#GET SMARTER!!!! its not that fucking hard to realize that your kids grow and CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tendrilina]

god i HATE when people dont take young transgender people seriously. like is it that fucking hard to treat someone like theyre a human being instead of a fucking confused baby just because they are like 10 years younger than you????? heavily targeted at parents and teachers they can be such assholes when it comes to this ughhhhhh. they treat it like some silly funny joke at first and then when they realize your being serious they just fucking ignore you and expect you to 'get over it eventually/grow out of it' and when they dont suddenly the parents fucking hate them DESPITE knowing for their ENTIREEEEE childhood like how fucking dense can you be holy shit

#transgender #GET SMARTER!!!! its not that fucking hard to realize that your kids grow and CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #ITS NOT THAT FUCKING HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JUST LISTEN 2 UR KIDS 4 ONCE!!!!!!!!!!!! #🔊

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

Disney Songs That Hit Different™ When You’re Autistic, a full Spotify Playlist

Open to updates should anyone notice a song I missed!

Tracklist and specific lyrics that fuck me up under the cut: 

The World Above - The Little Mermaid Broadway Production

“It’s like my life was wrong And somehow, now, at last I’m in My own skin Up here in the world above!”

“The sun’s so bright here Upon my face! It feels so right here Warm as love... Life seems to be Almost calling to me...” - stimmy 

Belle - Beauty and the Beast 

“The bookshop. I just finished the most wonderful story. About a beanstalk and an ogre and a—” - y’all ever been interrupted on an infodump and then realize nobody cared? yeah that feeling 

“Look there she goes, that girl is strange, no question Dazed and distracted, can't you tell? Never part of any crowd Cause her head's up on some cloud No denying she’s a funny girl, that Belle...”

“[That one? But you've read it twice!] It's my favorite. Far-off places, daring swordfights, magic spells, a prince in disguise...” - SPECIAL INTEREST 

“Look there she goes, that girl is so peculiar I wonder if she's feeling well With a dreamy, far-off look And her nose stuck in a book What a puzzle to the rest of us is Belle...”

“Oh, isn't this amazing? It's my favorite part because you'll see Here's where she meets Prince Charming But she won't discover that it's him till chapter three...” - IF NOBODY LISTENS TO MY INFODUMP I SHALL INFODUMP TO SHEEP

“But behind that fair façade I'm afraid she's rather odd Very diff'rent from the rest of us She's nothing like the rest of us...”

More - deleted song from Moana

honestly the entire song is a bit “want to break off and learn about special interest / be in my own world / be myself” mood 

“The other kids just dance and play How can you play? There's so much out there to explore...”

“She stares at the sky, she stumbles down the beaches She mumbles all the names that her Gramma Tala teaches With one foot here and another in a distant past She’s growing up too fast...”

Part of Your World - The Little Mermaid 

not only a BIG SPECIAL INTEREST MOOD... big “i don’t belong here” mood...

“Look at this trove, treasures untold How many wonders can one cavern hold? Looking around here, you'd think Sure, she's got everything” “I've got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty I've got whooz-its and whats-its galore You want thing-a-mabobs? I've got twenty But who cares? No big deal. I want more!”

“Betcha on land, they understand Bet they don't reprimand their daughters Bright young women, sick of swimmin', Ready to stand...”

“When's it my turn? Wouldn't I love, Love to explore that shore up above?”

More Than Just the Spare - deleted song from Frozen 

“I'm not part of the town, not born to be queen Just somebody hopelessly in-between She's the scholar, athlete, poet I'm the screw up, don't I know it...”

“I may lack style and I may lack grace And once in a while I fall on my face But this little button deserves a place in the sky This button wants to fly- Wait, buttons can't fly, it doesn't make any sense!”

“And maybe I can't be the perfect one And maybe I err on the side of fun...”

“Someday I'll find my thing, a thing that's all my own That thing that makes me part of something, not just all alone If only all this feeling I have in my heart, could mean something to someone, how I'd love to play that part!”

“Like a button, like a horseshoe Like a girl who's bad at metaphors!”

Proud of Your Boy - Aladdin Broadway Production 

“So say I'm slow for my age A late bloomer, Okay, I agree...”

“But I'll get over these lousin' up Messin' up, screwin' up times You'll see, Ma, now comes the better part Someone's gonna make good, cross his stupid heart Make good and finally make you proud of your boy...”

“Say I'm a goldbrick, a good-off, no good But that couldn't be all that I am...”

“Though I can't make myself taller Or smarter or handsome or wise I'll do my best, what else can I do? Since I wasn't born perfect like Dad or you Mom, I will try to try hard to make you Proud of your boy...”

Let Me Make You Proud - Tangled: The Series

“Maybe I make things a mess And maybe you're right to have doubts in me Maybe, but nevertheless If you for once could just trust me...”

“And when I return And I'm more than you dreamt I'd be Maybe then you will realize That you never actually knew me at all...”

“Cause I long for that look of surprise When you see your son rising at last...”

Almost There - The Princess and the Frog 

“Ain't got time for messin' around And it's not my style...”

“But I know exactly where I'm going Getting closer and closer every day...”

“People down here think I'm crazy But I don't care Trials and tribulations, I've had my share...”

Home - deleted song from Frozen 2 

BIG routine song

“Wandering through the town with everyone doing all of their stuff Somewhere in my heart I feel I've not yet done enough For these people I know, this place that I love so...”

“I know how fragile things can be. If I lost them, I'd lose me They're my ocean, they're my shore. I wanna give them more...”

In a World of My Own / Very Good Advice - mashup cover of Alice in Wonderland 

“They would sit and talk to me for hours When I'm lonely in a world of my own...”

“I could listen to a babbling brook And hear a song that I could understand I keep wishing it could be that way Because my world would be a wonderland...”

“I give myself very good advice But I very seldom follow it That explains the trouble that I'm always in...”

“Be patient is very good advice But the waiting makes me curious And I'd love the change Should something strange begin...”

“Will I ever learn to do the things I should?” 

Reflection - Mulan

“Now I see that if I were truly to be myself I would break my family's heart...”

“Somehow I cannot hide Who I am, though I've tried...”

“How I pray that a time will come I can free myself from their expectations On that day, I'll discover someway to be myself And to make my family proud...”

“They want a docile lamb, no-one knows who I am Must there be a secret me I'm forced to hide? Must I pretend that I'm someone else for all time?”

If I Wasn’t So Small - Piglet’s Big Movie 

“It's not as if I want to rule the world Or even the forest, or even one tree I suppose I could be happy, if I could be helpful With just a little bit of noticing me...”

“I'd be needed and useful More each passing day...”

Jack’s Lament - The Nightmare Before Christmas 

“Oh somewhere deep inside of these bones An emptiness began to grow There's something out there far from my home A longing that I've never known...”

Everything I Ever Thought I Knew - Tangled: The Series

“I thought no one could love me And how could I have known? I was wrong, oh so wrong...” “Then I thought I found it, a dream that I could share I thought I was so lucky, it almost wasn't fair I thought I knew my purpose, I thought that I knew where I belong But I was wrong...”

“Now that it's all crumbling, help me understand If none of it was really me then who am I supposed to be?”

“I guess my life meant nothing I guess it was a sham I guess I'm someone else now I wonder who I am...”

I’ll Try - Return to Neverland

“I am not a child now I can take care of myself I mustn't let them down now Mustn't let them see me cry...”

“My whole world is changing I don't know where to turn I can't leave you waiting But I can't stay and watch the city burn...”

Waiting in the Wings (Reprise) - Tangled: The Series

“I craved so much, and yet I kept on waiting One glance, one touch, and I just kept on waiting...”

Waiting in the Wings - Tangled: The Series 

“Guess we all are born with parts to play Some of us are stars, and some are just in the way I know I was meant for glory But that's never what my story brings And yet I keep on waiting...”

“When you have the passion and the drive You expect your moment centre stage to arrive I show up with heart ablazing Ready to achieve amazing things But I'm left waiting in the wings...”

“It's always someone else who sings While I'm left waiting in the wings...”

“Always overlooked unfairly, while pretending that it barely stings But it stings, yes, it stings...” 

I’m Still Here (Jim Theme) - Treasure Planet

“I am a question to the world, not an answer to be heard Or a moment that's held in your arms...”

“And how can you learn what's never shown Yeah, you stand here on your own They don't know me, cause I'm not here...”

“And I want to tell you who I am Can you help me be a man? They can't break me As long as I know who I am...”

“They can't tell me who to be Cause I'm not what they see Yeah, the world is still sleeping While I keep on dreaming for me And their words are just whispers and lies That I'll never believe...”

“And I want a moment to be real Want to touch things I don't feel Wanna hold on, and feel I belong And how can you say I'll never change They're the ones that stay the same I'm the one now Cause I'm still here!”

God Help the Outcasts - The Hunchback of Notre Dame 

“Yes, I know I'm just an outcast I shouldn't speak to You Still, I see Your face and wonder Were You once an outcast, too?”

“God help the outcasts, hungry from birth Show them the mercy they don't find on earth God help my people - we look to You, still God help the outcasts or nobody will...”

“Please help my people, the poor and downtrod I thought we all were the children of God?”

So Close - Enchanted 

honestly the entirety of enchanted is an autism mood but, 

“So close to reaching That famous happy end Almost believing This one's not pretend...”

Into the Unknown - cover of Frozen 2

“There's a thousand reasons I should go about my day And ignore your whisper which I wish would go away...”

“I’ve had my adventure, I don’t need something new...”

“Or are you someone out there who's a little bit like me? Who knows deep down I'm not where I am really meant to be?“

“Are you out there? [Do you know me?]  Can you feel me? Can you show me?”

Someone’s Waiting For You - The Rescuers 

“Don't cry, little one There'll be a smile where a frown use to be You'll be part of the love that you see...”

Sally’s Song - The Nightmare Before Christmas 

“I sense there's something in the wind That feels like tragedy's at hand And though I'd like to stand by him Can't shake this feeling that I have...”

“Although I'd like to join the crowd In their enthusiastic cloud Try as I may, it doesn't last...”

Someday - The Hunchback of Notre Dame Off-Broadway Production 

“Someday, when we are wiser When the world's older, when we have learned I pray someday we may yet live To live and let live...”

“Someday, these dreams will all be real Til then we'll wish upon the moon Change will come, one day  Someday soon...”

Where Do I Go From Here - Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World

“They do what they must for now And trust in their plan If I trust in mine, somehow I might find who I am...”

“The path ahead's so hard to see It winds and bends but where it ends Depends on only me In my heart I don't feel part of so much I've known Now it seems it's time to start A new life on my own...”

Wherever You Are - Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin 

“I'm out here in the dark, all alone and wide awake Come and find me I'm empty and I'm cold, and my heart's about to break Come and find me...”

“I need you to come here and find me Cause without you, I'm totally lost I've hung a wish on every star It hasn't done much good so far...”

“I used to believe in forever, But forever’s too good to be true...”

Belle (Reprise) - Beauty and the Beast 

“And for once it might be grand To have someone understand I want so much more than they've got planned...”

Endless Night - The Lion King Broadway Production 

“Home is an empty dream Lost to the night Father, I feel so alone...”

“I know that the night must end I know that the sun will rise...”

Set Yourself Free - Tangled: The Series 

“Locked inside a tower, kept behind a wall Sheltered from a world you’ve barely known That’s the way they treat you...”

“There's much more inside of you than anyone can see And now the choice is yours, life waits beyond the doors So step on through, the time has come And only you can set yourself free!”

“So use the gifts you're given Make the world your own Look inside your heart and find the key...”

“Bound up by your worries Trapped by your mistakes Forced to play a role you never chose...”

“No more letting someone else define you to a T You know that you are strong You've known it all along...”

Let it Go - Frozen Broadway Production

“The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I've tried Don't let them in, don't let them see Be the good girl you always have to be Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know Well, now they know!”

“I don't care what they're going to say Let the storm rage on The cold never bothered me anyway...”

“It’s time to see what I can do  To test the limits and break through  No right, no wrong, no rules for me  I’m free!”

“Let it go, let it go And I’ll rise like the break of dawn! Let it go, let it go  That perfect girl is gone!”

How Far I’ll Go (Reprise) - Moana 

“All that time wondering where I need to be is behind me I'm on my own to worlds unknown...”

Colors of the Wind - Pocahontas 

“You think the only people who are people Are the people who look and think like you But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew...”

Strangers Like Me - Tarzan 

when u meet another autistic person.... 

“Whatever you do, I'll do it, too Show me everything and tell me how It all means something And yet nothing to me...”

“I can see there's so much to learn It's all so close and yet so far I see myself as people see me Oh, I just know there's something bigger out there...”

Beyond My Wildest Dreams - The Little Mermaid Broadway Production 

“Look over there! Oh my god! How very odd! And what might they be? Something splendid, maybe! Look over here! Could you bust? Isn't it just bedazzling, dazing, utterly amazing! Gazing 'round, it's like, to die! Just seeing it feels so good, I'd scream if I only could!”

“Just keeps on gawking- Weird how she's not talking!”

“I'd hoped and wished My life would feel enchanted! Wished and prayed The fates would hear my plea...”

Watch What Happens - Newsies Broadway Production 

“’Write what you know’ So they say, all I know is I don't know what to write Or the right way to write it...”

“It could practically write itself And let's pray it does, cause as I may have mentioned I have no clue what I'm doing!”

“Speak up, take a stand, and there's someone to write about it That's how things get better...”

[also. the squeal.]

“Like someone said, "Power tends to corrupt" And absolute power, wait, wait, corrupts? Absolutely, that is genius! But give me some time, I'll be twice as good as that six months from never...”

“Just look around at the world we're inheriting And think of the one we'll create...”

“Give those kids and me the brand new century and watch what happens It's David and Goliath, do or die The fight is on and I can't watch what happens But all I know is nothing happens if you just give in It can't be any worse than how it's been And it just so happens that we just might win So whatever happens, let's begin!”

Son of Man - Tarzan 

“Oh, the power to be strong and the wisdom to be wise All these things will come to you in time On this journey that you're making, there'll be answers that you'll seek And it's you who'll climb the mountain It's you who'll reach the peak...”

“Though there's no one there to guide you, no one to take your hand But with faith and understanding You will journey from boy to man...”

“In learning you will teach and in teaching you will learn You'll find your place beside the ones you love Oh, and all the things you dreamed of, the visions that you saw Well, the time is drawing near now It's yours to claim it all!”

Strange Sight - Tinkerbell and the Legend of the Neverbeast 

“You stand in the light You're wrong, but you're right And my heart's beating wildly Strange how I'm scared but delighted Afraid, but excited too!”

“Do you long to be left all alone? Set apart with a heart made of stone? Let me help, let's begin Let me learn, won't you let me in? All the light, let it show...”

“You are a strange sight, some new kind of wonder With good hidden under, I'm sure that it's true Strange how your dark doesn't faze me...”

Wind in My Hair - Tangled: The Series 

“What if the doors began to open? What if the knots became untied? What if one day, nothing stood in my way And the world was mine?”

“Plenty of mysteries to unravel Tons of mistakes to not regret So much to see, and to do and to be A whole life to spend And it doesn't end...”

For a Moment - The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea 

“This way is left, but which way is right? Well, now I'll be circling in circles all night...” - direction problems amirite

“This is more than my thoughts ever thought it could be For a moment, just a moment, lucky me...”

“For a moment, I can feel, All the dreams I've been dreaming are real, Wish my mother could hear it, the sea is my song For a moment, just a moment I belong...”

Speechless - Aladdin 2019 Remake

i would like to send this song to autism $peaks (hate group) underlined in red and with a photo attached of me with a middle finger up 

“Here comes a wave meant to wash me away A tide that is taking me under Swallowing sand, left with nothing to say. My voice drowned out in the thunder...”

“Written in stone, every rule, every word Centuries old and unbending ‘Stay in your place, better seen and not heard.’ Well, now that story is ending!”

“Let the storm in! I cannot be broken! No, I won't live unspoken! Cause I know that I won't go speechless!”

“Try to lock me in this cage! I won't just lay me down and die! I will take these broken wings And watch me burn across the sky!”

“I won't be silenced! Though you wanna see me tremble when you try it, All I know is I won't go speechless, speechless! Cause I'll breathe when they try to suffocate me! Don't you underestimate me! Cause I know that I won't go speechless!”

Show Yourself - Frozen 2 

the siren call... stimmy

“Something is familiar, like a dream I can reach but not quite hold I can sense you there, like a friend I've always known I'm arriving, it feels like I am home...”

“I have always been a fortress Cold secrets deep inside...”

“Are you the one I've been looking for all of my life? Show yourself! I'm ready to learn...”

“I've never felt so certain! All my life, I've been torn But I'm here for a reason- could it be the reason I was born? I have always been so different, normal rules did not apply Is this the day? Are you the way I finally find out why?”

“I am found!”

“You are the one you've been waiting for All of your life...”

Here I Am - Camp Rock 

“They tell you a good girl is quiet and that you should never ask why Cause it only makes it harder to fit in And you should be happy, excited, even if you're just invited Cause the winners need someone to clap for them...”

“It's so hard just waiting in a line that never moves It's time you started making your own rules...”

“If how you’re living isn't working there's one thing that'll help You got to finally just stop searching and find yourself...”

“The world better make some room Yea move over, over Cause you’re coming through!”

“You gotta scream until there's nothing left With your last breath Say here I am! Here I am! Make em listen Cause there is no way you'll be ignored Not anymore...”

Us Against the Universe - Phineas and Ferb: The Movie - Candace Against the Universe

“I used to feel alone, just me against the raging tide, But I guess I should've known that you were always on my side. Now I don't have to be an island, cause you've been there all the while, and Now I realize my fears weren't justified!”

“Cause as long as we're together, We can stand and face whatever Kind of trouble this world tries to put us in. If you're out there on your own, You just might take it on the chin Cause if it's us against the universe, we win!”

#disney #autism #autistic #actually autistic #disney songs #mine

[sweetwritertanya]

Dressed Up For Halloween (Namjoon)

Summary: Your employer, Big Hit, is hosting a special Halloween party this year. Even though no one knows you are dating, you go and show your boyfriend Namjoon your outfit before the party starts when he is still working at the studio.

Warnings: SMUT! This fic will include: swearing, erotic body touching, blow job, unprotected sex (be smarter IRL people!), missionary position, sex as in a quickie, female masturbation during sex (is this the best way to describe it?), aftercare.

Word Count: 2640

Your excitement could barely be contained as you practically skipped down the street and entered the Big Hit’s building. Your long warm coat kept your selected costume for the party tonight hidden and you had been dying to show it to your boyfriend. Keeping it a secret was almost unbearable, since you two always shared everything with one another.

For the first time ever, the company had decided to host a Halloween themed party for their employees and idols. Everyone was invited and required to come in costume, dinner and drinks on the house. Even a simple dispensable worker as yourself was invited which worked out, since the only person you were interested in spending the day with would also be there.

Namjoon and the rest of the boys would, obviously, be main guests. And even if nobody besides them knew about you and him being together, it presented the perfect cover for you two to attend the same party without having to hide his identity. You would just have to be careful not to get too lovey-dovey in public. Which was a bit hard, since you adored to hold his hand or lean your head on his shoulder whenever you stood beside him. You just had to control yourself tonight.

You knock on the door and his voice tells you to come in. Namjoon had told you he would be working on the studio for as long as he could, inspiration for some lyrics hitting him strongly today of all days. But he still promised to come to the party, so you were here to pick him up and make sure he lived to that promise.

He was sitting on his chair with his back to you as you walk in, closing the door behind you. He seemed busy writing something in his little notebook as well as having some kind of melody going on the computer. As you expected, he wasn’t even dressed yet, in fact wearing a white Fila hoodie and some light-wash denim jeans.

“Baby, you told me you would be dressed up for Halloween” you complaint as you approach him, placing one hand on his shoulder.

“Hum? Oh, yeah, sorry babydoll, I was about to go and change.” Namjoon swirls in his chair as his strong arms come around your wide hips, brushing the skin there with soothing hands. He smiles sheepishly with lips pressed together and dimples showing. “Got distracted. Wait, is that a wig?”

You smile back, because who wouldn’t when he produced that beautiful dimple smile, and lean down to steal an affectionate peck from his lips.

“Yes, it is. Part of my costume. Now, we don’t have much time, so hurry up and save everything you got going on so you can go and change already” you order playfully, stepping away to leave him to his computer. “Oh, and I want you to see my full costume before we go! Any speculations from the long black-haired wig?” You question as you undo your coat and let it slide down your arms to the sofa behind you.

“You know I’m not great guessing things. It’s best of you just tel-”

As Namjoon finishes saving everything up and swirls around in his chair to look at you, his words get stuck in his throat as he loses the ability to breathe for a few long minutes.

