out of his chest. It felt slower than ever, like he was in slow motion. His eyes widened and it seemed the other lycan could only find amusement in his misery. “What— what’s happened to me,” Dex stuttered, fear bubbling to the surface. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Now she finally got serious, taking the kind of inhale that struck fear into the hearts of most men. “Medics tried, but we got to you much later than we’d like. We couldn’t remove the silver bullet from your chest. And because of that—” It was the first time he’d ever seen her hesitate in the conversation, clearly torn about how to break the horrible news to him. “—There’s some nasty side effects.”

“Tell me them,” he choked out, clipped and short. There was a burning in his chest, a fear that Dex hadn’t felt even in the moments he was bleeding out all over Sebastian. His mind wandered to the dream he’d had before waking up, perhaps it hadn’t been a dream at all.

“Well, for one thing, shifting is off the table completely. Silver is more potent that way and with the bones and muscles all re-arranging themselves, it would probably kill you. And to follow that up, you’re advanced healing has been severely dampened. Faster than a human’s, but not by much. A few other important things of note—” Her words seemed to float away, vanishing under his hammering heartbeat. The world was spinning, his world crumbling beneath his fingertips.

He was weak. Everything that had protected him for so long, the second skin he’d learned to enjoy and sometimes even love had been unceremoniously ripped away from him. He couldn’t fight it either, hell, what could he fight anymore? For the first time since his childhood, Dex felt the corners of his eyes tingle with a warm burning. When did he become so attached to being a lycan, claws and all? For so long, he’d wanted to be human again, turn back time to the night he snuck out with Allen so he stayed at home. Dex hadn’t become human, but it was as close as any immortal could probably get. It was true, a part of him died the moment silver struck skin.

Maybe if it was Sebastian, he’d let the tears fall and let the younger lycan hold him as he weeped. Let his warm embrace sooth all the hurt and sadness, let someone else protect him from the dark edges of his thoughts. But to Devon, a stranger, he couldn’t show that sort of humanity. He couldn’t let her see him any weaker than he already was. “Seb,” he suddenly gasped, throwing his body upright once more, much to Devon’s obvious annoyance. “Is he okay? Where is he now? Did he—?”

It was then a strange gesture occurred, the lycan woman grasped his hand with a motherly tenderness, looked at him with eyes soft as silk. “He’s fine, darling. Don’t worry about him right now, I’ll make sure you two can spend time together later. We need to worry about you first.” Dex thought it unnatural that something so calming could come from the lycan boogeyman, but it was a welcome surprise in the end. He just needed someone to tell him everything would be okay.

Devon let go of his hand, getting up to obtain more supplies to continue her exam. Paranoia set in, shifting his vision all around the room with stark white walls. Glancing down towards a few objects left near, brown eyes caught the shine of metal— sharp and tempting. In one swift motion, Dex grabbed the scalpel, slashing it hard and fast across the inside of his inner wrist. A metallic noise echoed through the room as he dropped it, blood pooling faster than he’d ever remembered. His free hand pressed down on the wound as he bit down on his lip to suppress a cry of agony. It was true, it was true and there was no escaping it anymore. He’d seen it with his own eyes, felt it on his skin. Bloody fingers reached down to grab the blade, his mind compelling him to test once more. Barely touching sharp to soft, Devon finally snatched it away from him, hurt clear as sky on her face. “What the fuck did you do that for?” She was dragging him now, pulling the lycan across the room to drench his bloodied wrist in water.

“I dunno,” Dex lied, the flush of water cool over the cut, deep enough it’d probably leave a scar at this point. “I dunno.” He thought he knew the reason, but it seemed silly to say out loud. He just wanted that hollow feeling to go away, that void he used to drink away until he was so pissed the whole world faded away. God, he was fucked.

It was silent, only the hiss of the tap keeping it from becoming unbearable. Finally, Devon cleared her throat, deep brown orbs met his with a sort of sadness that seemed foreign. “I don’t tell many people this, but you should hear it. I’ve seen this before, many hundreds of years ago. He was a Mughal warrior and a bit of a silver sword broke off inside him. That’s why I know what to do here. His survival was a miracle, but shifting almost killed him again. So he had to stop, retire himself from being a wolf and a warrior.” With that she turned the tap off, turning his wound slowly to inspect the damage he did to himself. “He was a born one, so it was a little different but— erratic behavior was common.”

“Did he live long?”