Even a skilled song writer like him could not come up with an accurate way to describe how absolutely enthralling you looked. It made his heart jump to his throat and his mouth to go dry as he took it all in, the black tight fabric hugging all of your splendid corves so seductively, the deep v-neckline showing just enough cleavage before the crisscross strings, the slit up to the middle of your succulent upper thigh revealing the shape of your leg, accentuated by the black high-heel shoe. In an outfit made entirely of black, your red lip stood out so captivatingly, and he could only really think of how much he wanted to steal the bright colour with his own mouth, kiss it until it was smudged away.

“What do you think?” you excitedly ask, even giving him a twirl.

Namjoon swallows dry and crosses his legs as he hides half of his face with his large hand, coughing to clear his voice.

“It’s hum… hum, it’s…” he truly couldn’t find the right words, which you mistake with dislike.

“You don’t like it” you sigh with disappointment and confusion. You really thought he would like it, you looked so good in it. He always tried to persuade you to use more tight-fitting clothes since he loves your silhouette so much.

“No! No, it’s not that at all!” he immediately assures, maybe a bit louder than he hoped. “I actually know this one. You’re… You’re Morticia from the Addam’s Family, right?”

“Yeah… So, why the underwhelming reaction? I thought you would love it” you confess, crossing your arms.

“And I unquestionably do. You look so fucking sexy right now. And I can assure you, there is nothing underwhelming about this. If anything, I may be a little too overwhelmed right now.” He coughs again and looks away almost like he was embarrassed, a bit of color rising to his cheeks.

“Sure doesn’t look like it” you pout, unconvinced.

He sighs and keeps his eyes away from you before looking at the ground, seemingly debating with himself for a moment.

“Did… Did you know?” he suddenly asks, only glancing at you for mere seconds before looking back to the floor.

“Know what?”

“That I had a… a thing, let’s call it… for this character when I first saw the movie as a child?”

“You had a ‘thing’ for Morticia when you were a kid? How so?” Intrigued and tickled by such a notion, you actually walk forward and move as if to sit sideways on Namjoon’s lap.

“Wait, babe-!”

Namjoon strangely raises his hands up and tries to stop you, something he had never done before when you sat on his lap, but the memento was already set. You sat your juicy rump on his thighs and that’s when you feel it, poking at the doughy flesh of your left ass cheek.

“Oh my God!” you giggle and bring your hands to cover your smiling lips as your eyes open wide in realization. As for Namjoon, his cheeks are now burning red and he tries to look as further away to the right as he can, hands restless as he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

“She always talked all seductively and all that, okay? And that film is full of sexual tension between her and that husband of yours, so it was not my fault” he murmurs in his defense. “Seeing you like this kind of… brought back old feelings, okay?”

Both amused and sympathetic at his situation, you remain sited on his lap as you take his warm face into your hands and force him to look at you.

“Well… How about I help you with this before we leave for the party, baby?” you suggest with a immodest smirk.

Namjoon raises his eyebrows and widens his small eyes until they became rounded, unsure if he was understanding what you were hinting at. You brush your thumb on top of his wide lips and then capture them for a doubt ending kiss, filled with passion and need. Your mouths melded together as your body melted into his, strong arms coming around your middle and pulling you close by your back.

It doesn’t take long for tongues to tease and play with each other, the smallest of encounters sending sparks down your back that landed in a molten pit of want at the depth of your belly. With each longing movement of your soft lips on top of his, you could feel his problem growing beneath your ass, reminding you of what you had decided to do.

Slowly, almost seamlessly, you move your lips to his chin, then his strong jaw, then down his long delectable neck, stopping just a moment longer by that spot next to his pulse point that you knew drove him crazy. The way he groans almost in a whimper rewards you for taking the time to do so. And then you move away from his lap to instead fall on your knees between his legs, hands set at his muscular thighs and looking up at him with suggestive eyes.

His lips, red from all the kisses and the blood rushing to his cheeks, fall into the cutest ‘o’ shape and he gulps dryly before talking.

“Babydoll, you don’t have to-”

“I know, Jonnie. I want to” you clarify, hands already sneaking their way to his belt.

His head falls back on his chair once your little fingers brush the bulge that had formed in his pants and he knows he couldn’t really do anything, he was at your mercy.

“Now, we don’t have much time before the party starts so, we have to be quick, okay?” you remind him as you pull his pants down. All you get his a struggled grunt and his hands closing into fists. “And don’t pull my hair, remember I’m wearing a wig.”

The erection finally springs free as you lower his boxers and a jolt of lust runs through you at the pretty vision. Standing tall in all its dark pink glory, with a red mushroom head glistening and a particular protruding pulsating vein, his cock always looked so perfect to you. And as much as you wanted to shower him with the attention he deserved, you were on a time crunch.

Therefore, you take one hand to his base and pump the hardening member to complete stiffness, absent-minded gibberish falling from Namjoon’s lips as you do so. Then, taking a deep breath, you let your tongue lick the underside from the bottom to the top before engulfing him into your mouth the furthest you could go.

Namjoon’s body trembles and he gasps when you suddenly take him fully into your mouth, your cheeks hallow and bobbing your head at a nice pace with eyes closed as you concentrated. Your tongue swirls around his thickness and slides from side to side at the skin just bellow his tip, making you feel his cock throbbing against it. Remembering to breathe, you try and add a bit of suctioning to the blow-job, the salty cream flavor you recognized starting to gush from his head.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck, baby, stop! Come here.”

To your confusion, Namjoon grabs you by the underside of your arms and pulls you with him to your feet, breathing hard and flustered, eyes completely darkened with lust. You knew he was about to cum, you couldn’t understand why he stopped you. Until he kisses you hungrily and places you with your back to the cushioned sofa behind you, bringing your legs to hook on either side of his lean hips.

“Namjoon, we can’t, we don’t have time for this” you start to say when his lips instead suck at your neck.

“Like you said, we’ll make it quick. Please, Y/N, babydoll, I need you” he pleads with you, leaning his head back to look at you with desperation. And, fuck, it was hot to be needed like this.

“Fine, hurry up” you concede, biting your bottom lips and throwing your arms around his shoulders, gathering the short hairs at the nape of his neck in your clasp.

Much to his satisfaction, you weren’t wearing any pantyhose, meaning your legs were bare as his fingers traced the skin up under the dress and the only barrier, he had to worry about were your panties. Finding the silky fabric and pulling the center of it aside, Namjoon dips his fingers in between the puffy lips and finds you warm and wet for him. He grunts.

“You’re already so wet for me, baby” he whispers into your ear.

As if to make sure, he slips his fingers into your puckered hole without warning, making you gasp and claw your hands on his shoulder and neck. Both of the fingers he used move with slick perfection only for a few seconds before he extracts them.

The feeling of emptiness left behind only lasts a moment, for soon Namjoon takes himself in hand and plunges back in, that magnificent shaft of his filling you up to the curve of your cervix and stretching your walls heavenly. Heat is rising off of him and he takes little time to start moving, yanking his hips at a fast speed as he chases his release.

His large hands hold you by your waist as he drills himself into your womb, the slapping sound of skin and squelching of your body’s fluids as he pumps in and out joining the sounds of both your and his heaving breathing and erotic moans, pitched with wanton and lust. His cock drags wonderfully against your inner walls and his pelvis smacks repeatedly against yours, so quick and deep that sends ripples across your malleable flesh. The molten pit deep inside your core starts to boil up, this uncontrollable wave of aching relief about to break through the dam.

The slickness of your pussy increases and Namjoon finds himself thrusting faster and faster, slamming his hips into yours at an abnormal increasing speed, hands anchoring himself on your waist so strongly it would leave marks. His whole body screamed tension and his throbbing cock burned inside, so you knew he was close. Even with a veiled brain power, you manage to recognize he was about to cum and you wanted nothing more than to do so with him. So, you bring one hand down your body and wail with a broken voice as you violently rubbed your clit at the same speed he was thrusting.

It happened at the same time, your pussy fluttering and collapsing around his cock as the most sudden wave of unmitigated pleasure crashed through your veins, and his frenzied moves coming to a halt as his cock twitched as released flowed through him like water. Your muscles trembled in relief, back arched away from the sofa’s cushions, before falling to the most relaxed state, while he spilled himself in you with a shuddering body before stilling and catching his breath again.

You both stay like this for a moment, Namjoon leaning down to kiss your smudged red lips amorously. He then spills out, hurrying to get on his feet and entering the adjacent small bathroom he had on the studio, coming back with a towel that he uses to clean up the mess he made.

You watch as he gently cleans your lower lips, tapping the soft towel until it’s all nice and mostly dry, and then rearranging the twisted panties until they sit comfortably on you. You sit back up on the couch when he is done and kiss his cheek, searching in your purse for your lipstick so you can reapply it properly.

“Go ahead and change, Jonnie. I should be going ahead anyway, the party is about to start” you say as you use the mirror in the bathroom.

“If you told me you would be Morticia, I could have dressed up as Gomez today” he tells you, with a voice still a bit rough from sex, which you loved.

“We can’t be in a couple’s costume, babe. No one knows we’re together, remember?” you swing your arms around his middle and look up at him with a resigning pout.

“Yet” he adds, quite firmly. “Maybe next year?”

You beam, pull him down for a peck and start to walk away towards the studio’s door, unable to keep yourself from smiling.

“Maybe next year” you agree before walking out.

#halloween special #13 stories for halloween #bts #bts x chubby reader #chubby reader #bts namjoon #namjoon #bts rm #rm #rm x reader #namjoon x reader #bts fic #bts fanfiction #bts smut #namjoon smut #plus size reader #kpop plus size #kpop chubby reader #kpop smut #Smut

[youbloodymadgenius]

Free (Modern!Ivar x reader)

A/N: This is my contribution to @dreamwritesimagines 10k Challenge. Congrats again, love, you’re amazing and this huge milestone is well-deserved 🌺

Prompt in bold

@inforapound - thank you for beta reading this for me ❤️

Let me know if you want to be tagged 😊

Summary: After a long day, Ivar and you are finally home. He’s been moody all day and it looks like it’s not going to change anytime soon.

Warnings: angst I guess; a lot of swearing; NO happy ending (sorry about that); Ivar is an asshole (not sorry about that).

Words: 2139



Dumbfounded and mad as hell as it’s so fucking unthinkable, you look at Ivar with wide eyes. "You're fucking kidding me, right?"

 So, that's what it was? 

 Ivar had been in a sour mood all day, more often than not taking it out on you. It wasn't pleasant, but you were used to such things. He always was uncomfortable during  those huge gatherings – both familial and business  – that Ragnar loved so much. Today hadn't been different. Sigurd's tauntings, pitiful looks and averted gazes, overbearing presence of Aslaug, everything always was a bitter reminder of his condition. Therefore, as usual you hadn't taken offense at his snarky remarks, thinking that everything would be alright at the end of the day when you two would be back in your shared apartment. 

 Obviously, you were wrong.

 "Ivar, fuck, look at me!" You burst out, irritated by his silence, your hands on your hips. 

 Sitting on the edge of the bed, he doesn't even flinch as he slowly and carefully takes off his leg braces. Usually, knowing how sore he can be after such a long day, you would help him, but today is anything but a normal day, his last allegation running through your head. 

 Eyes averted, he keeps ignoring you, which is infuriating. With growing anger coursing through you, you step forward, putting your hands on his shoulders. You squeeze them tight, your pulse speeding up. 

 "I'm talking to you, Ivar!!!" 

 As he slowly raises his head, quirking a brow, you can see the smirk that tugs at his lips. There's no gentleness in his eyes. He keeps quiet, waiting for you to carry on. 

 And that's what you do, unable to stop yourself. It's like you're possessed, like your rage has taken over.

 "You can't be fucking serious, Ivar!!!" You shout, furious and astounded, your breathing short and loud. "How can you think I'm cheating on you? And with Olaf on top of that?!! Don't you realize how offensive it is? Fuck Ivar, you're crazy!"

 "I'm just saying what I saw, Y/N." Ivar's calm demeanor is unsettling, his stare is cold as you gasp for breath, outraged and shocked. 

 "And what did you see exactly, uh?" You manage to say, your hands now twirling and pulling your hair. "Tell me, Ivar. What did you fucking see?"

 "You were flirting shamelessly with him. That's what I saw. Sorry for just stating the obvious." There's so much disdain in his voice, you shiver.

 "I– How? I wasn't–" You stammer and take a deep breath, gathering your thoughts. "You're a fucking asshole, Ivar, you know that? Oh, for fuck's sake, I wasn't flirting with Olaf. I was courteous to a very important business partner of your father's."

 "Always the loyal employee, huh, Y/N?" Ivar spits, his lips curled into a spiteful grin, hard feelings and sarcasm obvious. You might throw up.

 The truth is, he's right. And it's nothing to be ashamed of. Even if you're not working for Ragnar anymore – you quit as soon as your relationship with Ivar became somewhat serious – you still have Ragnar's best interests at heart. You were his personal assistant for three years, after all, working  alongside him sometimes more than twelve hours a day. 

 "Yes Ivar, that's what I am, and you know that! You can't possibly hold it against me, your father's business is yours too." You retort angrily, but you can feel something else in your mind, in your heart. Helplessness, you think. 

 Two years. It has been two years and Ivar still doesn't trust you. Still suspects you, everywhere and all the time. You're so tired. Tired of that kind of relationship. Tired of him? As soon as the question pops out in your head, you know the answer. Yes. Of course, you are. You can't take it anymore. Even if it breaks your heart.

 Unaware of your inner turmoil, Ivar doesn't stop. "You were touching him!" He hisses through clenched teeth, releasing his right leg from its titanium brace. "You were fucking touching him. Don't think I didn't see it! You didn't have to, but you did it anyway. What am I supposed to infer, Y/N?" Narrowing his eyes, he snorts, his fists gripping the edge of the bed, his knuckles white.

 "Certainly not that I fuck him behind your back!" You shout, throwing up your hands. Biting your bottom lip, you shake your head in disbelief. "You are ridiculous, Ivar." Your harsh tone startles the both of you, as you're usually the sweet and patient one. But not tonight. Not when he drives you up the wall one more time. Maybe one too many… 

 "Did you see the fucking dude, Ivar?" You carry on, still shouting, because you need to make your point. It's so fucking unfair. Ivar is so fucking unfair. "He's fat, and bald, and old. And I can't even look at him in the eye because all I can see is the monster zit in the middle of his forehead and… yikes! Fuck, I wasn't touching him, Ivar!" Breathless and frustrated, you briefly cover your face with your hands before speaking again, your tone calmer, almost defeated. "You saw us, right? So you know. I was just walking him to his seat, like your father asked me to. I wasn't flirting with him, I couldn't even fathom doing that, you know? How can you, Ivar? How fucking can you??? Stop this nonsense, please, you're smarter than that! You got eyes, fuck! Olaf is disgusting!"

 Barely shrugging, Ivar looks you up and down with pursed lips. "He has two working legs, though." 

 You roll your eyes, utterly fed up. Before, Ivar saying something like that would have moved your heart, but not anymore. Every time you and he have a fight, he shamelessly pulls the disabled card on you, just to make you feel guilty. It doesn't work tonight, though. You're no fool. There's no sadness in his voice, only sourness and malice. He's stubbornly furious about something that doesn't exist, and therefore ready to push all the right buttons. And you, you're sick and tired of that kind of ploy. 

 "Fuck Ivar, we're past that point! You know I don't give a shit about your legs! You do, but it's not my fault and I won't let you make it about them! And you know what? This is not about me, this is about you! You wouldn't trust me even if you could run a hundred meters, fucking admit it!" Blinking back tears, you let out a huff of frustration.

 Ivar quirks a brow, and the brooding look of anger on his face tells you that he's not going to let go, not yet. "You're not making any sense, Y/N! This has everything to do with you! You, the ungrateful daughter of a worker, who always wants more! More money, more shiny things, more fame, and a better man than the cripple!" He snaps at you with an air of defiance, gritting his teeth.

 Your whole body starts to shake as you process his words. Ivar has never been out of line like this. "What the hell? You're a fucking bastard, Ivar!! You know that's not true! You're so fucking wrong!" You manage to say, seething at the insult.

 You're not perfect, not by a long shot. But you sure are not a gold digger, never have been and never will be. Because of your simple background, you've always been afraid of being suspected of being interested in Lothbrok's money. That's exactly why you've never stopped working, despite your lover's protests. 

 So, Ivar making such accusations is absolutely revolting, infuriating and once again completely unfair. 

 Tilting his head, he looks at you with stormy eyes. "Am I, really?" He asks in a cold voice, eyebrows raised. "Wrong, I mean. Because, you see, I don't think so." He's suddenly incredibly calm, like he's just teaching something to a stupid child and not in the midst of a lovers' quarrel. A sly smirk on his face, he scoffs, folding his hands on his lap. "I'm just stating a fact, Y/N. After all I've done for you, that's how you thank me? By blatantly flirting with Olaf Haraldsson?"

 That's the exact moment when you realize. When you know. Despite your best efforts, it will never get better. Ivar will always be difficult, you will always do everything you can to soothe him, make him happy and in the end, you will always be the one who feels hurt. 

 You thought your love would change him, but you were wrong. How naive you've been! People never change. And now, you're exhausted. For two years, you had to endure his bad faith, his tantrums, his wrath, his distrust, his jealous fits… You can't anymore. 

 Of course, there were good times as well. Sometimes – rarely – Ivar can be sweet and caring. But is it worth it? The thought has been playing on your mind these last few months. Suddenly, the answer is clear.

 So, there's only one thing left to do. It may be painful, but there's no other choice.

 Dropping to your knees, you pull a suitcase out from under the bed. Fresh tears are trickling down your cheeks and you stifle a sniffle. Ivar ducks his head and watches you, furrowing his brows. 

 "What the fuck are you doing, Y/N?" He snarls at you, his jaw clenched, barely restrained. Scooting closer surprizingly quickly, he grabs your wrist, squeezing it tight. You wince, locking eyes with him nevertheless.

 "It's pretty obvious, isnt'it? I'm leaving tonight, Ivar." Fortunately, you sound more confident than you are and as Ivar releases you, utterly surprized, you take advantage of it and move away from him, dragging your suitcase with you. 

 "WHAT???" He roars, as one of his fists hits the mattress hard. There's so much fury in his eyes that you struggle to keep your head up. 

 Swallowing, you heave a sharp breath. "I'm. Leaving. Tonight." You immediately turn away, reaching into your closet and start throwing clothes into the suitcase on the floor. 

 You can easily imagine the look on his face. Ivar must be stunned. Flabbergasted. The long silence that follows your words confirms it.

 Eventually, he clears his throat. "You can't do that. You're mine." His voice is cold as ice and you can feel his eyes on you. You shudder, closing your luggage. A small part of you is disappointed. You realize that you were maybe hoping for something different. Perhaps expressed feelings. You should have known better, though. It's Ivar, after all.

 Slowly turning toward him, you bite your inner cheek, blinking back tears. As you tilt your head, you peer into his eyes. Hiding your shaky hands behind your back, you speak with a firm voice. "You're wrong. I'm a free woman, Ivar. You don't own me, you never did, in spite of all that you did. Because that is what you did, not for me, but to me, Ivar. You spied on me, threatened me, tried to control me. This isn't how a relationship works. I tried…" Your words catch in your throat, you have to stop for an instant. "I wanted to give you time, because I loved you. I probably still love you. But it's not enough. I can't do that. Jealousy isn't love, Ivar. Possessiveness isn't love. Love is about trust, and that's something you've never given me. So yes, Ivar, I'm leaving tonight, and there's nothing you can do to stop me." Closing your eyes briefly, you exhale, feeling the weight of your words settle over the two of you. Ivar doesn't move, as if petrified. 

Grabbing the suitcase, you put your hand on the doorknob, your stomach churning unpleasantly. "Good bye, Ivar," you say softly, suddenly dispirited but no less convinced that you're doing the right thing. 

 You're almost out of the room when Ivar speaks, making you stop in your tracks. "Will you ever come back, Y/N?" His wavering voice sends shiver down your spine and you swallow a thick lump in your throat before looking at him. His eyes are wet, his bottom lip quivering. For the first time in… forever, you see the Ivar you fell in love with. The Ivar who allows himself to feel, to care. Maybe even to love. 

 But it's too late. You won't change your mind. You owe it to yourself. 

 Raising your head, you look at Ivar, still sitting on the bed."Will you ever change, Ivar?" 

 A series of emotions run across his face, but silence is his only answer. You slowly nod, blinking nervously. "That's what I thought."

 There's nothing more to say and so you leave, closing the door behind you. Your heart is bleeding, your soul is crying but you did what you had to do, finally.

 You are a free woman. 

🛡⚔️🛡

@dreamwritesimagines @honestsycrets @lisinfleur @waiting4inspiration @saldelys @gearhead66 @readsalot73 @milkkygirls @xbellaxcarolinax @shannygoatgruff @zuxiezendler @a-mess-of-fandoms @liviatheempress @lonewolf471 @ivarthebloodyking @fuckindiva​ @tgrrose​ @didiintheblog​

#dream's 10k challenge #ivar #ivars heathen army #ivar ragnarsson #ivar lothbrok #modern ivar #modern ivar x reader #modern!ivar #modern!ivar x reader #modern-ivar #ivar imagine #ivar the boneless #ivar fanfic #ivar fic #ivar fanfiction #ivar vikings #vikings ivar #vikings fic #vikings

[satyr-syd]

Number Three Hero Miruko’s three U.A. interns stand at attention in the middle of her office. Miruko’s office is unlike any other hero office Tsuyu’s seen, in that it’s less of an office and more of a garden, with grassy floors, a high-vaulted ceiling painted robin’s egg blue, an obstacle course, and a dozen raised carrot beds. Tsuyu finds it a pleasant space, although she thinks it would be even better with the addition of a pond. Bodies of water are calming, and right now Tsuyu would appreciate anything that would slow her racing heart.

Miruko paces in front of them, large feet padding through the grass. She stops and points to Tsuyu’s left, at Kodai Yui from class 2-B. Kodai’s shoulders tense.

“Rule!” Miruko shouts. “You have been doing an excellent job.”

Kodai lets out a sigh of relief.

“But!”

Her shoulders tense up again.

“You keep coming into work tired,” Miruko continues, ears swiveled out. “You’re overextending your quirk use. Be smarter about saving your energy for when you need it most.”

Kodai bows. “Yes sensei!”

Miruko continues pacing.

“Bakugou!” She points to Tsuyu’s left, at Bakugou Katsuki, who looks unphased.

“You’re strong on the battlefield. But off the battlefield - ” she grabs his shoulders and looks him in the eye, “ - you’re weak.” Bakugou’s lip twitches. “Be more compassionate.”

Miruko releases her grip on him and continues pacing. Tsuyu doesn’t know why. It’s obvious she’s next. “Froppy!”

Miruko takes a step towards her and bends down, so their eyes meet. “You need to learn to be more flexible.”

Tsuyu puts a finger to her chin and waits for her to elaborate, but she doesn't.

“That’s all!” Miruko says. “Week one’s performance review is over.” She breaks out into a big smile. It’s truly a wonderful smile, Tsuyu thinks. A hero’s smile - the kind of smile that you can't help but smile at in response. “I didn’t have much to say because you guys have done so well.”

The three of them bow deeply and say, “Thank you Miruko-sensei!”

Miruko pats them each and on the head and laughs. “Alrighty then, head on home, kids.”

The three of them head down a few floors to the locker rooms to change out of their hero outfits and grab their belongings. Kodai loops the straps of her nice leather satchel over her shoulders, while Bakugou stuffs his hero costume into his. While she waits for him, Tsuyu pulls out her phone. She has two texts - from Miruko.

 Miruko-sensei ／(=⌒×⌒=)＼: Come back up. There’s something I want to talk to you about.

 Miruko-sensei ／(=⌒×⌒=)＼: Don’t tell the others.

Strange.

“Bakugou, Kodai,” she says, slipping her phone into her pocket. “I have a few questions for Miruko-sensei. You can head back without me.”

“Tch.” Bakugou slams his locker closed. “I wasn’t gonna wait for you.”

Kodai grins. “Thanks for letting us know. We’ll see you back at the dorms!”

Odd,  Tsuyu thinks.  Is she really going right back to school this time? In the last week since the start of their work study internship, Kodai hasn’t once accompanied them back to U.A. at the end of the day. Tsuyu is sure to invite her every time, but Kodai always has an excuse, whether it’s to go shopping, or visit her aunt, or babysit her cousin, or catch a movie with friends from middle school. Tsuyu is convinced she's making it up. She wonders what secret Kodai’s really hiding. Maybe it’s a secret lover, from a rival school? Kodai seems like the type to keep her love life to herself. How romantic!

Tsuyu hops back up to Miruko’s office, where the hero is sitting on the edge of one of the planters, munching on a carrot, deep in thought. Tsuyu sits down beside her.

Crunch.  Miruko shoves the rest off the carrot into her mouth, stem and all.

“Froppy. I need you to do me a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“It’s about Rule,” she says. “She’s hiding something from me. I want to know what.”

Tsuyu raises her brows. “You want me to spy on her?”

“We both know she’s not going where she says she’s going after work.” Tsuyu’s surprised: she didn’t realize Miruko was paying so much attention. That’s the Number Three Hero, though. Always ahead of the game. “I’m worried about her. I don’t want any of my interns getting into trouble.”

Tsuyu definitely has qualms with spying on a classmate, a coworker. A friend, maybe? Tsuyu doesn't think they're friends quite yet. If she spies on her, though, they might never become friends.

But Miruko’s asking her to do this. And Tsuyu would be lying if she said she doesn’t want to know what Kodai is up to.

“Hey.” Miruko stands up and faces Tsuyu. “I know it might be uncomfortable. And it would be extra work. But I trust you with this.”

Tsuyu taps her fingers together. She wonders if this is a test, if Miruko’s asking her to prove herself.  Be flexible.  Does this have something to do with Miruko’s feedback from earlier? “Alright.”

“You can start by following her after patrol, tomorrow,” Miruko says. She smiles and ruffles Tsuyu’s hair. “Thank you, Tsuyu.”

Tsuyu matches her grin. “Of course.”

Tsuyu spends the train ride home regretting not asking Miruko what she meant by “be flexible.” Tsuyu likes Miruko a lot. She was excited when Miruko scouted her out; not only is Miruko the Number Three hero, but Tsuyu has never had a mentor with an animal-mutant type quirk like hers before. Learning from her has been incredible; she’s building up strength, especially in her legs, that she never knew she had before.

But sometimes her mentor is hard to read. Like Bakugou, she speaks better with her actions than her words.

Tsuyu doesn’t think she means physically flexible. As a frog, she’s pretty limber, isn’t she? So it must be metaphorical - but Tsuyu isn’t good with metaphors. Flexible about what? Her battle strategies? Her teamwork, or communication skills? The direction of her patrol routes?

Whatever it is, Tsuyu hopes she can figure it out by the end of their internship and make Miruko proud.

Next evening’s patrol starts out a quiet one. No major villain attacks, or minor villain attacks, no purse snatchers or jaywalkers. Not even an old lady to help across the street.

And it would have been quiet - if Bakugou would stop complaining.

“....doesn’t think I’m compassionate...what the fuck, I’m compassionate as hell!”

Tsuyu knows Bakugou can be crude and sometimes a little airheaded when it comes to matters of social civility, but this level of obliviousness is a lot, even coming from him. “No you’re not,” she says.

Bakugou raises his fist and glares at her. “Say that again and I’ll kill you.”

A gentle laugh comes from behind them. “Case and point,” Kodai says.

Bakugou whips around to direct his fury at her. “Hah?”

Kodai jogs ahead of them, nuts and bolts clinking around in her shoulder pouch, and hits the button for the walkway. The sun is just beginning its descent, casting long shadows of tall buildings across the roads. Everyone’s just gotten home from work, so aside from a few stragglers, the streets are mostly empty.

On the other side of the street is a little girl walking with an older couple, probably her grandparents, crying. Her grandparents are trying to cheer her up, but big Ghibli tears continue to flow from the girl’s buglike, compound eyes. Kodai plucks a small dandelion growing through a crack in the concrete and uses her quirk, Size, to grow it to the size of a baseball.

The walk sign turns green. “Instead of listening to what Tsuyu had to say, you dismissed her and threatened to kill her,” Kodai says. As they pass by the family, she hands the giant dandelion to the little girl, who gasps in delight.

Once they’ve reached the other side of the street, she mutters, “Usually that would be called a ‘criminal threat.’”

From across the street, they hear the little girl shout, “Thank you hero Onee-san!”

Kodai looks over her shoulder and calls, “Stay safe out there!”

A block goes by. Tsuyu is just setting into the nice silence when Bakugou asks, “What the fuck was that?”

“That was called being compassionate,” Tsuyu says. “Making an effort to care for others who are in need.”

“Compassion isn’t confined to the battlefield,” Kodai says. “In fact,” her voice drops an octave, “when the battle is over...that’s when it’s needed the most.”

For the rest of the patrol, Bakugou doesn’t say a word. It's a nice change of pace.

Patrol ends without anything else interesting happening. After giving Kodai the obligatory offer to head back to campus together - to which she says she actually promised to help her cousin with her algebra homework, and runs on ahead of them - Tsuyu begins to head out with Bakugou.

Tsuyu stops right at the doors to the hero agency and tells Bakugou she forgot she had some shopping to do, so he can go on without her.

“ ’s the second day in a row you’re ditching me.”

Tsuyu tilts her head. She’s not sure what he means by that. Is he mad? “Oh, I’m sorry - ”

“I don’t fucking care!” Bakugou interjects. He throws his backpack over his shoulder and treks on ahead. “See you to-fucking-morrow.”

“Bye.”

She watches Bakugou round the corner before hurrying back inside and changing into her hero costume. She rummages through her bag to pull out the tracker she had Momo make for her yesterday. The other part of it, creating the homing signal, should be at the bottom of Kodai’s bag, where Tsuyu had hidden it before their patrol.

Sure enough, the dot indicating Kodai’s position is on the move, crossing from the downtown area to the poor district of the city. Tsuyu tucks the device into a pocket of her utility belt and hops out the window.

She jumps gracefully from building to building, putting as much power into her legs as possible, like Miruko has taught her. Kodai winds through numerous side streets and alleyways, all the way to the heart of the slums. She seriously doubts that this is where Kodai’s cousin lives - if Tsuyu had to guess from her neatly ironed uniform and expensive bookbag, Kodai’s family is somewhat wealthy. Maybe their families don’t get along well? Then why would Kodai be helping her cousin in the first place?

By the time Tsuyu catches up to Kodai, the sky is a deep, dark blue. To the west, the horizon etched in white from the last light of the day. It provides just enough light to see where Kodai's finally stopped. The neighborhood isn’t so much a neighborhood as it is a dozen crimped metal sheets smushed together to form a few buildings. Telephone wires stretch like spiders above squat buildings mottled with water stains, rusted awnings, and blue tarpaulins. Old bikes litter the dry, cracked asphalt. White shirts with yellow armpit stains and plaid dresses with holes in them hang from balconies barely large enough to stand on.

Kodai stands in the shadow of the buildings, on the only patch of green grass visible from this high up.

She’s not going into any buildings. There’s no algebra in sight. Most tellingly, Kodai is wearing her hero costume. The tip of the metal crest on her helmet glints in the fading light.

It seems that Miruko was right - she’s up to something.

Half a dozen dogs start barking. A few run up to Kodai and start licking her. Slowly, people stream out of their apartments and tents and crowd around Kodai.

“Rule is here!”

“Rule!”

“She’s back!”

Kodai smiles at all the people that come to see her. Just like Miruko, her smile is infectious. The people around her smile, too. The streetlights - at least the ones that still work - turn on, illuminating Kodai in a fluorescent glow.  She looks like a hero, Tsuyu thinks.

Someone hands her a plastic bag. Tsuyu can’t see what it is, but Kodai rips open the bag, digs her hand in and scoops out a handful of something brown. She places it on the ground and touches her fingers together. Immediately, the small handful grows into a giant pile of round, brown rocks. The dogs rush over, tails wagging. A few of the adults hammer at the rocks with big books and odd tools, and flakes of brown start to chip away. The dogs slurp up the bits in a happy, drooling mess.  Oh, it’s dog food.  

Each person begins to hand Kodai something - an older woman hands her a container of pills, a young mother hands her a loaf of bread, a man hands her a near-empty tube of toothpaste, a child hands her a tiny action figure. Kodai makes everything bigger, and the people come away smiling.

Someone tries to hand her coins. Kodai laughs and turns them away. Tsuyu wonders if they were offering her payment or if they wanted her to make the money bigger, which doesn’t sound very helpful. Big coins didn’t mean they were worth more. In fact, they might not be worth anything then, considering -

  Pfftt pop pop

Tsuyu twists around, hands up, ready to defend herself. The popping sound came from behind her. She doesn’t see anyone on the roof with her: only a few vents - one on the left, the other on the right - and a door rising up from the middle. A few dirty buckets and cardboard boxes are strewn along the edges of the building, but it’s hard to make out anything in the darkness.

A slight scraping sound comes from behind the left vent.

That’s when the smell hits her skin. Smoke. Smoke from an explosion. A type of explosion Tsuyu is very familiar with.

“...Bakugou?”

Another bang, followed by a bucket rolling out from behind the vent.

Tsuyu walks over to the vent. There is Bakugou, crouched behind it, in his full hero costume, scowl on his lips.

Tsuyu cocks her head and puts a finger to her chin. “Why are you here?”

“You’re not supposed to know I’m here,” he says.

“That’s what I surmised. From your attempt at sneaking.”

Bakugou jumps up. “Attempt?!”

“I found you quite easily. You’re not very stealthy.”

Bakugou growls.

“So why are you here?”

Bakugou glares at her for a moment. She finds it a little funny that Bakugou still tries to scare her with his glares; she’s never found them that intimidating. She just blinks at him and waits.

“That rabbit asked me to follow you,” he relents. “She said you were looking after Kodai.”

Tsuyu can’t help but deflate a little. Even with her mixed feelings about Miruko’s request, she had taken pride in the fact that Miruko had asked  her, no one else. Evidently that was not the case.  I trust you with this. Was that really true? Then why had she sent Bakugou to spy on her? She can’t help but think that Miruko doesn’t trust her after all.

Bakugou walks over to the edge of the roof and peers down at the scene below. “So what’s up with Nuts and Bolts?”

Tsuyu shakes her head. She still has a job to do; she can worry about personal matters later. She joins Bakugou, watching Kodai enlarge a blanket for a family with six kids. “I think she’s using her quirk illegally.”

“Huh.”

They watch her for a few minutes. A half dozen rice cakes, a jar of soap, a clothing line. She shrinks parts of an adult’s bike strategically and hands it off to one of the children. After than one, she sits down and rubs her head. She must be exhausted by now, still using her quirk after a full day of training and patrol.

The unregulated use of quirks is illegal. The unregulated use of quirks in interference with trade and economics is  highly illegal - she knows that from what Momo’s told her. But that’s exactly what Kodai is doing: using her quirk to giantize disadvantaged peoples’ belongings, so they would last longer, and wouldn’t have to buy new things so quickly.

“ ’s charity work,” Bakugou summarizes.

Tsuyu nods. “Illegal charity work.”

Tsuyu and Bakugou walk back to the hero agency in relative silence. They’re both deep in thought. Tsuyu’s at a loss for what to do. On one hand, what Kodai is doing is clearly illegal. If the police found out what she was doing, they would arrest her. And anyone who sees illegal activity is obligated to report it. Not reporting it is the same as hiding it, which is the same as being an accomplice…

But on the other hand, Kodai is doing a good thing. She’s helping the poor, in a way heroes rarely help them. Using her quirk in a way Tsuyu, or Bakugou, or most heroes could never hope to. She can’t help but recall what Kodai said earlier that day: Compassion isn’t confined to the battlefield. In fact, when the battle is over...that’s when it’s needed the most.

Tsuyu’s also thinking about what Bakugou’s thinking. Will he turn her in? Tell Miruko the truth about what Kodai's doing? Bakugou’s a total rule follower - but only when it suits him. Is this one of those times? Or will Bakugou stay true to the laws of this world?

They stop outside the agency doors and look up at the tall, pristine windows leading to the top floor, where the lights are still on. Miruko must be waiting for them. “What do we tell her?”

Bakugou thinks for a moment. “Nothing,” he says. “For now. We should...we need to collect more information.”

Tsuyu lets out the breath she was holding. “Right.” Bakugou’s decision takes some weight off her shoulders. The'll wait - that gives them more time to think and figure out what the heroic thing to do is.

 Miruko’s bunnies ⌒( •ㅅ• )⌒:

Kodai-chan: could we meet before we head to miruko’s?

Me: sure :(¦)

Bakugou-chan: What the fuck for?

Kodai-chan: i’ll tell you when we meet

Nine o’clock is when they need to be at Miruko’s agency to start suiting up. It’s eight right now. The morning air is still crisp with last night’s dew. Tsuyu rolls up her sleeves; she loves the sensation of misty air on her skin. It makes her feel at home.

Kodai stands with her head high, stance firm, but she won’t look directly at them. Tsuyu can sense she’s nervous.

“Spit it out, Bolts,” Bakugou says. “We’ll miss the train if you take too long to open your fucking mouth.”

She takes a deep breath, then lets it out.

“I know you guys saw me yesterday.”

Tsuyu’s eyebrows raise. “You saw us?”  She grimaces; apparently Bakugou isn’t the only one who needs to work on their stealthiness.

“It’s hard to miss a frog and a guy with that ridiculous mask stomping around a rooftop.”

“It’s not ridiculous,” Bakugou retorts. “It’s cool as hell.”

“It also makes you easy to spot.”

“Tch.”

Kodai reaches into her bag. “Plus, I found this.” She holds up the circular tracking device.

Tsuyu melts. “Oh…” Just seeing it makes her feel ten times more guilty. Tailing her was bad enough, but the invasive equipment...that feels extra dirty.

Kodai tosses it to the ground and crushes it with her foot. “I’ll get straight to the point. Why were you guys following me?”

Tsuyu glances at Bakugou. He looks back at her. They both seem to have the same question in mind: should they tell her the truth? That Miruko was the one who them to spy on her?

“Who’s not opening their mouth now?” Kodai says. “Spit it out.”

“We wanted to know where you were going all the time,” Tsuyu says. Technically, it’s not a lie. “Your excuses weren’t very convincing.”

Kodai’s face flushes pink. “Oh.”

“You really think we were gonna buy you ditching us every fucking day?” Bakugou adds. “Hell no. We knew you were up to something fishy. Just wanted to know what it was.”

“Okay.” Kodai tucks her hair behind her ears, flushed red from the morning chill. “So now that you know, will you drop it?”

Tsuyu looks to her feet. Bakugou throws his head to the side and looks at the sky. Kodai must know they can’t just drop it. They’re heroes in training; they have more of a duty than anyone to uphold the laws.

“Look.” Kodai grabs them both by the tie and pulls them in close, until they’re all nearly nose to nose. “I know you think it’s wrong. But those people...if they can eat, if they can get their medicine, then they don’t have to steal. And if they don’t have to steal, then they don’t have to become villains.”

Kodai releases their ties and pushes them back. She hoists her bag over her shoulder and heads for the front gates.

“That’s less work for us, right?” she calls.

Bakugou’s face is as red as Kirishima’s hair and his snarl matches that of a wild dog. Tsuyu thinks his head might explode instead of his hands. He wrenches his tie back into place and mutters to himself. “Goddamn bitch how dare she fucking touch me…gonna explode her fucking face off if she tries that shit again...”

“Let’s get going!” Kodai shouts. “We don’t want to miss our train, right?”

Tsuyu would argue that technically, she never told Kodai they would drop it. So it’s not dishonest to follow her again.

Guilt churns in her gut anyways.

This time, since they don’t have a tracker, she and Bakugou tail her from the moment she leaves the agency that evening. Discretion, they agree, is key. Instead of their costumes, they don their school uniforms. (And a few parts of their costumes: Tsuyu takes her goggles and utility belt. Bakugou takes his string of mini grenades. They have different priorities.) They have a general idea of where she’s heading, so even though they’re not positive she’s going to the exact same neighborhood as last time, they can afford to hang back a bit.

Without his costume, Bakugou is leagues less noticeable and intimidating. Even without them, his general angry demeanor alone would usually make him stand out, but right now he doesn’t look that angry. His brows aren’t furrowed, and his jaw isn’t clenched tight. He’s exchanged his laser-like glare for a thousand yard stare. If Tsuyu had to name it, she’d call this look..contemplative.

“Are you thinking about what Kodai told us this morning?” she asks.

Bakugou grunts in acknowledgement, but doesn’t actually deign to answer.

They’re getting closer to the slums, so they switch from main streets to side streets. Kodai is several blocks ahead, still heading in the same direction as yesterday.

Instead of pressing Bakugou on the issue of Kodai, she asks another question that’s been on her mind since internships started.

“Why did you choose Miruko for work study?”

“Simple,” Bakugou says. “Endeavor ain’t taking interns this session. The rabbit was the next highest ranked hero to give me an offer.”