“No,” Devon started, her voice dripping with something depressing, something Dex was afraid to hear. “He killed himself within six months of the accident. Look—” She began to wrap the cut, slow and careful like he was a child about to shatter at any moment. He hated that, he loathed it. He wasn’t some broken bird. Was he? “You should leave Paris. Maybe within the next few days.”

Anger seethed out through his teeth, rage clouding his vision. He wasn’t weak, he wasn’t weak. If everyone was going to treat him like a fragile flower, like he couldn’t take care of himself— maybe Dex would off himself. “No, I can’t,” he argued, visions of Sebastian and the promises they made together taunting him like the demons of his past. “I promised Seb, I promised I would stay with him. I can’t—” Whatever anger he’d felt had burned away with each snapshot of blonde, each warm moment he dwelled upon. It just made him sad. “I can’t leave him.”

Now the tears came, pouring out of the floodgates, a genesis of what was to come. Covering his face with his free hand, Dex wept for all he’d lost. He’d made a deal with the devil to come back to life, he was certain now. And giving up his lycan abilities wasn’t enough for him, he had to give up Sebastian too. If this was how he was doomed to live, maybe he didn’t deserve life at all. He couldn’t look up, couldn’t catch anybody’s eyes in this sorry state. He felt thin arms wrap around him, vaguely reminding him of his mother. She’d hugged him once, after finding him bruised and cut up— some from his father, some of his own doing. It felt nice.

“Shhh— it’ll be okay,” the woman cooed, rocking him slightly as whimpers kept coming. “I didn’t mean to hurt you but, it’s for your own good. You're a liability here, someone we’d need to worry about protecting. You can’t be with Seb if you just die again.” She pulled away his hand, tipped up his head so she was staring at his red splotchy face. “Go back to Cardiff, live your life away from the war. Sebastian is strong, he’ll surely make his way back to you.”

Sniffling, Dex could only murmur, “Okay— I’ll think about it.” And he was crying all over again, it felt almost like he was crying over everything and nothing. So he buried his head in Devon’s shoulder, let her stroke his hair as his tears soaked through her shirt. He was fragile, he’d always been fragile since he was a boy. He’d spent his entire life— human and lycan— building a tower around himself so he could be strong enough to protect himself from the harsh reality of the world.

A storm blew away his tower, taking the bricks he’d collected over the years with it. Now he was left with rain, drowning him in everything he’d been sheltered from for so long. But rain, even in Cardiff, didn’t last forever.

It was time to be a different kind of fighter.

#suicide mention cw #self harm cw #abuse mention cw #blood cw #&& we were young and lost when we were kings ⟪ self-para ⟫#&& i ain't afraid of hell but i'm terrified of heaven ⟪ musing ⟫

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anotherworldmessenger · 4 years

Text

Hazarding Another Shot

I spent a good nights rest in that free room and I was one the first carriage to the next town in the morning. The carriage was on its return trip back to the town. The old man driving the carriage happened to speak human common, albeit very poorly. He mostly just complained about how he wasn’t able to sleep for the last few days because of the job he did that brought him to the trade relay I was at for the night. Apparently he owed that dragonkin girl a favor and offered to take me along when he returned to the town to the north-east, Cardinal.

The trip took a few days and the old man didn’t seem to sleep at night, he would just take sips from his waterskin every now and then and grumble to himself, and occasionally shouting throughout the night. It was so unsettling that I didn’t really sleep at night myself, instead I slept during the day when he was focused on directing his beasts of burden.

By the time the town was within sight I felt a strange and powerful sense of pressure in my heart. I initially thought I was just having some anxiety or that I might have just felt fatigued from my new sleep schedule. Once we were inside the town I quickly realized that my body was reacting strongly to specific people. While I was taking in the scenery and my eyes passed by some individuals that pressure would suddenly increase in intensity 10 fold. Sometimes they would whip their head around and make eye contact with me, when they did I found myself incapable of even breathing.

In spite of the horrifying and paralyzing sensation I couldn’t keep myself from glancing at these individuals from time to time. There’s something about these people that kind of resonates in my mind that makes me feel some lingering, almost non-existent kinship with them. However, there was one person in particular that gave me a feeling that was the same but entirely different than those individuals.

I had this feeling of outright fear and paranoia as I looked at a particular woman. She sensed my gaze and made eye contact with me, she didn’t break eye contact with me for what felt like an eternity. The entire experience left my body soaked with cold sweat. When she finally turned away from me I had fallen to my knees as my body succumbed to an exhaustion I never knew I could feel. I tried to remain conscious but the next thing I knew I was waking up under the shade of a tree in a completely different part of town.