“Oh,” Tsuyu says. That answer is very straightforward - very Bakugou. “Why do you think Miruko asked for you?”

Bakugou shrugs. “I’m the best.”

Another very Bakugou-like answer. “I think it’s because you are both very alike.”

Bakugou raises a brow.

“You’re both physically strong, that’s true. But you also both have strong personalities. A loud conviction that you’ll win shines through you. You’re very charismatic, Bakugou, when you try to be. Miruko knows how to use her attitude in a heroic way - and I think she wants to teach that to you.”

Bakugou doesn’t have an answer for that. He just gazes ahead. Contemplating.

This time, they pick a different rooftop. Ideally, they would get closer, to hear what kind of conversations Kodai’s having with these citizens. Tsuyu wishes Jirou or Tooru were here, but they have their own internships to worry about. Plus she wouldn’t want to drag them into this mess. Spying on a classmate isn’t fun.

Kodai carries out the same ritual as last time. She stands in the one green patch, the dogs start barking, and people file out of their homes. Tonight, there’s even more people; they come pouring in from other neighborhoods. They seem to have established a rule among themselves: everyone gets to bring Kodai one item a night to giantize or shrink.

“What’s that?” Bakugou points to someone in line, carrying something big and white. Tsuyu turns her goggles on them, thankful that Hatsume upgraded them to have nightvision.

“It’s a cake.”

“A cake?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the man with the cake presents it to Kodai. He gestures to an older man standing off to the side. The older man is pushed by the crowd up to where Kodai and the cake man are. Kodai shakes his hand and takes the cake. She places it on the ground a few feet away from them, then gestures for people to move out of the way. She taps her fingers together. The cake grows and grows until it’s almost as tall as her and several meters wide. The pastry is truly giant, taking up nearly half of the courtyard. From up here, it looks like a blinding patch of snow in the middle of a nighttime desert.

The whole neighbor cheers and begins to sing happy birthday.

This is a kind of joy Tsuyu doesn’t often see as a hero. So far she’s been content just knowing that she’s helped save lives - and if that’s all she ever did, she would still be content - but seeing this, she remembers why she wants to save lives. She wants to be as important to a community as Kodai is to this one. She wants to bring people joy.

There’s no such thing as bad joy, is there? Joy that doesn’t harm anyone?

What’s the point of quirks if they can’t be used to help people?

“Oi, froggy.”

“I told you you can call me Tsuyu.”

“Just look.”

Two figures are rounding the corner one street over. They’re dressed in flashy colors and have a sort of swagger to the way they walk. It appears to be a hero patrol. And they’re pointing at Kodai’s neighborhood.

“I think they see the cake,” Tsuyu says. She looks to Bakugou. “That’s not good.”

Bakugou looks at the patrol, and then at Kodai, then back at the patrol.

He strips off his U.A. blazer and shirt and throws it on the ground, clad in just his tank top. Then he grabs Tsuyu’s goggles off of her head. “I’m borrowing this. Get them to clear out. I’ll buy you time.”

“Bakugou - wait - ”

“Are you gonna do it or not?” Bakugou asks, pulling the goggles over his head.

Is hiding Kodai’s misdeeds a heroic action? Evidently Bakugou thinks so.

And honestly? So does Tsuyu.

She nods. “Of course I am.”

Bakugou grins wide. He grins at her in a way that says,  I’ll get us through this. Just watch me . And Tsuyu smiles back - because Bakugou’s smile is a little infectious, too. Maybe he really is learning from Miruko.

And with that, he hurdles himself off the edge of the roof.

Tsuyu runs after him. She watches him land gracefully on the ground, cushioned by a few small explosions.

“Hey idiots!” he yells at the hero patrol. Immediately he has their attention. “Stain’s memory lives on! You guys are all fakes!”

The moment the heroes begin heading toward him, Tsuyu leaps to the other side of the rooftop and begins scaling down the side. She pushes her way through the crowd surrounding Kodai until she locks eyes with her classmate.

The people’s hero looks at her in shock. “Froppy - what’re you doing here?”

“You all need to clear out!” she yells as quietly as she can, turning in a circle to address as many people as she can. “There’s a hero patrol right around the corner. If they find you all here - ” she points at Kodai, “ - they’ll take her away.”

Kodai’s eyes widen in understanding. “Listen to Froppy!” she calls. “Everyone, go back to your homes! Take all your belongings!”

Immediately, the crowd disperses. It’s clear these people trust Kodai, and want her to stay safe. Watching them hurry to follow Kodai’s orders makes Tsuyu’s heart ache, but in a good way.

“We need to get rid of this cake,” Tsuyu says.

Kodai nods. She touches the cake again and touches her fingers together. It shrinks until it’s only the size of a mushroom. Kodai picks it up and hands it to the elderly man who’s birthday it is, who’s still standing there in shock. “Please go inside, sir. I promise when this is over I’ll buy you a new cake.”

He nods and waddles away, guided by one of the other residents. “Thank you, Rule…”

Tsuyu grabs Kodai’s arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

Before Kodai can respond, Tsuyu hears the pounding of footsteps against concrete coming from up ahead. Tsuyu leaps up and onto the side of the nearest apartment building, thrusts her tongue out, wraps it around Kodai’s waist, and flings her up to the top of the roof.

It’s not a moment too soon. The hero patrol duo rushes into the middle of the courtyard. Tsuyu camouflages herself against the building.

They look around. “Where the hell did that brat go?”

“God, we lost him!” the other shouts. “If I ever see that kid again I’m gonna - I’m gonna - give him a harsh talking to!”

“You tell’em, buddy…”

They sniff around a bit - one of them, who has an extremely long nose, really does sniff - and ask a few of the residents if they’ve seen anything unusual, to which they all say they haven’t. Eventually, the patrol moves on.

Tsuyu swears she feels the neighborhood let out a collective breath.

She climbs up the side of the building and onto the roof, where Kodai sits with her legs crossed. She looks up when Tsuyu joins her.

“Sorry about throwing you up here,” Tsuyu says. “Are you hurt at all?”

Kodai shakes her head.

Tsuyu cocks her head and crouches next to Kodai. “Are you all right?”

Kodai smiles at her, but Tsuyu doesn’t think it’s a real smile. “You guys were following me again.”

Her stomach drops. A guilty pulse thrums through her.

“Yeah, we were,” comes a voice from behind her.

Tsuyu looks around - Bakugou, still in just a tank top, carrying his blazer and her goggles. He trudges over to them and drops Tsuyu’s goggles into her lap. “Good think we were, too.”

Kodai looks down at her feet. “Yeah. Thank you.”

She picks herself up and dusts off her knees, which are covered in dirt and dust from the unkempt rooftop. She runs her hands along her shoulder straps and bites her lip. “Are you going to tell?” Kodai says. It's hard to see in the poor lighting, but Tsuyu swears her eyes look misty.

Bakugou scoffs. “What, after all of that?”

She lets out a little laugh. “I don’t know...maybe you just wanted to be the ones to turn me in.”

“Turn you in for what?” Bakugou barks. “I didn’t see you doing anything wrong.”

Tsuyu nods. “You were doing your hero duty and saving people.”

Kodai looks at her, as if asking if that’s really true. Tsuyu lets their eye contact speak for her.

This time when Kodai smiles, it’s genuine. And all of Tsuyu's discomfort evaporates. “I know,” Kodai says. “I know...”

“So. What do you have to tell me?”

Tsuyu stands next to Bakugou in the middle of Miruko’s office, feeling the fear that prey feel when they’re in the middle of an open field. Miruko stands before them, ears raised to attention.

Bakugou speaks first. “She’s going where she says she’s fucking going.”

“Kodai has a thriving social life,” Tsuyu puts in.

Miruko looks at them for a long moment. Tsuyu can’t read her. She counts the seconds that go by as Miruko looks between them, waiting for one to crack.

Then she smiles. “Very good. Thank you both. You’re dismissed.”

For the rest of their time as Miruko’s interns, Kodai continues going to the neighborhood, and surrounding neighborhoods, every day. Tsuyu and Bakugou may or may not accompany her to keep watch for hero patrols and cops. They may or may not gain some fans. Tsuyu may or may not point out one of the little boys wearing two oranges sashes over his shirt to form an X. She may or may not get a glimpse of Bakugou’s furious blush before he hides his face behind his mask.

The rest of her time with Miruko is uneventful. Well, anything is uneventful compared to last year’s shenanigans. She does learn a lot from the Rabbit Hero, though. On her last day, she’s sure to thank her profusely.

“You did good kid,” Miruko tells her, patting her on the head. “Now, I know you wanna ask me something.”

How does she know? Maybe this is the intuition of a hero. Tsuyu fiddles her fingers for a moment before working up the courage to ask, “For that assignment...why did you send Bakugou, too?”

Miruko nods, as if this is what she expected Tsuyu to ask. “Just extra insurance, kiddo,” Miruko says. “Plus, thought you could learn something from each other.”

Tsuyu cocks her head, and connects the dots. “Is Bakugou...flexible?”

“HAH!” Miruko laughs. “That kid’s about as pliable as a steel beam.” Miruko looks over where Bakugou furiously watering carrots. “But even steel beams have their melting points.”

Tsuyu nods. That sounds wise. She isn’t quite sure what Miruko means, but Tsuyu thinks she can draw her own conclusions.

The teachers catch on, eventually. Or the cops, or a hero patrol. The point is someone noticed, and disciplinary action was taken.

Kodai hadn’t told Tsuyu or Bakugou, but Tsuyu learns, after everything comes out, that she continued to sneak off campus to feed the neighborhood even after their internship was over.

This was always going to be the outcome, wasn’t it? Even though Bakugou and Tsuyu kept quiet. It was only a matter of time.

Kodai is confined to campus. If Miruko hadn’t fought on her behalf, she might have been expelled, or even arrested. Her punishment is simply that she isn’t allowed to leave U.A. without adult supervision, and if she’s caught using her quirk for ‘non-heroic deeds’ again, she could face prison time.

Everyone knows that her deeds were  always heroic. The truth is that bad people aren’t the only type of villains in this world. Those people were also battling a villain - just not one heroes could beat in a fight.

The more she thinks about it, the stronger and deeper Tsuyu’s suspicion grows: that Miruko had wanted Tsuyu and Bakugou to follow Kodai so they could keep her out of trouble.  

Tsuyu’s hovering by one of the couches in the common room, not quite paying attention as Ashido and Tooru debate over who the most attractive person in class 2-B is (“It’s obviously Kuroiro,” Ashido says. “What do you mean  obviously ?” Tooru retorts. “Have you seen Kendo’s adorable face?”), thinking about Kodai, and about what it means to use your quirk to help people. Would this world be better if most people were allowed to use their quirks for good? Where could the line be drawn? Would it then be moral to force someone with a beneficial quirk like Momo’s to provide public goods? It gets even more complicated the more quirks you consider, like water generating quirks, or -

“What’re you standing around for?”

Tsuyu’s drawn out of her thoughts by the sharp voice. Bakugou is holding a tray with a bowl full of something steaming. From the scrumptious smell steeping through her skin she guesses it’s oden. “Are you gonna come with me to 2-B’s dorms or what?”

Tsuyu smiles. She’s almost mad she didn’t think to visit Kodai sooner. Although she doubts she could have made her food as delicious as what Bakugou's holding. “That’s a great idea.”

“Good.” She hears him mutter: “...Don’t want to be a fucking creep going to a girl’s room by myself...”

As they walk to class 2-B’s dorm, they pass by their old 1-A dorm. A wave of nostalgia washes over her. So much happened last year to change them as a class and to change each one of them as an individual. Kodai has certainly grown in confidence; she was so shy last year, Tsuyu didn’t even know who she was.  Tsuyu doesn’t think her first year self would even recognize the Bakugou that’s walking alongside her now, bringing warm food to a friend going through a rough patch. And Tsuyu’s changed as well.

She’s become more flexible.

The urge to say something that she’s held with her a long time bubbles up and out of her mouth.

“I’m sorry."

Bakugou stops and looks at her funny. “The hell are you apologizing for?”

“That time, last year,” she says. “I didn’t...I didn’t try to save you.”

Bakugou goes quiet. Ambient night sounds - crickets chirping, wind through the tree - feel louder than ever. “I didn’t need you to save me."

“I know. But...I should have. I wasn’t being flexible in my compassion.”

Bakugou’s eyes widen. He looks to the side, thumbs rubbing against the side of the tray. “Don’t - you don’t have to...whatever. Just - just forget about it.”

“I’m not going to. It’ll remind me, the next time I’m faced with that situation, what a hero should do. ”

What is a hero? Someone who shows compassion to people, no matter what that law says.

Bakugou grunts in what she thinks is agreement. “Yeah. Now let’s deliver Nuts and Bolts some fucking soup.”

“I know you know her name is Kodai.”

“Fuck off.”

_________________________

ao3 | based on this hc | more like this

_________________________

#bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha fanfiction #bnha fic #bakugou katsuki #tsuyu asui #kodai yui #adventures with bakugou #my writing

[vitavitale]

              drabble II               — Griffon ;

                 (for easier reading, find this on AO3)

Hell itself would not dare to match the fire and brimstone spewed from his mouth. With a sharp eye, sharpened wit and talons to complement, he was a diabolical thing armed to the nines. Capable of decimating any with a word as with a bolt of lightning; it was all the same to him and he was cocky about it. That was how he'd lived day in and day out and the underworld had no love for him. It was just as well that he was plucked from it without will or warrant—he wouldn't miss it. But the nerve to move him without his consent! It was unjust! Never before had he experienced such a thing, and he wished he hadn't in the seconds that pulled him across realms to finally settle him atop an inverted pentagram, surrounded by the flames of candles that danced wildly in greeting. All at once there was darkness and points of light before his vision, and in his alarm he darted all about the confining space out of raw panic to seize control over the circumstances. Heavily his wings beat, forceful were the gusts produced and genuine were his shrieks of surprise. All at once the world had changed and home was far and away—and he'd been here before in a distant time, though not in this room and not in the company of child sporting a head of the whitest white.

A wild animal caged, subdued without even knowing it at the hands of...a child!

A child with white hair!

He'd seen him when he arrived; yes, he remembered—panic fogged the mind, but memory was fresh and vivid and he'd stopped scrambling to find a perch atop the wardrobe from which he could spy the boy, gather a good look at him for the first time (and his bearings in the process). From above he peered down, wary at first before he'd realized the reality of things: the boy was a human, he was alone, and he'd looked twice as alarmed, almost frightened.

You've got to be kidding me.

“Hey, you're just a little pipsqueak, aren't you?” The demon's voice, edging on disdainful, emerged dauntlessly and, as if a finger, pointed accusingly at the runt beneath him. The sight was pathetic: the child had backed up in retreat of the beast and stared wide-eyed at him, donning a pallor that even the demon could see in the dark. And should he dare to think that this little creature was responsible for his change of environment? A demon's pride would not suffer that.

Narrowing his eyes, he craned his neck to intimidate the boy. “Demons are bad news, kid. Didn't your parents ever tell you?”

Wordless boy, gawking up at the demon he'd invited into his space. Did the fiend's mastery over language flabbergast him? “Cat got your tongue or what?” wondered the demon with impatience. He wasn't sure what to make of him—but his silence was deafening and something about him gave the demon some small pause. It was the white hair that did it, chiefly, among more, and he could sense it in the air. Not only the remnants of magic used, but an element buried deep within that child that the avian demon could not mistake. His head canted as he mused, eyes fixed on the boy who'd taken the momentary inactivity to step forward and make his own voice heard.

“Y–you can talk.”

What a meek little thing! It would have been hilarious if it'd not first been insulting. To imagine that he conjured a demon all on his lonesome? Unacceptable.

“For a minute there I thought you couldn't,” ragged the fiend. “Anyway, it's been wild, but I've got places to be, so make with the hocus pocus and send me back.”

“I can't.”

“What comes in goes out, kid. I don't know how you learned to do it, but you can, so we're not gonna argue that.” A glimmer in golden eyes—he was being smart, cunning, derisive, and he wanted only to cut to the chase. “You send me back now and I'll forget this ever happened. Deal?” If he could have done it himself, he would have. But he was knowledgeable of the sorts of rites that conjured the likes of him and of their conditions, and he'd confidently assumed the little sorcerer had closed the opening between realms and cut off the avian demon's every means of returning to his land. Irritatingly, he had to depend on the boy for his freedom.

“I don't know how. Even if I did, I wouldn't let you go,” the boy countered resolutely.

“Wrong answer!” Electricity crackled all about the raptor's frame, illuminating his lustrous, intensely hued plumage, and with it he threatened, “Someone in here's gonna be toast if he doesn't smarten up!”

That appeared to do the trick. The boy shrank a little, quieting down beneath the demon's anger. He would not be given an inch for his arrogance. Foolishly, though, he refused to back down; he tried so hard to look strong, dauntless, but there was no mistaking his inexperience and the uncertainty that resulted. He hadn't known exactly how to proceed, and that was all the beast needed to turn things around in his favor.

“Now,” he started again, “the right answer, kid. We're not playing your game by a long shot.” How chilling the scene must have been to the child, his room enveloped by darkness save for what few candles remained lit and the electricity that infrequently popped about the demon looming above him as if an omen of evil. The beast was ready to lunge if he had to, and in his mind there was little that would stop him from punishing the human. Of course, he'd felt adequately comfortable where he'd waited, well out of reach should the boy grow a wild hair and retaliate. Such a mousy one as he, however, would not even think to go that far. And, yet, for all of his humanity, he was the most distinctive one of the lot the demon had ever come across. He did not quite enjoy this feeling, this supposed perception of a thing he could only have guessed to name in regard to the child staring into his many irises.

“I'm...not playing,” the little one came to say, “I need your help.” Still trying to find his courage; perhaps it should have been admirable that he could speak his mind and stand his ground, all things considered.

It was surely enough to rob the demon of any retort he may have planned on delivering. He fell quiet as he processed the surprise he'd been dealt, but not for embarrassingly long before he'd, plainly, uttered, “Come again?”

There was some small delay—uncertainty—before the boy spoke. “I need a demon. Please?”

Please?! Is he fucking nuts? The demon could not avoid the laughter that poured from his triple-hinged beak, and while it was short-lived it still must have bruised his audience. “Oh, come on. You expect me to buy that? You expect to get away with a feeble request like that? Hate to break it to you, but that's not gonna persuade anybody. Not a demon or another one of your kind. That's life.” He could tell the boy had soured. “What the hell could you possibly want with a demon anyway? We don't make good pets, trust me.” He hadn't taken the boy seriously in the slightest. He would have lied if he'd said his curiosity wasn't thoroughly arrested, but he had no plans on staying just to humor childish beliefs.

“I don't need a pet, I need a familiar. I need a demon, I need help, and you're the one that got here.”

“You shut your trap!” the fiend ordered through what sounded like frustration. Suddenly, the situation had taken a turn—or, in fact, this had been the case from the start, only he had not taken notice until it was spelled out for him. How could such a meek little thing have sought this? The demon may have been naive, underestimating humanity's desires and their relentless will to acquire whatever in the world they wanted. Maybe it started from a young age. How was he to know? He'd only ever been to the Earth once before, and not for the purpose of interacting with its primary inhabitants. This was all very new to him, and he hadn't a taste for it. His eyes were hard and pointed, glaring the child down into a semblance of submission. He looked startled, green eyes wide and brows furrowed, and he almost looked as if he wanted to retreat behind the fringe of white hugging his cheek.

“No-fucking-body needs a demon, especially not some mousy little twerp!” Cacophonous was the beast's voice, unnerving like steel scratching glass, and his rage was only too clear as he'd lost all control of himself. “I'm nobody's tool!” shouted he, lunging for the arrogant little fool. Electricity crackled and popped all across his body as he swooped low, and he dismissed the cry in fearful protest uttered by his prey. When contact should have followed, however, he stopped inches in front of him. No desire of his own, and yet in spite of his roaring instinct he could not touch the child. “What the hell?!” Not immobilized—he hovered where he'd stopped and searched for answers—but still unable to make a move against his intended target, who'd stared on in alarm, apprehension and subtle relief.

“What gives?!” the demon demanded, but he'd already had a guess.

“A protective spell... I'm not an idiot,” the child answered, his guard up, with some cunning on display as he'd decided to defend himself at last.

Damn! He's smarter than he looks!

How embarrassing for a demon supposedly so proud; privately he acknowledged the child's forethought, realizing he was sorely mistaken for assuming the boy would have let his inexperience dominate his sense of caution. Perhaps he wasn't playing a game after all. Seemingly having gained the upper hand (in reality, in possession of it all along), he silently forced the beast's hand. The raptor had tried to send a jolt through him to test his claim, and it worked in the little sorcerer's favor: the electricity did not touch him. What more evidence could either party wish for? The facts were concrete and so the demon was pushed back by failure alone. Maddening!

In the darkness of the enclosed room, the demon settled on a spot opposite the boy right behind the inverted pentagram. To say his feathers had been ruffled would have been a gross understatement. Wholly displeased, he watched the boy just as he'd been watched, not one of them making a move forward or backward—just as if they'd reached an impasse. Going this long without a response clued the child in to what went reeling inside the demon's mind, and the latter of the two was acutely aware that had been the case. This prompted the youth to speak first.

“I wouldn't be unprepared,” his voice came mildly.

“Bet you're feeling pretty smug right about now,” acknowledged the infernal bird, utterly reluctant and sour.

“I don't care… I only know that I need you.” He spoke quietly and candidly.

The demon now knew that he'd been restrained on all fronts, incapable of fighting back in his usual manner. Diplomacy might have worked, some negotiation, but he was not as tactful as those options would demand. He was at a loss and could now only hope that such spells placed over him would wear out before long. Arguing would not help anything, he learned, and decided that he may as well do nothing at all. He eyed the boy quizzically, so far unaware of what he'd intended and why. “What the hell gives you that idea, anyway?”

“I need help from you because...no one else can give it to me. I think tonight is my only opportunity, and...I don't have a lot of time to do this.” He stared into the demon's eyes, a soft pleading look painted upon his features and most notably over his brow.

“Fine,” the demon snapped dismissively, “but why? No one in their right mind would want that. So either you're out of your mind or you're an idiot after all.”

The boy was quiet, pensive for a moment though it was clear he'd become frustrated by the demon's contrary attitude. The fact that he hadn't an answer to give right when he'd been prompted said something about his uncertainty. Strangely, he sat down on his side of the floor as if he'd wanted to get comfortable. He crossed his legs, barefoot, and continued watching the feathered demon in his room. So tough a nut to crack, and by now the boy had already been deemed a little bit nutty. The demon pressed him unkindly, the faintest touch unsettled as far as the child's potential was concerned. The youth's voice returned, following an exhale, tamed by his thoughtfulness. “I won't be able to survive on my own. I can take care of myself, but not when it comes to everything. Like I'd said, there isn't anyone I know that can help me. I...had to resort to this, to conjure it for myself.”

“Uh… Huh?” the beast begged. “What, so you're on your own here? You're not messing with demons behind your parents' backs?”

The boy shook his head to respond without word.

“You lost me again.”

“I live with a witch. She's not...my mother. I've never known my father.” He sounded meek as if he'd suddenly lost heart. A somber veil cast its shadow over his face, and even in the darkness of the room the demon had taken notice. As far as the latter could tell, he wasn't putting on appearances but acted genuinely and spoke with an identical quality.

The story was punctured with holes, but some things had just begun to make sense and a handful of inferences could thus form. The child had no parents, then, and lived with a woman of questionable character (as far as the demon could surmise). It might have been an unhappy living, then, but he doubted that warranted the need for a demon's intervention of all things, so he offered his judgment: “I think you're exaggerating, kid.”

“It's the truth!”

“Hey, don't get all defensive with me. You got a problem with whomever you're living under but that doesn't have shit to do with me. Grow up big and strong, climb out the window and never look back. Easy as pie.”

“It's not about that,” the boy countered, his tone affected by a measure of exasperation. “I can't protect myself. Not...from her. After tonight, she will be cross with me. I have the feeling, and I will need someone beside me. But it's not only about her. I need more than that.” He really may have been as weak as he'd first been thought to be. Already he'd begun depending upon someone other than himself, believing he could not fend off dangers and fight for survival on his own. Given his fear, the way he would occasionally shrink into himself, the demon did believe that the boy was about as useless as he'd described himself to be, that he hadn't a clue what to do and he was missing a guiding hand to hold.

Was he searching for a babysitter?

“Look, kid, if you're wanting someone to take care of—“

“I need help killing a demon.”

“What? What? Are you mental?!” Feathers splayed from the sheer alarm of it. Eyes widened and stared at an opposing pair somehow controlled and at ease as they stared back, and they'd reflected a quality of resolve that had clearly welled up within the boy. The demon failed to peg him: what was his matter? Plain stupidity? That somehow seemed unlikely; the demon noted he was a rather bright human, all things considered—but this apparent obsession with magic and demons tapped into a reservoir of interest that was deeper than anticipated. The fiend had already assumed poorly of his mental state.

“I can't do it by myself. I know I'll have a better chance of killing the demon if I have another do it for me.” A logical argument made with a sudden glower come over his brow. “So...I'd need you for a few things.”

“That's a tall order, kid. Can't you leave well enough alone and focus on other shit? Like, I dunno, trading cards or something.”

“It's important. I have to do this—and I have to have a familiar.”

What an unusual set of circumstances. Rather troubling ones, too. The boy was adamant; determination burned in him like a hungry fire and it was noticeable in bright green dimmed only by the darkness of their surroundings. He belonged to the sort that would not simply “let go,” and such a fact became clear to the demon even before he'd learned of the child's motives. It left him largely speechless as he stood before his conjurer, contemplative as he'd searched his mind for something that would help him avoid the entanglement that awaited him. As if at another stalemate, the two endured in quiet for a short spell with eyes full on one another. The silence inevitably broke before long.

Composed, feathers flat and body back, the demon observed, “You're not like your other humans, I'll tell you that.”

A shrug from the boy.

“Any good reason why you got murder on your mind?” Reluctantly the question followed, and for it came an absolute refusal to answer. More silence, tense and...suddenly difficult to bear. The demon was respectful in his patience and waited a mite anxiously for something, but he could see unfavorable twitches in the boy's facial muscles and how he'd grimaced shyly as if meaning to keep it discreet; but his gaze did not turn away. He'd assumed the boy hadn't a reason, which may well prove the worst in contrast to having one as it would point toward wild impulsiveness. That, however, would not have made much difference in persuading he who was already reluctant to agree. “You have got a reason, right?” cautiously he wondered, believing he was on to something. “Don't tell me it's what all the cool kids are doing these days.”

Steadily, a shake of a head of white followed in response. “No.” Again his voice came meekly as if he'd forgotten his courage. “The demon shouldn't be here, but it's here...because of me. I let it in. What I did with you, but...I made a mistake and now it's out there.”

“I guess you are an idiot,” came the rebuke. “You're summoning demons left and right and then calling on more to clean up your messes! Actually, that's not idiotic: that's insane, irresponsible, however you wanna put it. You think you're playing games with us?”

“I've only done it once before!” the child defended earnestly. “That's why I'm trying to make things right now! If I could do it myself, I would, I swear it. But I just can't. I so badly need help—demon or human, it doesn't matter, but I need it.”

Those were pleas, genuine, desperate pleas for the thing he'd evidently sought to no end. Remorse had driven him all this way, then, and now he wanted to atone for the mistake he'd made. At least he'd shown some sense of responsibility, and it was oh-so such a human thing to feel. It rather struck the demon, impressed him when he'd seen how intensely such a frail little thing had felt in reality and this little eruption offered a small glimpse into that obscure head of his. The demon had to wonder, however, why the child conjured one of his fellow infernals in the very first place. What in the world had possessed him to try? To want it? So very reckless of a human that young to do—but, of course, the boy before him was not...whole. The white hair gave it away and it aided in reminding the demon of another with a head of white that he'd heard stories about, someone who seemed not to have a care in the world how they'd dealt with demons, or that they'd done it at all. Such must have been a trait shared among them.

Forgetting to acknowledge the boy's entreaty, the demon went on to inquire, “What is it with the white hair? What about it makes you go after demons like we're such hot shit?”

“My hair…?”

“You hear me loud and clear, kiddo. What's it do to your head? You're not an isolated incident, you know. I've heard about this sort of thing before.”

“What are you talking about?” He appeared to shrink behind the very hair in question.

“You're pulling my leg! Pretending you don't even know!” the demon said boastfully, raising his head as if to claim superiority. “Come on, kid, I can see right through you. You play the human role pretty damn perfectly, but that right there ruins your image.” He threw his eyes at the boy's hair, but in the dimly lit room the boy may well have not noticed the gesture. “That and the whole...'I'm cool with summoning demons like it's nothing' thing. Yeah, what human does that, eh?”

A furrow of brows over a countenance tinted orange through candlelight. “I don't understand you.” Insecure was his tone as he argued, gently. “A lot of humans summon demons and they don't mind. Satanists, devil worshipers, they all do it. I'm not one of those, but—”

“You're a damn weird kid for getting in on the act. Which proves my point: a full human you are not. Let's get it all out in the open, shall we?” The demon's tone was challenging now, and by the sharpness of his words it was discernible that he'd assumed some upper hand in the situation. He was subsequently not in the slightest moved by the boy's ascending eyebrows. “I know what you are, so come clean already.”

“I'm, I'm human!” the child answered earnestly, confounded by the demon's accusation.

“Yeah, yeah, but not one hundred percent. Maybe more like ninety percent. It's subtle, but it's there. You're not gonna fool any of my kind, unfortunately for you.”

“Why are you saying that?”

“Because I can feel it, kid! You think I'm stupid?”

The boy hadn't realized he'd become confrontational, leaning over the inverted pentagram on the floor as he'd subconsciously neared the fiend in his company—and it was also the same fiend who craned his neck and thrust his head forward in a slight attempt to buttonhole the little conjurer before him. As if prepared for a tussle, the demon's shoulders had tightened and squared. However, he successfully silenced his opponent who'd quickly shrank backward upon receiving his reply. Apparently, it was not one he'd counted on hearing. Upon seeing his submission, the demon backed off in turn. He observed, “That's more like it,” before allowing another question to probe his intellect. Through a glimmer in golden eyes, he continued: “I've been among humans before, so I can tell the difference. You're definitely giving off something with a little oomph. I guess it makes sense you can't feel it yourself.”

“What are you driving at?” the child pressed, anxious. “That I'm...less than human?”

“If you wanna put it that way. Depends on your point of view—but, come on, you knew this all along.”

“I swear to you I didn't.”

“You're screwin' with me,” the demon argued, impatience brewing beneath his plumage. “Something had to tip you off. One of your parents must've told you.”

“I only had my mother and she never told me anything like that.”

Oh, the demon might have pitied him if he cared; the child sounded conflicted, defensive, on edge, and he was persistent in his denial of the facts. He did not seem to enjoy any mention of his family, either, and the demon was rather certain that was where the key lied. Sullen was the boy's face, suddenly impartial toward the conversation. He'd gotten himself into this mess, so he would have to deal with it in spite of his personal discomfort. He may yet bore of the entire thing and let the demon go free.

Inconveniences aside, it was rather shocking that a human of limited blood had somehow not come to learn of that part of himself until a full-blooded demon had to point it out to him. Unbelievable, but...he'd really not known, had he? His behavior expressed as much and so far the demon knew not what to expect from so singular an adolescent. He could only brace himself for what other surprise may come. Scrutinized by the child whom he in turn watched deliberately, the avian demon found himself in a far more baffling, challenging position than he first thought. What next moves to consider were limited; he could only converse.

The evening was still aside from their activity, and the room he was confined to was only big enough for them. As far as it was perceptible, not another soul resided in the dwelling at present, so the master of the house had been away while little sorcerers dared to play. A sneaky devil in his own right! How much of the truth he'd told the demon was still up for debate, but based on his reactions he appeared...adequately sincere. As the night drew on, the child should begin to tire, but by now the demon had learned that conventions did not fly with his conjurer. If what he'd said before was true, however, then he really hadn't much more time to go—not the boy or his trapped quarry.

“Well,” the demon started after a moment's thought, “your mommy should've been upfront with you, unless she doesn't have a clue either, then what the heck?” When the boy's face soured doubly, the demon's voice sounded again. “Either way, you're mostly human... And the part that isn't has gotta be—hey, whaddya know, demon too! Give the kid a cigar!” That was more sarcasm than joy, of course. The boy had opened his mouth to protest with the meanest dip of his brow, but he was cut short before he could even take a breath.

“Hey, don't blame me for that. Take it up with whoever in your family. I'm laying out the facts as they are, kid, and I'm willing to bet on 'em.” With nonchalance the demon spoke; a likely irritating thing to an adolescent boy already on a nervous roller-coaster. “Brings me back to my point about the hair: it's a dead giveaway. Heard about someone else kinda like you, as a matter of fact.”

It dawned on him then that the witch the boy lived with might have known the same: that he was not as human as he appeared and, given his talents, was potentially of value to her. He was, after all, attempting to get away from her, or to acquire some protection against her. Might he have been on the right track all along? Was his story, then, believable and factual? To think seriously for a moment that the boy was in some danger introduced a strange suggestion of responsibility on the part of the demon summoned tonight. From it, his conscience balked; and it reminded him that he had a conscience after all. A damned pesky thing.

“You're not lying,” the child realized, “are you?”

“Demons are about as truthful as we are deceitful. I'm not the lying kind of asshole, at least. I call it like I see it and you can kiss my ass if you got a problem with that.” He laid out his philosophy in the simplest terms with the simplest candor. “Doesn't your mom have white hair?”

“No...”

“Ah.” No wonder the boy didn't have any more of a clue than his mother. Perhaps it was his father, then, with the mixed genes, and he claimed to never have known him. Sounded reasonable enough. “Gotta come from your pops, then. Maybe that's why you've never seen him: he split 'cause his half-demon ass had to hide...or whatever.” In less than a minute the feathered fiend made assumptions based on too little information and, from it, formed a story of the boy's origins that neither of them had any clear picture of. Yet, it was one that left the child pensive as he'd silently sat with his eyes downcast. He must have been ruminating over what he'd just learned.

Come to think of it, where was his mother?

“Why don't you go home to your mom, anyway?” the demon wondered without reserve. “Or did she kick you out for playing with black magic?”

If it had not been for the way hair shielded his face and his eyes traveling away, the demon might have picked up on the expression of a child sickened. He'd taken a moment before he spoke and after he had, it was with difficulty. He was barely heard. “She died. That's why I'm here.”

Oh. Oh. They both fell silent, looking away from one another. The quiet was heavy, thickened by a discomfort shared between the two parties, and it was a swift, aggressive sense of embarrassment that kept sealed the demon's beak. Thankfully, he did not have to break the silence; the boy did it for him, and it seemed as though the lad had dismissed everything talked about to return once more to the purpose of the conjuring rite. He stood, caught the demon's eyes, and balled his fists as he looked down upon the beast with a hardened brow.

“Will you be my familiar?” he asked, now with strength.

There was so much more to him than the demon could observe. Troubled waters, a storm brewing—would it wash him away without help?

“That's a point-blank question.”

“Well, answer it.”

“What if I say no?” wondered the beast, challenging mildly; wit combined with a curiosity gleamed in his eyes. “You know you can't make me. That's not how it works.”

The boy's lips did not move; he had no answer, he hadn't known how to. Thus his awareness of the circumstances was made clear. He'd known enough about what he'd gotten himself into to know, consequently, that making demands would be fruitless for him. Thus, defeat wormed into his muscles when his hands relaxed. There was such a hardness to his demeanor now, however, that contrasted how he'd behaved, even sounded, just a minute prior. “But,” carefully he'd said at last, “will you?”

“Be your demon, huh?” the other asked for clarification; he was answered with an affirmative nod of the head. “I dunno, you don't look like you're ready for that kind of responsibility.” That was a tease and he'd delivered it through a note of sarcasm. It visibly frustrated the child—and upon his countenance he wore a look of equal hopelessness. Ah, poor thing, subjecting himself to this as if he had no choice.  His options were right in front of him and he could have ended this now, but he didn't. The demon knew he wouldn't without a fight. Persistence alone suggested a kind of gravity that the demon did not care to humor, but it was obvious the boy's sentiments were vehement.

He was, perhaps, at an end where the demon before him was concerned; his final chance, his last hope defiant and jeering. The fiend did not imagine what that may have felt like for a boy of a still tender age, but for a fleeting second he felt some semblance of pity. No longer was he wary of the little sorcerer as he'd come to realize the extent of his prowess. The boy was certainly capable if he'd only hone his skills, but he was starting out. A fledgling in the area of magic craft.

With an air of confidence (not exactly exaggerated) the conjured entity watched the helpless boy, smart in the eyes as he went over his thoughts. His voice broke through when he arrived at a decision. “Let's recap: you're an orphan, a witch is after your ass and you got a demon to kill, so you're looking for a hand to help you take care of all three of those things.” The gist was understood and the boy offered no argument. “I got a deal for you, then. A real once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Oh, that really grabbed the child's attention! His eyes widened marginally and rather than frown, now he knitted his brows in confused interest. “What kind of deal?” he asked with a reasonable touch of skepticism.

“I can't be any kind of parent, and I won't be, but I can help you get out of here and carry out your assassination, and in return you send me back to the underworld. We both get what we want.” It was a risk without question for he would bind himself to terms he did not understand the full extent of—what sort of a demon would he have to face off against?—nor would he have any certainty of the boy's commitment to upholding his end of the bargain. He may well shackle the demon to his side once his goals are achieved! And, yet, the demon offered his services regardless. Little more was left to him, however: what other chance did he have of getting that human off his back and returning home? Thus, a compromise was his best bet. It would have to be—and if he'd learned anything at all about the boy, it would be that the latter would prefer to take something over nothing, and doubly so in his current conditions.

It was a brilliant plan.

The boy did not take more than a handful of seconds to respond through a flush of decisiveness. “Fine, yes. I accept.” He didn't sound satisfied, but he did sound anxious. Desperate. As the demon predicted, the child would take even a pittance over none at all. “Then we should proceed with the rite.”

“Whoa, slow it down, kid. You think I'm just gonna let you drag me right into your clutches so you can keep me indefinitely? Not a chance, we're not doing any rite.”

“You said yourself that demons are deceitful. What guarantee do I have that you're not going to get away from me the first chance you get? You could be lying about everything.”

Ah, rats. “You really are smarter than you look,” the demon commended reluctantly, “but, listen, I've been honest so far, right? I wouldn't bail out as soon as it's convenient… Some of us have integrity.” He only tried to be persuasive now, but the insincerity to his voice did not go unnoticed.

“One way or the other you'll be set free,” the boy argued, “but I'm the one who may come up with nothing if you leave before you have to.”

Such a good point, and there was always the potential for egregious selfishness from demons no matter the prevailing circumstances. The feathered beast currently in negotiations was well aware, therefore he would have to swallow any distaste in order to satisfy the child and inspire a cause for trust. It would make his departure so much easier. So, the demon finally acquiesced—complainingly all the while. “All right, all right, I'll go for it. But listen: you so much as try anything underhanded and I'll show you what hellish torment is like for the rest of your short, miserable life. You mark me?”

“My word might not be worth much to you, but you have it.”

Deal struck, fates in the short term sealed. The demon would follow through with his proposal as long as the child acted in kind. So it appeared that he would become someone's familiar after all. Well, that may not be the worst thing to happen so long as he could get out of it, and he would make damned sure the boy would break their bindings when the time came. “Let's get on it with, then. You know how to undo the, uh, binding thing, right?”

“In theory,” was the lad's reply, “since I've never done it before. But I'm sure I could manage it.”

“Yeah, well, I'm gonna make doubly sure of that. I know more about these kinda rites than you might think.”

Nothing was replied. The boy clad in plain dark clothing turned to grab a book from the floor and thumbed through its pages, stopping at the one he'd searched for and appearing to read it in the dimmest light. He moved again to fetch a matchbox, probably intending to light the candles that had gone out, and as he went the demon watched the flames come to life. His mind was not vacant, however, as he'd mused over the rite in question and judged privately whether or not his conjurer was as learned in so delicate an art as he'd claimed to be. It was then that the boy chose to make heard his voice and he stared into golden irises for it, but not before he blew out his match. “I have a question to ask.”

Now that the room had been more adequately lit, the demon could study the human's appearance with better clarity. Nothing new to note, nothing quite remarkable about him apart from his hair. All of his impressive qualities resided within, and occasionally they were seen through the eyes. Whatever curiosity he wanted satisfied was, perhaps, one deserved. The boy was thus encouraged to speak his mind.

“Earlier, you said that you heard about someone...like me?” it was cautiously asked, and he'd sat back down on his previous spot.

“Hm… Oh, yeah. Word is some white-haired guy goes around killing demons left and right,” the raptor answered, “and he's even gone to the underworld to do it. I've even heard he went after Mundus himself—you know about him, right? Former emperor of the underworld? Yeah, him,” he continued, dismissing whether or not the child had any knowledge, “he and whatshisname went mano a mano if you can believe that.”

“I don't see how that makes us alike.”