Someone had moved me while I was unconscious, for which I am very thankful. I had decided it was probably a good idea to check my status. When I did I found three new skills, all at level 0.

First, Aura Sensitivity, this skill allows me to feel the energy that radiates from other creatures.

Second, Phase Sensitivity, the description for this one doesn’t make much sense to me, something about being able to feel ‘phase’ energy that radiates from other creatures. I’m assuming its just another form of Aura Sensitivity.

Third, Cirrus Sensitivity, this one is similar to the Phase Sensitivity skill with a description saying I can feel ‘cirrus’ energy from other creatures.

My guess is that these three sensitivities are related to some kind of magical polarity of some kind. Phase and Cirrus are probably different ways people harness aura and they have a unique signature based on which side they adhere too.

Moving on, after getting my bearings I kept my eyes glued to the ground as I made my way through the town until I was able to find someone without a heavy presence about them. Thankfully they also happened to speak my language, and according to the kindly old gentleman Human Common is the primary language of the kingdom this town is a part of. When I asked him if there was something like an adventurer’s guild that I could try to join he lead me to a mercenary guild called the ‘Raven’s Claw’.

They apparently accept anyone that can pass the muscle check in an arm wrestling contest against the young man at the reception counter. Luckily enough those two points in strength came in handy. I was able to receive a membership card and I was allowed to accept local kill orders for wild beasts. While I didn’t have much in the way of personal equipment the guild had a very tempting loan offer.

If I signed a magic contract they would let me take a weapon and a shield for up to a week and they would also take half the reward for any request I completed until I returned the gear or made enough to purchase it. Needless to say that I took the deal.

After getting geared up with a short sword that was reminiscent of a basket hilt sword and a notably sized buckler for my shield I decided to try my luck at one of the kill orders. For what its worth, the gear I chose came to a net worth of 800 cubes. I don’t have much of a point of reference for how much that is actually worth, but the young man at the reception counter, Sern, said that I would be able to stay at a decent inn for three months(meal not included) with that much money.

Not knowing how to gauge myself against whatever may be lurking in the wilds Sern told me a good spot to find some of the relatively weaker monsters.

The description he gave of the creatures was reassuring but the tone of his delivery was like he was trying to scare the children to keep them out the forest. He had said something along the lines of “Black Sentient Ooze, its an acidic viscous puddle that moves with purpose, it may lack a physical brain, but its intelligence is the real deal, it is known for catching beginners off guard and dissolving their bodies leaving only their gear behind”. Black Sentient Oozes aren’t able to be killed with cutting or slashing weapons like a sword, and they can only be taken out with either a strong blunt force or magic. Before I left he had also made sure to inform me that black sentient oozes have a one in ten thousand chance of leaving behind an ooze core when slain with physical attacks. Their cores also happen to be an ingredient in high demand for alchemy and can easily fetch 20 cubes a piece.

The thought that they were just slimes stuck in my head the entire walk to the edge of the marsh land that is just a half hour walk south east of the town. While they weren’t really push-overs they didn’t really fill me with a sense of danger. When I located the first target to test the scale of my power I threw a few big rocks at it from a couple meters away which didn’t seem to do much as the slime just open up gaps in itself to let the rocks hit the ground beneath it.

I figured from its reaction and movement speed that it probably would be safe to try shield bashing it. As I am even able to send this message is proof enough that I wasn’t entirely wrong. I managed to take it out in a single decisive shield bash, however the splash back of its fluids on my arm has left a painful blistering wound on my arm. After being splatted the slime left behind a small murky gem.

While I was grasping my arm that was secreting excessive amounts of puss I felt an energy enter into my body that soothed my pain slightly as I felt an internal rush as though I had hit that sweet spot of inebriation that lets you unwind at the end of a hard day of work. Looking at my Status I had acquired two new skills at level 0 and one at level 1, as well as a five attribute points. The level 1 skill even came with additional information.

First skill, Thrown Weapon Mastery, the degree of finesse with which you throw objects.

Second skill, Acid Resistance, bodily resistance to acidic magics and substances.

Final skill, Consume: Level 1, if it is plant material, flesh, or bone, your stomach acid can eat through it, Skill acquired from successful hunt of Black Sentient Ooze.

#another world #isekai #otherworld

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