“Oh, what, really? And you're not even the least bit impressed?” The boy astounded the demon. Of course, even he was not certain of the facts. It was all hearsay for him, and he'd treated the accounts as little more than legends. Still, there had to have been some truth to them. Whatever murderous rampage the aforementioned man had gone on was one that touched even this demon's life. When the boy expressed his uncertainty, the demon went on to speak following a sigh. “I know I knew his name before... Uh, something cool-sounding, like…Drake? Da— Oh, Dante! That's it, his name's Dante. It was on the tip of my tongues. They say the guy's half demon, and I wouldn't doubt it if he's capable of killing some of the underworld's baddest. Even wiped out the head honcho of my kind, so I've heard. I don't how much of that's true, but King Griffon bit the goddamned dust in a really ugly way.”

“So...he killed your leader? That must have been awful.”

“Well, he and Mundus both. They say Mundus was the one to put Griffon out of his misery after Dante beat the hell out of him. Honestly, he had it coming; he was a major prick and an ass-kisser like you'd never seen,” the demon explained further. “He had his head up Mundus' ass and his own, he thought he was such hot shit. He ruled the roost for centuries back in the underworld and we all agreed we hated the bastard. But he was fucking massive while the rest of us were about this size...so we really couldn't do a thing about him. Guess we just had to leave it to Mundus and the half-breed to do our dirty work for us. Ha!” There was a demonic air to him and an equally dark glimmer in the eyes when he laughed. He'd never plotted assassination, no, but found that the fate of King Griffon (a title so implied by the emperor himself and adopted by the avian demon's own flock explicitly for scorn) was fortuitous in the extreme. Something to make light of.

“Oh,” the boy observed softly. “Did anyone take his place?”

“Nah, not since he was killed. You could say we're winging it now. You should see the infighting going on. Nearly everyone in the flock wants a shot at the big time. Could really be anyone by now.” He shrugged his shoulders to express his disinterest.

“Could you be?”

The instinct was to laugh, yet the demon endured in his own silence as he watched his conjurer and mused. He had never joined in those petty squabbles over dominance; it wasn't anything he'd aspired for so he'd gladly left it to those willing to do the fighting and, ultimately, the ruling. But by that point he was in and out of the flock's territory, half of the time absent when he didn't care to be around his kin. No one really seemed to take notice, or cared to begin with. They let him be as he'd let them. His casual disrespect for both community and hierarchy led to an existence of solitude and aimlessness, but it suited him. He did not want for anything. A position of power, therefore, was nothing he coveted. Better that he'd come to the Earth to get away from all the hullabaloo for a little while.

The possibility that he'd ever become leader of anything amused him, and he humored the little sorcerer for a moment with a dry satirical note. “Me, huh? Yeah...even I could be the next Griffon. Hell, maybe they decided to give the reins to me as we speak. So you'd better watch it around me, kid, 'cause I could fry you royally.”

So mild a threat was taken with a little defiant smile. “I don't think they'd accept you, anyway. You complain about everything.”

“You are a smart-mouthed little twerp!” the demon snapped back, irritated but not irate. For all the trouble the human was worth, he had not inspired the demon with an intense desire to electrocute him. That was new. And, if he was not mistaken, the insult appeared to satisfy the boy. He'd not suffered a change in expression and looked down at his book. Weird kid...

“Let's try it now,” said the boy, and he looked back up with a neutral expression now worn. “I don't think we have a lot of time.”

“Hasty little bugger, aren't you?”

“Let's just try,” he insisted, a mite impatient as he'd opened his book and turned to the same page as before. “I know the incantation, we're both willing...”

Then, like a pop of electricity in his mind, the demon remembered one of the rite's provisions in particular which may very well upend the arrangement he'd agreed to. It made him snicker inwardly. “Just had a thought. An exchange of names, right? I don't mean to burst your bubble but I don't have one. Guess that kinda spoils things.”

The child could not hope to stop himself from gasping. “What? How can that be?”

“It's not uncommon. Most of us don't have names and we don't need 'em. That's pretty much how it goes for us.” He and his kin all knew one another without ever calling a name. Certain demons earned them; everyone else got right along without.

“We'll find you a name, then.”

“You don't even know if that counts!”

“If it's one you like, it will. Then you can forget all about it after I send you back.”

Sound logic. Now, it wasn't likable, but it was sound, and the demon had already agreed to give the boy what he was barking for. He'd have to put up with a shit name, too. “Well,” reluctantly, “what the hell are you gonna name me?”

The aspiring sorcerer became silent as he thought. His eyes studied the demon's form, from head to toe, and it was clear his brain had been at work for the short spell of inactivity that fell upon them. His lips pursed inward, and the demon gave the thinking a try as well.

“Shit, I can't think in a hurry,” he complained at last.

“Maybe I can call you Whiny,” the boy dryly teased, and he brushed off the fiery retort that instantly countered. “Actually, I think...you ought to be Griffon.”

The demon could not believe his ears.

“Are you fucking dumb?! I am not sharing a name with that asshole! Weren't you paying attention to a damn thing I said?!” Shouting and contrary, always contrary… His hackles had raised, every feather on his body splayed and his wings stretched to half their length.

“You said you could be the next Griffon,” the child explained with calm, “and that he was the biggest one of your species—”

“And ended up roadkill!”

“But you are a Griffon, aren't you? That's what I'd read about: a demon species like yours, and the text called them Griffons. If your dominant demon was called Griffon, why couldn't any other be?”

“Because that's idiotic! Fucking Mundus decided to forget the rest of us existed and call his golden boy Griffon because he couldn't be bothered to think of anything!” That may have been a slight exaggeration. Nevertheless, the demon gawked, stunned by the child's apparent brainlessness—one that threatened to match the former emperor's. What a crime that would have been!

The boy shrugged in answer. “I don't think of him when I name you. I think you'd be a much better Griffon than he was, anyway. You even said that he was...subservient? Well, you have a strong will of your own. You'd do anything to be independent. I think you're smarter and stronger than he was.” He couldn't have known, but he at least appeared to understand the gist of what he'd been told about the fallen leader.

The points he'd made might have been simplistic, but they were proven by the way the conjured demon fiercely wanted out of the child's company. So much, in fact, that he would even compromise a little of his freedom now to have it all back in the near future. The demon was certainly one of a kind and, in a number of ways, a better example of his species than the one who'd ruled them for centuries. He wasn't as much of an egomaniac as King Griffon, however, and did not quite consider himself in such glowing terms. Nevertheless, he was given something to think about although he'd not become quiet for it.

“Those are weak arguments, kid,” he criticized, “and as far as I can tell, you're clueless. Naming me Griffon is gonna be like naming a dog Dog. Like, 'Hey, Dog, let's go out for a fetch.' Is your name Boy, by any chance?” He'd delivered the reference to going for a walk incorrectly, but his point came across regardless. His disappointment could not have been clearer and he was defiant in demeanor; his complaints hadn't reached an end yet, either. “And here I thought you, with your smarts, would be creative too. At least come up with something original!” At this point he would have accepted Blue Bastard.

The child's brow furrowed in an expression of disappointment of his own. “I think it's fitting. You'd represent your species well.”

“I don't give a fuck about that!”

“It's just for the moment. Please.” Again the child spoke pleadingly. “You can abandon the name after I've released you. We only need it for the rite and that's all.”

In truth, the demon did not need to say a word. He was at the mercy of a child and could do little to change that for the time being. He would have to indulge him in spite of his grievances. There was some small delay in reply, an obvious indication that he'd been in thought, but before long he spoke; reluctant in tone and discernibly critical, and yet he'd settled down—wings folded and feathers flattened. “Okay, whatever. The sooner we get this over with, the better.” Pain in the ass.

He sat as he waited for the boy to go on with his preparations. As mentioned before, he'd known a thing or two about these rites—a variety of them, as a matter of fact. As much as the circumstances and their conditions were a bother, the demon had to endure in spite of them. And, in spite of them, he privately measured the boy's readiness and aptitude. Previously he'd acknowledged that the small human was bright; now, he supposed he'd find out if his appraisal had been premature. He thought it curious, too, that the subject on the boy's bloodline was never again touched upon—almost as if it hadn't been worth entertaining, or...perhaps it had been pushed to the very back of his mind for later. One way or the other, it was of no importance to the feathered demon. Neither of them uttered a word, the boy keeping his nose buried in his book as if he'd been reading with every ounce of his concentration. The demon could only figure that was a grimoire in his possession. What manner of evils had been written upon its pages he could only wonder, but its owner appeared too meek to wield so dark a power for equally dark purposes…

“Um,” the boy uttered softly, “I think I'm ready,” and he looked forward to lock eyes. “I don't need anything else… It's all in the incantation.”

“Then go for it, kid. Just don't fuck up!” The demon gave him his final permission and watched with intent, very anxiously awaiting an amateur's mistake that would bring about disaster for he who would be bound. The risk was not the conjurer's!

Still seated at opposite sides of the inverted pentagram, they faced one another with mutual agreement on their minds. The moment had come at last: the newly christened Griffon's final minute of freedom. The conjurer's voice returned with strength and clarity as he read back the words on the pages in a tongue that was not English. A baffling thing at first, but soon the raptor identified the Latin he'd heard and he was struck with surprise. It was damned impressive to hear and he almost chided himself for esteeming the boy's skill and apparent proclivity. The thought was fleeting; any distraction may foil the entire rite as unified minds (and hearts) were necessary. The demon conjured need not recite anything themselves as it was entirely in the hands of the conjurer; it was the conjurer's will that brought them together and it would be the conjurer who established the binding bond. Such was the scenario in the enclosed bedroom where a teenage boy had employed all of his will to rob, even if temporarily, a demon of his independence.

In what sounded like a second sentence uttered, the boy lifted his arm and held it out to the demon before him; after it followed his eyes, tearing from the book to look into those that watched him back. Apart from the occasional glance at the text, he'd kept his eyes largely on the demon's; he appeared confident enough in his memory to speak the words that demanded the utmost attention to detail. The hand he'd offered opened as if to welcome the demon to it—and the fiend picked up his cue, stepping over the inverted pentagram to establish the closest proximity without yet touching between himself and the little sorcerer. A change in the air was unmistakably felt, something that no amount of words in any given language could ever hope to describe. The demon would not deny he'd felt real concern; this was all new to him and no matter how much he knew in theory, he would not have known what to expect in reality. To the very best of his ability, he tried to align his will with that which beckoned him. He recognized the section of the incantation the boy had moved on to—that is, he understood the Latin—and expected for the first time to learn his name. They'd arrived at the part that required both names to be shared (twice, even, in contrasting order) and thus his identity as Griffon was cemented. That of the boy, Vitale, wasn't one he'd remembered hearing before but would hereafter have it etched onto his brain.

A pull was born from nothing tangible. Toward the boy the demon should go—that was the feeling that bubbled deeply within, an almost phantasmal force of attraction akin to two magnets of opposing polarities brought toward one another. Griffon would adhere to the child as much as the child would adhere to him, and this he knew would be effortlessly felt and inferred by the very strange youth who so desperately wanted a demon to call his own. Such a feeling swelled within Griffon as if he were only a vessel for the substance—a balloon filled to bursting with water—and just as the incantation had reached its close, the flames upon the candles danced wildly, glowed brightly, a noiseless power shot through human and demon alike and in a blink Griffon's body was reduced to the finest, blackest particles that darted uniformly through the air toward the boy, his master.

The flames calmed and the room was once more awash in downpour of silence save for the young sorcerer's gasp. He did not expect the demon to vanish and it spawned quite a feeling of alarm. Wide were the eyes as he glanced all around the room, but his memory urged him to examine his person. He had the sense to look under his shirt; suddenly his pallid, plain skin was decorated with flowing black patterns. He could see them despite the dim lighting; he'd found them concentrated beneath his clothing, on his chest and sprawling over his upper arms, and he was hesitant to touch them. Insecurely he called the demon's name; no response, so he called again, and it was after some short delay that the demon, in an instant puff of those soot-like particles, reappeared before the boy in a panic.

“What just happened?!” he demanded, throwing his sights on the boy in search of understanding. He was all alarm, wings partially extended. Nary a clue he had as to what just transpired, but a brief exchange of ideas led him to believe that it was a consequence of the binding rite. The boy who'd identified himself as Vitale described markings across his body that had thence disappeared upon the demon's return. Displeasure was born within Griffon from concluding that the patterns were representative of him; neither he nor the child now his master had any other guess for it, and they appeared in mutual agreement to not bother over the particulars of the supposed tattoo. It was singular at best and demeaning at worst for him. What's more, he'd had only the benefit of sight and hearing; his vantage point was from wherever he rested on the boy's body and nowhere beyond. The experience was a startling one to say the least, hence his manifestation. It was not the boy's calls that brought him out.

There was something more to the change. Faintly felt was a tether, a metaphysical thing between himself and his conjurer. Next to impossible to describe, but nonetheless there when it hadn't been before. The demon was not at all certain nor could he quite craft words for it, so he resorted to one that even a toddler might make the most sense of: connection. By and large, what formed as a result of the binding rite was nothing less than that acutely named tether, the very thing that bound demon to human, the bond that birthed familiar and master. So it was at last completed, the final rite that the boy had so desperately sought. Now he'd had what he wanted, whereas the demon was less fortunate; he would have to hold steady until his time for renewed freedom arrived. It would not be too long, at least, and he thought himself hardy enough to endure through the duration of the deal made.

They spent the remainder of the hour exploring the nature of their bond. The demon watched his young master clear the room and they talked even through his hasty activity. At one point he mumbled complainingly, “Can't believe I'm gonna go around being Griffon...” as the name he'd been given was still distasteful—but it was his now, and (at least to his master) he would be known as nothing different. He had a smaller complaint for his master's name, claiming it was a “mouthful” and it was much to his surprise that the boy had rather insisted that he be called, plainly, V. Only V, always V, no matter in whose company—and while it was strange, unwarranted, and vulnerable to critique, Griffon had agreed to those conditions without debate. It was nothing he pried into but suspected the reasons would reveal themselves in time.

The night had not drawn to a close without its events reaching their climax. Wrathful was the witch when she returned home; she discovered demonic doings, the evidence in the air, and on those grounds tossed the boy along with an invisible Griffon out of her sanctuary and, further, her life. Just as predicted, the witch spurned V's presence. With naught but the shirt on his back, the book he'd cradled so protectively, and a demon at his side, he took to the wilds of the streets—and it was some surprise to Griffon after all, for he'd in some way not taken the child's worries as seriously as they may have been in reality. He'd plucked himself from his master's skin after they'd found a secluded little backstreet and had only to say, “Talk about your wicked witch of the west!”

He may have then expressed a mite of concern for his master's fate.

#drabble ; #// it's hecking long. #// 15 pages I DON'T KNOW HOW but there we are omfg

[itslindseyknight]

Some things that I need to get off of my chest:

There are a lot of things I don’t deserve and one of those is a lousy best friend.

I am going to finally just say exactly what I want and need to say and if you see it or not, I don’t fucking care. I’m saying it because I can act of my own free will and saying here or even thinking it does nothing to you or for you other than give you some clarity on why you have so much bad karma. Let me begin.

The type of best friend that I needed was someone who was proud to tell anyone that I was their best friend or just talk about me in general. The type of best friend I needed was someone who wanted to hang out at their house, their place of comfort. At a time convenient for the both of us. I needed a best friend who was y’know, a fucking best friend. In every situation where I’ve had a best friend I say good things about them especially to others and especially when they’re not around me to hear it. They are important, they are a huge part of my life, people KNOW you are my friend before they freaking meet you.

That’s just the first thing.

Second of all, when I am trying to snap you out of your own grieving mind, why does it sound like a good idea to cut me off? Because you’re too afraid to accept the truth? To accept that maybe you lose people because you treat them like they’re at your disposal until you absolutely cannot tolerate them anymore?

Or maybe you lose people because even though they forgive you for your dumb mistakes, you still think you’re a good guy. You still think that by doing the same high school bullshit over and over again that you’re still a good guy. NO. You’re not still a good guy. You’re still the SAME guy. Understand the difference!!!!!

Yes, you’re still the same person who makes mistakes and expects miracles to happen. What mistakes are these? Let’s outline a few:

• cheating

• deceiving

• cheating

• did I mention cheating?

Okay? Do you get the picture? You are not a good person. I thought that if you had someone who treated you a little bit differently than your last person would make you change your ways but no. If you don’t get ALLLLLL the facets of a relationship you want, you run to someone else whilst in this relationship and you still try to convince yourself that you’re a good person. No. The LAST thing you are is a good person.

I used to think that you had a good heart that you were just not understanding the magnitude of your mistakes, but no. There is nothing good about you. You’re childish. You’re immature. You’re not grown up and you refuse to do so because you’re afraid. You’re afraid to grow a back bone. You’re afraid to accept criticism. You’re afraid to let someone you love tell you what you need to hear instead of someone who knows nothing about you, which even then, you’d still find an excuse not to listen.

When I saw potential, I saw potential in you growing up. You are not there yet. You may be financially mature, mature in your vocabulary, educationally mature, but you in no way are emotionally nor mentally mature. You still surround yourself with “bois” who pretend to be men and any guy who constantly burdens himself by thinking “oh my ex will fuck her husband one day” and “she’s hot. She’s gorgeous. But Whatever,” is literally the most immature thing I think I’ve ever heard. Where is “she’s so smart and talented”? Where is “she’s so strong in her ideals and ambitions”? And then putting her down by saying that she doesnt want you? You’re wrong. She clearly does want you but you’re not right for each other. It doesnt work. The paths dont cross one another, the wavelengths do not match. Mature the fuck up and stop convincing yourself that people are the problem because maybe its not them, maybe its you.

You spend so much time waiting for your heart to catch up. Your heart is stupid. Your heart does not feel. Don’t you realize that? Your heart has one job: to pump blood to the rest of your body. Do you know what that lovey dovey feeling is really coming from? Your fucking brain. Start changing your logic. Stop worrying about what people think about you because they will not be in the shower with you. They will not be driving in the drivers seat of your car. They will not be doing your job, having your kids, sleeping with you, or having your dreams. You will be. That’s all you. No one gives a fuck what you do with your mind if you don’t open your mouth. Stop preaching about living life until you actually fucking do it.

So many of the things I’ve told you in the past have happened. I’d say about 90% of them. I’ve been the one who has helped you with so many things. I’ve been the one who’s been hard on you but only hard on you to make you better. Only hard on you because I wanted you to be better to be smarter to be stronger. And then you let me fucking go for someone who wouldn’t give you the time of day? Look at that massive mistake right there. You had a lifelong friend. A lifelong supporter. A lifelong pal rooting for your fucking success and directing you in the direction that you couldn’t see and you let them go. You let me go. I’d have to say that is the biggest fuck up you’ve made like ever.

I have done everything I could. I’ve overextended, underextended, hyperextended, stretched, and drawn out my resources and energy to be someone who you could look to for almost anything. And now that you’ve given me the good ol’ fuck you, I can now rest and give all of that to other people who deserve it. To other people who have actually proven themselves. And who have actually improved. Unlike you, college actually changed them.

I hope this wakes you up, but even if it does, there’s no way in hell I’m accepting anything else from you. I’ll remember you from a distance but you fucked up for good. I hope your halfway gal pal can replace me. I love you unconditionally, so I’ll never stop but I don’t deserve to be pulled and pushed like a fucking door.

& Pls stop sending dick pics to my friends, thanks.

[beinglibertarian]

Onward, Collectivist Soldiers

As I contemplate where I fit in my current relation to the State and its politically-correct and uptight sycophants, I realize not much has changed since Catholic school. If I benefited at all from the tutelage of nuns, it’s in being able to identify when I’m being indoctrinated or hoodwinked.

The first few years of my scholastic career were spent at a Catholic school in New Jersey. It was there that I, along with other kids with last names like O’Dowd, Vigliotti, Rispoli, and Gomez, were first introduced to the doctrine of original sin.

Sister Nazarene told us a sin was whenever a person did something wrong. God would not like it if we sinned, and if we sinned, he would damn well know all about it. You couldn’t hide from God. Apparently, a really long time ago this guy Adam and this broad Eve did something so bad that we, the first grade class of St. Francis Albert of Hoboken School, were guilty of it too.

As unreasonable as this seemed at the time, we were taught to understand that God was really pissed off. And touchy. 

You see, before the beginning of time, God spent a whole summer making this place called the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve. Eden was this groovy resort where people could just relax forever and ever, just as long as they behaved. By and by, good ol’ human imperfection had its way, and Adam and Eve goofed up. God was so hurt and insulted that he decided from that moment on that every Vigliotti, O’Dowd and Ferrara, as well as the Changs, Goldbergs and Patels, would be culpable for what those two Biblical miscreants did. Forever and fucking anon. He was God, after all. 

Do you know what the transgression was? What Adam and Eve did that was so damned bad? They ate an apple. Not just any apple, but a super apple that had magic powers. Some wiseguy who looked like a snake called Satan told them to do it. He beguiled them. Sister Nazarene said that to beguile someone was like tricking them. As I recall, many us felt at that moment that we were being beguiled too. But God help ya if you asked any questions, or wanted clarification. You’d get a smack on the knuckles with a ruler faster than you can say Galileo Galilei. 

Anyway, after they ate it — the apple, that is — Adam and Eve became smart. Turns out, God didn’t like smart people. Folks like that might want to find a meaning for things. They might find joy and fulfillment in intellectual pursuits, or in the labor of their discoveries. They might want to build stuff, make tools and what not, and shape the world according to their needs, according to their vision.  

“Bullshit,” said God. “That’s my department. Who in the Hell do you bipedal monkeys think you are, muscling in on my action? From now on, your lives will be hard and mean and your kids will have it hard too. Now get out of here and don’t come back!”

This was called the expulsion from paradise. God did not like competition. When we would grow up, we would find out that most people don’t like competition either.

As we matriculated — that is to say once we got to the second, and then third grade — some of us Catholic kids started to think that all this original sin jazz was nothing but a bunch of malarkey. We looked for a Garden of Eden on the globe in our classroom and found none. We read up on snakes. They can’t talk, let alone beguile. Apples, while having some nutritional value, can’t make you any smarter than a rap on the head with a ball peen hammer. 

Then, somewhere along the way, we were taught that this other guy, Jesus, died for all of our sins, lock, stock and fucking barrel. 

“What gives?” we wondered. “How can there be original sin and Jesus too?” 

We had a lot of trouble wrangling with this paradox. Mrs. Alverone, our third grade teacher, said a paradox was when something didn’t really make sense. And how!

Eventually, due to either boredom or mental exhaustion, all of us kids gave up our pursuit for the truth in favor of more lofty pastimes like dodge ball, smear the queer, and pouring salt on slugs. Halcyon days! 

Still, it bothered me: being guilty of, and then having to atone for, things I didn’t do, couldn’t do, wouldn’t do, and had nothing to do with. A few months later I broached the subject again with my pals.  

“Maybe original sin is just a way to remind us all that people are imperfect beings,” Crazy Dominick said while burning some ants with a magnifying glass.  

“Well, shit,” I said. “You don’t need Biblical scripture to teach you that. Just look at how Fat Arnie swings a whiffle ball bat: just like a girl. And what about Jackie Smith dropping that pass in the end zone during the Super Bowl? And just look at how corny M*A*S*H has gotten since Alan Alda took over.”

Indeed it was a world fraught with imperfection. All we kids could do was observe, contemplate, and avoid the wrath of the nuns by never getting caught doing anything fun.

More and more it began to dawn on me that teaching us that we were all born guilty was just another way for the church to keep folks in line. 

Think about it: if you’re constantly apologizing, you’ll never have time to do much of anything else, especially disobey, think critically, or pursue your life’s ambitions. I guess I was a late bloomer, but by the time I was ten years old I came to the grim realization that people like holding dominion over one another, especially with vague concepts, opaque language, and moral absurdities. And if those methods won’t work, brute force and violence will do the trick just fine. “Miracle, Mystery and Authority,” as Dostoyevsky once put it. 

It goes without saying that aside from those obligatory funerals and weddings that pop up from time to time, I haven’t willingly stepped into a church since Jimmy Carter cured cancer. The way I saw it, you should stay away from people who want you to feel bad. Little did I know, assholes abound.

Now listen: if you think that living in a world that has begun to cast aside archaic concepts from the early Mesozoic era will free you and me from the efforts of dimwits to encroach on your sovereignty through didactic chicanery, think again, tough guy. Plunderers of the spirit will always seek new and improved ways to turn their contempt for joy into a moral crusade. Why? Because people like fucking with other people, and the best way to fuck with someone is to defame them from up on high in the lofty strata reserved for those with a knack for judgment and a lack of self-awareness.

Nowadays, when I observe the world and the myriad discussions, arguments, diatribes, and commentaries that our fancy-pants, interconnected culture is heir to, I see new versions of the old skullduggery popping up all the time. And so do you.

Aren’t terms like “privilege”, “cis-gendered”, “patriarchy”, “carbon footprint”, “intolerance”, “unfairly disadvantaged”, “triggering” and the like, bandied about by people claiming a moral authority steeped in victimhood, just as sanctimonious and illegitimate as that of the church and its so-called divine morality? I’m not saying that all of those terms are inherently bad in and of themselves; a just and fair world is a thing to aspire to, just like a world free of sin and talking snakes is. If annoying, PC bromides help the cause, so be it. They won’t, but hey, don’t progressives need something to do too? 

Where the trouble starts is when an elite class of people, the heads of civic organizations, the clergy, media dolts, or politicians throw condemnatory terms about in an arbitrary and self-serving manner to stifle anyone who disagrees with or challenges them, all in the name of righteousness.  They think that by forcing dissenters into a posture of constant apology and atonement for intangible transgressions they can either alienate or eliminate them without the trouble of firing squads, cattle cars, inquisitions and re-education camps. Meet the new douchebags, same as the old douchebags. They’re just less blood-thirsty and well, kinda, wimpy.

In the world of the collectivist headcase, the collective is the Garden of Eden, and being met with the collective’s disapproval for things he may or may not have done, or advantages that he may or may not have, is akin to the expulsion from Paradise. But who told them we wanted to be part of their world anyway? 

It wasn’t okay when the church thrust upon us their ecclesiastic version of a full nelson and it’s equally offensive when modern-day demagogues do the same with their new-fangled concepts of original sin. But I don’t blame stupid people for using shortcuts to thinking; that’s what dummies do. And I don’t blame connivers for selling snake oil. What pisses me off is when people who know better allow themselves to be pushed around by these turds and their lexicon of defeatism. 

The bottom line: don’t let anybody make you feel guilty for your own life. Especially if the shame being thrust upon you is the last ditch tactic of an inferior mind that wishes to hold sway over you because their own existence is so damn uncompelling to them. That there is some bullshit.   

As writing this article has now become a tedious affair, and in order to avoid being redundant, I have provided below a post-modern to Biblical translator. Those of you with even a modicum of parochial education will find it helpful… but if your parents were jerk-offs and you went to a Montessori school, then not so much. As it is incomplete, feel free to add your own variables and expressions. I hope this helps out. Extrapolate and deduce as you will, big shots.

Privilege = Original Sin

Reduce your carbon footprint = The Ten Commandments

Cis-gendered = Lust

Patriarchy = Sloth

Intolerance = Pride

Non-Vegan = Gluttony

Trigger = Wrath

Global Warming = The Flood

Climate Change = The Rapture

Bruce Jenner = Jesus

Oprah = God

Michael Moore = John the Baptist

Jordon Peterson = Satan

Individualist/Libertarian = Heretic 

Bill Maher = Doubting Thomas

Ron Paul = Nebuchadnezzar

California = The Promised Land

Corey Booker = Moses

Taxes = Acts of Contrition 

This article represents the views of the author, and not those of Being Libertarian LLC.

The post Onward, Collectivist Soldiers appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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[mini-min-yoongi]

April AO3 Yoonmin readings:

Hi~ This month I read mostly Yoonmin fics, but there are a few other pairings, I specify which ones so that nobody gets confused. I’m posting this super late, it’s already June, but I do these mostly for myself so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ However, if there are people who find these useful or like them then that’s even better! Enjoy~

1) The Red Light Sector (All Dressed-Up)

Yoongi’s been through robberies, kidnappings, murders, torture, set-ups and betrayals without feeling a thing. Not even in his worst nightmares had he ever expected to be finally broken down, so swiftly, by a stunning boy with a hot silver tongue and diamond smile.

Yoongi’s dangerous, but Park Jimin is fatal.

Gangsters au in which Yoongi is a mafia boss (and Jungkook’s older brother, I love this dynamic) and Jimin is a hooker. It has angst but also fluff. All of BTS is part of Yoongi’s gang.

2) half feral, but just right (Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics)

What is an alpha supposed to do? Keep their head down, ignore the jabs and jeers, stay out of jail for being born different.

Feral, as they like to call it.

Yoongi knows the status quo.

3) didn’t sign up for this

when jin tells him about jimin, he imagines a tall, lanky, university stud who showers maximum twice a week. one can say yoongi has a poor sense of imagination.

College au. Yoongi and Jimin are roommates. Very cute and funny.

4) It's The Most Wonderful Time (Of The Year) (*)

Park Jimin is only three years old when he meets cooler, older, and smarter Min Yoongi for the first time, and is immediately enamoured.

For the first time in his entire life, Jimin feels an emotion he never thought he would feel: infatuation.

Not that he even understands what that feeling means.

All he knows is that there’s a small, pale boy at the front door of his home, right under the hanging mistletoe, firmly gripping his father’s hand and his mother’s skirt as he stares unabashedly into Jimin’s eyes, rendering him absolutely speechless.

Or

childhood best friends yoonmin growing up together and experiencing the complexities of love & relationships, as well as, the harsh realities of growing older over the years, on Christmas day

I really like fics that focus on the struggles of growing up and how things change over the years and this one does that. There are very cute moments, especially when they are kids. There’s also angst and misunderstandings which I really enjoyed.

5) I'm Glad You're My First (First for Everything) (contains smut) 

Jimin wasn’t a prude, he just liked saving his firsts for everything for someone special. And, that special someone was Min Yoongi.

A compilation of their first times. I liked the angst in this one.

6) be mine (be my baby, my one and only) Series

Yoongi is the master of badassery. He has a car, a bad habit (or a few), piercings, and tattoos galore. He's also severely whipped for Park Jimin.

(Same goes for Jimin, but at least he's not so shameless about it.)

6.1 Leave Before the Lights Come On

Yoongi calls Jimin his sweetheart and Jimin really loves that.

6.2 James Dean, You're my Daydream

Jimin and Yoongi share a milkshake.

7) A Universal Language Meant Only for You (contains smut) (*)

Being deaf, Jimin lives his life in complete silence, alienated by people who can't understand his language until he meets Yoongi, who showers him with love, not by words but through little things:

Yoongi proposes with one piece of elusive street art a day for five days leading up to Valentine's Day.

I’m a sucker for these stories. Jimin is deaf and Yoongi is an artist and the sweetest boyfriend who showers him with love.

8) Pretty in Pink (not ym - Namjoon/Seokjin, contains smut)

On the Internet, college senior Kim Seokjin is known as the Pink Princess: a blogger that inspires his thousands of followers by not being afraid to accept and be himself. In real life, he is known as "that weirdo wearing girly clothes."

Seokjin is aware that he is not the type of person you’d expect to wear pastel fashion. He's not short. He doesn’t have a feminine face. He's not tiny and frail, his broad shoulders attesting to that. People look at him strangely, some going as far as to call him names. Despite this, Seokjin doesn’t allow the judgment from others to stop him from liking what he likes (including people of the same sex).

However, Seokjin's confidence and acceptance of who he is will be tested when he falls for an underground rapper who is more troubled than he lets on.

College AU. Pastel!Jin and Underground!Namjoon

9) No Ordinary Life (*)

The thing about falling in love is that it's not always convenient. The thing about falling in love is that sometimes it's impossible, especially when it's with your groupmate.

("How long?" Hoseok asks, and Yoongi doesn't have to prod to know what he means. How long have you been in love with him?

"I dunno," he murmurs. "Forever, maybe.")

BTS/Canon universe. Angst, angst, angst! I really liked this fic. It depicts the struggles that Jimin and Yoongi go through. They are in love but don’t want to damage the group or people finding out about their relationship. Even though I’ve read other stories where this also happens, I really enjoyed the author‘s take on this issue and the way in which they developed it.

10) A Dance of Poppies (Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, contains smut) (*)

When Jimin's family is killed, Yoongi's pack takes him in, and they fall in love over the years.

This story was AWESOME. I’m really into angst but only to a certain extent and this story has that angsty background, but the story is also super cute and fluffy. Seeing Yoongi and Jimin growing up, falling in love, getting jealous, going through hardships until they finally get their happy ending was amazing. I really liked it.

11) The Professor’s Family Series

(not ym - Namjoon/Seokjin, Jungkook/Taehyung)

Professor Kim Namjoon is married.

He doesn't have a wife.

They have a sort-of son.

And Jeon Jungkook just crossed paths with them.

Notes:

A new universe I've been thinking about lately. Family!Bangtan, Married!Namjin, and Kid!Taehyung with Jungkook is my jam. Will be updated when inspiration strikes.

11.1. The Professor’s Wife

Everybody knew Professor Kim was already married. It was actually the first thing they asked the man during the first day of classes, with one brave student asking the question out loud for everyone to hear. The older man responded with deep dimples and a raised left hand, letting everyone see the plain, silver band glittering on his ring finger.

But, as one Jeon Jungkook found out, they were all completely, terribly wrong.

What? The Professor didn't say he had a wife.

11.2. The Professors Son

Math was often misunderstood, Taehyung said, on one of their dates along the Han River. People were always so afraid of it and refused to know more about it, dismissed it as something hard and unreachable and it made Taehyung upset. If people only tried to understand, he insisted, if only people approached it with an open mind and didn’t give up, then maybe a lot more people would love Math and would want to learn about it like he did.

Jungkook didn’t understand at first, but after knowing Taehyung, he now did.

Before he realized what was happening, thinking about Taehyung made his heart turn, dance a kind of waltz, then suddenly fell.

Before he knew it, Jungkook was totally, completely in love with him.

12) Tattooed Heart (*)

Five times Yoongi tattoos himself with small things he loves about his boyfriend, and one time Jimin does the same.

This was too cute and heartwarming. And Yoongi with tattoos, what else can I say??

13) My Darling Venus (contains smut) (*)

“'It’s me – Jimin! Dear fuck, I can't believe this,' okay maybe Yoongi is still asleep and dreaming. Yes, that must be it. Why else would he see his best friend standing in front of him as a girl if this wasn't a dream.

Yoongi doesn’t really want to question why he’s dreaming of his best friend being a girl. A smoking hot girl at that. It’d just shatter his world view if he thought too much about it.

So he answers in the only possible way he can think of and just snorts.”

Jimin wakes up as a girl and chaos enfolds.

First time reading a genderbend fic and I really enjoyed it! I feel like this can be very tricky to write, but I thought that the author did a good job with the way in which she resolved everything.

14) Behind Inked Bricks (*)

(Yoongi/Jimin, Namjoon/Seokjin, baby brothers Tae & Koo)

After spending time with his twin nephews, Jimin starts picturing a future he's pining for - where he's cooking up in the kitchen, the dogs are running around and Yoongi's sitting on the couch with their child snuggled up in his lap, reading a book. And after having an epiphany with the help of a six-year-old, Yoongi too starts seeing his future differently.

Or a fluffy, sweet fic with parents!Namjin, twins!Taekook, uncles!Hoseok&Jimin, tatted up!Yoonmin and all its glorious chaos.

So cute so cute so cute so cuteeeeeeee. Yoongi with tattoos and Yoonmin with kids (even if they aren’t their own) are my weaknesses for real. This was seriously adorable and I want to pinch baby Jungkook and Taehyung’s cheeks so much!! I also really love how all of BTS are literally family in this one :’)

(*) My favourite ones

#mr #yoonmin #yoonmin fic rec #ao3 #bts smut #namjin #taekook

[tilleys89-blog]

Chapter Two

This place is a disaster.  

I do this to myself.  I just really, really hate cleaning.  

I’m not sure if the importance of picking up after yourself was ever fully ingrained into me as a child.  It’s a discipline that I wish I had at this very moment though, because this place is fucking nasty.  Clothes are everywhere.  Dishes are in the sink with food still on the plates.  A month’s worth of mail is sprawled out over the kitchen counter.

Other than my inability to clean up after myself, I really like my house.  It has good feng shui.  

I should probably learn what that word actually means.  Wait, is it one word or two words?  

I retrieve my phone from my pocket and do a quick search which reveals that it is two words.  Also, it apparently means that a designated area is balanced with energy.  

In that case, my apartment does not have good feng shui because I need to clean it.  I’ve upset the balance!

Maybe it’s not a bad time to clean.  I don’t really have anything else going on right now, after-all.  I could text Michelle back, but honestly, I really don’t want to. The nightmares from last night have traumatized me.  That fucking bat, man. Son-of-a-bitch, where’s everyone at when you create a good pun?  

I should probably just delete the app.  I mean, if Michelle is any indication of how the rest of the girls are online then count me out.  Plus, the logo for the app is ridiculous.  It’s a butterfly sitting on a heart.  Not like an actual heart, that would be weird, but like one of those illustrated hearts.  The typical heart drawing.

Oh, hey, I got a match.  Don’t you just love it when that happens?  Oh, I’m going to delete you!  No you’re not, here!  You just got a match, bitch!

Well, hello there, Rachel.  Oh, she’s cute.  Aw, look, she even has a horse.  Her bio is a tad short, but that’s not too uncommon.  Damn.  What the hell is she doing swiping right on me?  I mean, I know I’m handsome, but shit.  Kidding!  I look like Jon Heder from Napoleon Dynamite if he had elephantiasis.  

Maybe she’s a bot.  

Should I say hello?  

No.  That’s too boring.  According to that one article, from that one post, from that one author, I should be original.  Have a good opening line.  Be charming. Be clever.  Be everything that you are currently not.  

You got this.  

Eye of the fucking tiger.  

Okay, how about this:

“So, I guess we’re married now?  Is that how this works?” I type.

That’s original and funny, right?

And, send.  

Oh God.

What did I do?  

She’s too pretty for such ridiculous lines.  I should have just said hello.  

You fucking moron!

I should have just deleted the app.  Saved myself the embarrassment of not receiving a reply.  

It’s fine.  I’m fine.  We’ll see what happens.  Meanwhile, I’ll just see who else is on here.  Alright fingers, let’s get to swiping.  I crack my knuckles, like a tool.

No.

No.

No.

Yes.

Fuck yes.

No.

No.  

Match!

Would you look at that.  

Okay, here’s your opportunity to come up with a better opening line.  Be clever, dammit!

Oh, hey, there’s a GIF option. What should I search for though?  

Got it!

The Titanic sinking after striking the iceberg is a perfect representation of breaking the ice.  You clever bitch you.  

Send!

Okay, that’s enough for now.  Too much more and I’ll be drawn in.  What else should I do, though?  It’s my day off from work and I have nothing to do.  

I could text Brian.  Dammit, no, he’s having a date night with the wife.  I don’t want to interrupt them.  

Nearly every fiber in my being is telling me to clean my apartment, but I really don’t want to.  Not yet.  The mood isn’t right.  That doesn’t make any sense.  Fuck it, I just don’t want to right now.  This couch is too comfortable.  

Maybe I could make a pizza?  Oh, that’s right.  I’m on a FUCKING diet.  

A response?  From Rachel..  

“I mean, duh!” she replied in the message. Well, that doesn’t sound like a generic bot response.  Which is promising.  However, I honestly wasn’t expecting a response.

Now what the fuck do I say?

This is too hard.  Abandon the mission!  

“Fantastic!  This was much easier than everyone makes it out to be.  Wasn’t stressful at all.” I nervously type out.  

No.  Let’s change that.

“Awesome!  This was much easier than everyone makes it out to be.  It wasn’t stressful at all!” I slightly alter.  

Too many exclamation points.  

Oh, just send it already you pussy!

FINE! Send!

Oh, God.  It wasn’t right.  I fucked it up.  

Okay, so, worse comes to worst, she doesn’t reply.  Or, even worse, she does reply.  I talk to her for a while and we set up a date.  She realizes that my profile pictures are in fact me, and that I’m not a creepy, fifty year old pervert, but that I used editing software to heavily alter my pictures to make myself look better than normal.  

I need to smoke.  I can’t handle this right now.  Anxiety is going to be the death of me.  

If I smoke, though, I need to hide my phone.  I mean, I don’t normally like to text anyway, but right now I may be stupid enough to try to have a conversation and that does NOT need to happen.  

Okay, I’ll just charge it in the bedroom and I won’t feel compelled to go in there for a while because the couch will be too busy devouring my physical body.  

Speaking of devouring, I should legitimately prepare some sort of food if I’m going to smoke.  Good thing I bought grapes the other day.  To the kitchen!

As I walk into the kitchen, I immediately get punched in the throat with the scent of old food.

Fucking dishes.  Or is it the trash that’s overflowing?  Why am I this way?  I’m a disgusting son-of-a-bitch.

They both just pile up.  I’m the only one here, and yet, they continually pile up.  I’ll deal with it later.  For now, I have to smoke.  

I open the drawer beside the refrigerator and retrieve a small, wooden box.  I open it to discover its contents.

Grinder?  Check.  

Weed?  Check.

Bowl?  Check.

I open the refrigerator and reach for the bag of grapes.

Grapes?  Check.  

The only thing I don’t like about smoking is the paranoia.  I’m already a paranoid person, so it just amplifies it ten-fold, but man does it feel amazing.  I also don’t like how cold it is right now.  I hate having to go outside to smoke, but I don’t want my apartment to smell like weed.  Honestly, it’s amazing that my family still has no idea that I smoke.  I guess since I don’t smoke regularly, it hasn’t really affected my motor functions.  Is that something a pot-head would say?  

Whatever.  Let’s just pack this bowl.  Not too much though.  I need to ration out what little I have left.  

I open the bag of weed and pinch off a bit, around the size of a dime.  I seperate the grinder, placing the small amount of weed in the center before closing the grinder.

This is where I always get fucked up.  I end up grinding it too much and it becomes a powder.  That isn’t going to happen today though.  I have learned the error of my ways!

I twist the grinder five times and seperate the grinder again.  The weed is no longer a clump, nor is it a powder.  It’s perfect.

I dump the weed from the grinder onto the counter and begin to move it into the bowl, making sure not to leave even the tiniest amount.

Fuck!  Lighter!  Where the hell did it go?  I begin a frantic search.  I look in the nearby drawers, slinging papers everywhere.  I move the box of cereal from the top of the refrigerator, checking to see if it is behind it.  It isn’t..  

A-ha!  Found you, you little fucker.  I keep putting it in the cabinet above the stove for some reason.  

Okay, now I’m ready to smoke.

I grab the bowl, and the lighter, and proceed outside onto my porch.

Jesus, it’s cold as fuck outside.  

Living in the south is so confusing.  One day it’s warm and the next it’s fucking twenty degrees outside.  

I like it here though.  It’s quiet.  The Bible humpers can be a bit annoying, but for the most part, I can tolerate them.  I have nothing against religion, in fact, I used to be religious, but I really hate the people who push their agenda on you.  As long as they don’t do that, I’m great.  I would love to have to an actual, intellectual conversation about religion.  Unfortunately, no one around here seems to know how to do so.  I guess you could say the south doesn’t have good feng shui.

Ah, shit.  That doesn’t work.  It only works with furniture and shit.  I think that’s right.  Phone is too far away to check.  

I place the bowl to my mouth and light the weed.  I inhale, feeling the smoke burn as it engulfs my lungs, then I exhale the smoke towards the porch light.  

This is good weed.  

I can tell that it’s going to be a relaxing high.  Which is great because I don’t know what happened with the last batch but I was jumping off the walls.  Like, seriously jumping off of them.  Nearly broke my fucking leg.  

Oh, shit.  Don’t cough, you pussy.  You have trained for this!

I let out a hoarse series of coughs.

Fucking Hell!  My lungs!  

I take another hit, because I’m a badass.

Jesus!  Too big of a hit.  Too big!  Oh, damn!

I continue coughing, like a little bitch.

Okay, I think I’m okay now.  

I continue to smoke.  I smoke pretty quickly during the winter season, mainly because it’s too cold to be outside for too long.  Plus, the neighbors may get suspicious that I smoke and call the cops.  

They wouldn’t do that though.  Would they?

And, shit, I think it’s cashed.  

Dump the remnants over the side of the porch.

Wait.

Is it possible for the remnants to grow overtime?  Like, what if there is actually still a bit of weed left and it’s enough to grow into a plant?  Which sounds great in theory, but what if someone discovers it and reports me?  Shit.  No.  I can’t dump it here.  It’s too risky.  

I could flush it!  Genius!  Smoking always makes you smarter.  That’s why Benjamin Franklin smoked so much.  

I turn towards the door and walk back inside the much warmer house.

I should probably clean out my bowl before I forget.  

I walk into the kitchen, taking in the milky tan color of the walls of my house.  I never really noticed how beautiful the walls are here.  They’re actually quite stunning.

Fucking dishes!  I’ll just move them to one side of the sink.

I move two of the plates from one basin to the other, making room for me to clean my bowl.

That’s better.  

I begin to scrub my bowl under the flowing warm water with a nearby cloth.  This is an amazing bowl.  I’ve never had any other bowl, but I feel like this particular bowl is far-better crafted than most other bowls.  It just seems to work really well.  

Okay, bowl is rinsed.  Weed is still on the table.  Grinder is set beside it.  Everything is zen.  Got my grapes.  I’m ready for the couch.  

I walk out of the kitchen and into the living room, standing directly in front of the couch.

“Do your thing, couch.” I say, plopping down, immediately stretching out with my head on one end and my feet on the other.

Such a magical feeling, really.  Lying on your couch after a good smoke.  You just feel one with the couch.  

What the fuck am I saying?

Shit.

Did I lock the door?  

I did.

Didn’t I?

Is that knocking?

No.  It’s just the heat turning on.

Ah, the warmth feels great.  Luckily the vent is right by my face, so I’m getting all the warm air.  

I had tension that I didn’t even know I had.  My neck feels amazing right now.  My head doesn’t feel heavy.  It’s a peaceful feeling.  

Did I lock the door?

Wait.  I just asked that, didn’t I?  That was like, five minutes ago, though.  Man, I hope I did.  

I struggle to lift myself from the couch just enough to get a glimpse at the door..  My vision is blurry as shit right now.

I didn’t!

Shit.  I can’t believe someone didn’t walk in.  

I quickly sit up, fighting the vertigo and run to the door.  I lift up on the lock.

There.  Locked.  

Right?

I mean, I see that it’s locked, but I should probably pull on the door handle to make sure.

I give the door a series of pulls, testing the durability of the lock.  

Yeah, it’s locked.  

What if someone came in while it was unlocked?

No.  No one came in.  You would have noticed.  

Don’t be paranoid.  Eat your grapes and relax.

I walk back to the couch, reach into the bag of grapes, picking a few as I do, and lay down.

I should really stop smoking.  I always get like this.  It’s not worth it.  

NO!  

Stop those negative thoughts.  You’ll have a really bad high and you don’t want that.  I’m just going to close my eyes and ride the wave.  I should turn on some music, but that requires me to get up and get my phone from the other room.  Is it worth it?  Sure, it is.  Then I can actually lay in bed and go to sleep.  

Okay, one, two, three, and up!  

Standing is hard!

I’m going to collapse on my bed when I...wait.  I never went to my bedroom.  Shit, my phone was under me the entire time.  

I have a message.  What do I do?  Should I read it?  If I do, I’ll be tempted to respond, and I do NOT need to do that.  

I’m not going to respond.  

I’m just going to put my phone on the table in front of me and just relax.  Relaxation is my friend and I’m hanging out.  I place the phone on the table in front of me.

Okay, so maybe it won’t hurt to read it.  

I grab the phone and unlock it.

“Was it a good wedding?  I don’t remember.”

What the fuck is she talking about?

Oh!  Shit!  That’s right.  I said the thing.  Yeah, I can’t respond to that right now.  Back on the table you go!  

How do I even respond to that?  I can’t even begin to formulate the words for that kind of thing right now.  Like, I guess it was good?  I could type that.  No.  Formulate your thoughts when you’re sober, man!  

Doesn’t remember our wedding?  I laugh at your forgetfulness!  You were probably too busy being blackout drunk!  

That’s not bad, actually.  I may have to spruce it up a bit, though.  Okay.  Come here, phone.  

Let me up, couch!

After struggling for a minute, I sit up and grab my phone from the table.

Gotcha!

Okay, so, let’s see here.  

“Wait, you don’t remember?!  I was banking on you to remind me how it went.  Guess we were too wasted from the open bar.”

There.  That should work.  Should I put an emoji?  No, emojis are stupid.  Don’t be lame!  

Send!

Okay, back to the table you go, and back into the couch I go.  

That wasn’t too bad of a response, right?  Nah, it’s fine.  You’re fine.  You’re just freaking out.  It’s natural.  Everything is great.  

Okay.  I should really go to bed.  I need to sleep.  I’m not mentally prepared for this.  

Last time, couch.  

I push myself up from the couch and walk towards my bedroom.

I gently place myself onto my bed and pull the covers up to face because it’s fucking cold.  

I shut my eyes and prepare for glorious sleep.

Wait.  

Did I lock the door?

#story #novel #chapter #chapter 2 #new chapter #writing

[hogwartsuniversity-rpg]

Sirius Black | Gryffindor ✗ Major: Literature | FC: Ben Barnes

✗ Traits:

+ Easy going, adventurous, smarter than he lets on

- Cocky, inconsistent, emotionally unavailable 

Ø Past:

Sirius Orion Black should have been his parents’ pride and joy. As the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son of the Black family, he was expected to be the next great patriarch. The Blacks traced their heritage to a Baronetcy granted after the English Civil War and have an honest-to-goodness framed page from Dungale hanging in the foyer to prove it. However, somewhere along the line one of the ancestors had been a younger son, and when the titled side of the family died out, forgotten drama deprived the surviving branch of inheriting the title. A fact Walburga and Orion Black remain jealous of to this day. Sirius, for his part, couldn't care less about family history, except to laugh at the striking similarity to the Elliots in Persuasion. Lady Susan remains his favorite Austen, but that is mostly because he doesn’t think he makes much of an Anne Elliot. For one thing, he doesn’t see the value in a persuasive temper, though perhaps that’s because he’s spent most of his life fighting against his parents’ expectations. He was meant to be proud and powerful. You can really spit those words out, what with all the P’s, as it didn’t take Sirius long to learn. When he was young he and his parents could play the part well enough; they’d dress him up and he’d smile just right so he might be smirking (like his father did) for all their rich friends, but when they were alone, well… relations between the boy and his parents been frosty for most of Sirius life.

He never liked to talk about it, or think much about it if he could help it, and maybe that’s why he can’t remember when their relationship flew south for the winter and never came back. It could have been when he was five and his parents wouldn’t let his new black friend come over, it could have been when he was eight and first heard them talking about ‘filthy queers,’ or when he was nine, or when he was 6, or, or, or… Or maybe those were only the times' fuel got added to the fire. The truth, he knew deep down, was that in addition to being horrible people, his parents were simply unprepared to be parents. Babies are loud and messy and emotional and everything his parents hated. Sirius later thought of them as more actively abrasive versions of Tom and Daisy Buchanan. They were wealthy and careless and absentee and, well, Fitzgerald never gets into how the daughter grew up in the end.

So, Sirius rebelled. In everything he ever did. He wore his hair long and stayed out too late. He tried to run away three times before he was 15. The third time he got dragged back into the house by his ear he saw Regulus’s face— tired and drawn— and they might be less than a year apart but Sirius never wanted his little brother to look that old again, so he stopped running. Still, he never stopped regarding himself as a soldier in a one-man war and was always searching for the next inch of ground he could gain from his parents. He was determined to love everything they hated. He never regretted fighting them, either. Every cut from a bottle shattering against the wall near his head after Walburga drank too much was a medal of valor. Every bruise Orion left on him (always where clothes would cover it) after Sirius pushed just far enough was proof he was winning. Every screech that pierced his ears was a war cry. Once when Sirius was 13, Regulus asked him if he had any sense of self-preservation whatsoever. “Yes,” Sirius had told his brother, “I’m preserving myself against them. You ought to as well.” Regulus infuriated his brother because he bowed his head and went with all the shit their parents said, but in some ways, Sirius couldn’t help blaming himself. He’d rebelled, he’d separated himself from the Blacks. That had left his parents with only Regulus. They funneled their anger, their hatred, at Sirius, yes, but he knew they pushed their manipulation, their pressure, onto Regulus. As pissed as Regulus made him, he got it. Maybe he didn’t understand it, how he could play their games, but he got it. They were his parents. Hell, Sirius wouldn’t have fought so hard if they weren’t. On some level, Sirius knew he was pushing back because he wanted what every kid wants; for his parents to engage with him, to love him. Regulus sucked up in search of that, Sirius fought back. At least, the war had started that way. By the end, Sirius wanted nothing to do with them, but at its roots, well. Some rich kids smashed expensive cars into trees, he smashed himself into his parents’ ideology. Same basic principle.

As a result, he’d been planning his escape to Uni for practically as long as he could remember. He’d accepted going to Hogwarts as a legacy student, mostly because of the school’s somewhat funky reputation, and actually leaving was one of the most liberating experiences of his life. He’d been to boarding school before, but with overbearing headmasters and Walburga and Orion never more than a short drive away, that hadn’t done much to elevate the stifling nature of his childhood. That said, he’d taken every chance to fuck around in the past and had every intention of continuing the tradition at Uni. He might be able to angst and brood like Mr. fucking Rochester, but he honestly preferred what he would call a certain care-free roughness. Chaotic Good, as he described his sixth form DnD character. Consequently, he’d never been fond of self-reflection, but if he’d bothered, he’d have realized that those first few months with James and Remus and Peter were terrifying. He’d been so angry his whole life, he never really learned how to make friends casually. So, when he met the three of them during Freshers Week and knew in an instant he wanted them to be friends, he threw himself wholly into making it happen. Any scheme James thought up, any late night Remus wanted to stay up talking, any homework Peter wanted to put off to play just one more round of chess, Sirius agreed, no questions asked. He never thought about the possibility of being rejected, only plowed forward with everything he was. In the year that followed at Hogwarts, he did everything in much the same way: full speed ahead, no questions asked.

He didn’t mean to be careless or to run over people's lives with his own, he just couldn’t bring himself to care that he did. Sirius lived for the moments and didn’t see anything wrong with that. He was of the opinion that anyone who had a problem with him, his friends, or their pranks was too sensitive, and they only hated people who deserved it. Grey area was a concept Sirius had a hard time grasping. He and his friends were good, nothing they did could be evil. People like his parents were evil, no one who was associated with them could do anything good. He had no illusions of being perfect, (that, after all, would be boring) but in the end, he was one of the good guys.

As his second year at Hogwarts opens, that certainty is flagging. He’s grown up to realize some of the pranks he’s pulled and the ways he’s acted have been very, very not cool. Other people have told him he needed to lay off before, but he’s always dismissed them as being uptight. He knows he has a… big personality, and that people listened to him, that he could goad people into doing things. So, coming to those realizations, he’s starting to see that he’s been hurting people. And it’s messing with his head. He’s thought back to all those pranks and jokes that had been just so funny only to hear a voice keeps telling him “you are just like your parents.” Whether that particular thought is true or not, he’s trying to change. He’s struggling with what needs to change and the walls of stubbornness he’s built up, but he’s promised himself he’ll at least pay attention. He has no plans to follow the rules to the letter, or anything crazy like that, but he is growing more aware. Of himself, and of the world around him.

→ Connections:

The Marauders (James Potter, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew) - Best Friends. Sirius is a proud drama queen, but he’s not being over the top when he says he’d die for any of them.

Regulus & Narcissa Black - Family. Sirius has a difficult relationship with family, to say the least. He cares for Regulus and Narcissa and wishes they’d come to their senses and stop playing their family’s mind games.

Bartemius Crouch Jr. - Hates. Barty’s angsty teenager attitude ticks Sirius off, as does the fact that he thinks he’s so rebellious when he refuses to actually stand up to his dad.

James Potter - Best Friend. Sirius is closer to James than he is to the other Marauders. He loves them all fiercely, but James is a brother to him.

#sirius black #closed #closed gry #closed gry m

[nukaworld]

How are doing your Nuka World with Tracie? Are you rewriting Todd's Canon?

Yes and no. Honestly this will get long so if you are willing to read please I’ll put this under the cut. Warning for a bit of Fallout 4 critical there, though not anything too much. 

Nuka World and Far Harbor were the two “big” story driven DLCs but I think they were both sort of an experiment over us as the community to see what the people want. Nuka World had a huge map with so many new and colorful things, a lot of world building and lore to explore, and also added the option to be “evil” and had absolute endings - join the raiders or kill the raiders. However because of this it sacrificed plot and characters. 

Far Harbor was a more plot oriented DLC where the world building wasn’t as vast though it was still pretty great and the focus was more on making three dimensional and likable characters (and ALL of them are, I love everyone in Far Harbor) as well as many endings because I think Far Harbor has 7 endings + 2 optional ones where you destroy Acadia with either the Institute or the Brotherhood of Steel. So that’s 9 endings compared to Nuka World’s 2. For this it sacrificed quests because it was a rather short DLC but it tired doing everything the main game was criticized for. And if you ask me Far Harbor succeeded and I think Far Harbor is amazing and yes I would change few things there too but overall I think its a great DLC and with 94% positive reviews on Steam I hope Bethesda follows this road for Fallout 5 some day. 

Now back at where I come in. Nuka World’s black and white ending irritated me. So that’s the only thing I changed. I made it so that some of the raider’s don’t die, and instead they perhaps change their ways or leave. I don’t like that the Open Season quest is basically you going around a theme park massacring people. Yes some of the raiders are terrible people but other’s are just doing shit to survive - they were either born or raised as raiders and never knew anything else. Some might even try to reform. So my changes in my playthrough are that Tracie gives the Minutemen some cheesy Disney speech how they are no different from “us” and that they surrendered and the leaders are dead and most scattered and maybe not massacre the small people that were just following orders. And then she decides to turn the entire park into a settlement as well as a huge trading center for the East Coast - the raiders that wanted to follow her decided to work on some of the attractions she re-opened and change their ways. The others left were banished from the Commonwealth - but point being there was no need for bloodshed, not as much as the game. 

As for overall I feel like Nuka World tried too hard to be edgy and pull some Suicide Squad kind of Hot Topic bullshit and listen I am a very edgy person myself but even I think it just tried too hard. Yes the raider groups were funny, but it’s unrealistic to have the Sole Survivor suddenly become Queen/King Fuckface of the Wasteland and lead an army of raiders into the Commonwealth since like few months ago (in their mind) they were a middle classed suburban family. It’s not realistic to the already flawed narrative Todd gave us to begin with. 

Also I think Gage’s character was a bit poorly written in the sense of his motivation to stick with the Overboss, it feels really weak to me. You are forced to talk as if you want to take over Nuka World with the raiders and he just kind of blindly follows and honestly Gage isn’t as dumb as people portray him, he is pretty smart for a raider for what I’ve gathered. So him sticking with you while he betrayed Colter, while it has some explanation is incredibly weak. Also I know I will get a lot of fire for this so I’m really sorry in advance but I don’t think Gage romance was necessary. He doesn’t strike me as the type and it felt really half baked and “edgy” and lmao I don’t like badmouthing anyone for their interests but the worst thing’s in Gage fandom came directly from the romance and there are few mutuals of mine here who have nice Gage romances and head canons and I like them, but just open AO3 and bask in the mischaracterization and weird Joker/Harley Quinn-esque shit. So I can just say they did Gage dirty too, a lot.

And worst of all unless you are a ride or die Preston fan like me, you will miss the fact that Preston is Gage’s contrast as in Preston is supposed to be your companion through the park if you decide to wipe the Raiders. He has so far as I’ve discovered four new lines of dialogue specifically for Nuka World! I have that post here if you wanna read. And that is not made clear at all? In the game? At all? So much that not even the wiki people know he has four new lines of dialogue? No one took the love of my life Preston to Nuka World? I digress, but you get my point. The plot was just not the focus so it butchered these characters. Also the Raider bosses have a lot of personality but unless you play a raider, you really don’t get to see it. Probably if you play as a raider you get to see it and realize it’s not that good. So I feel bad for the nice concepts of characters stuck in this DLC. 

Now as for Tracie, first i’m gonna tag @star-lord since they asked me about this yesterday (I hope this is okay!), but back to Tracie, she is a good person, and neither me nor her would ever agree to help raider’s enslave and murder people for whatever reason, I had to work around on my playthrough to justify it with a story. I cleared the park with Gage as a companion cause I paid like 20$ for this shit and I needed to get my content. And I somehow maxed out my affinity with him through I guess really lucky strategic lockpicking. Then I got the Open Season from the lady at the Market and well....you know how it goes from this point on :/ So story wise Tracie would absolutely argue with Preston on this matter because she thinks she can “help” the raiders at Nuka World become better people. And she genuinely thinks she can make a change without bloodshed and Preston is a good and hopeful soul, but I’m afraid he knew better than her on this one. 

Still he was fine with trying because he doesn’t want to kill unless he has to but still they are raiders. So she goes at Nuka World and she accepts being Overboss and tries befriending Gage in her own kind of silly ways. I am pretty sure Gage despite being a raider is smarter than her, she is just kind of not that smart and also very naive but her heart is in the right place. And she will clear out the park with Gage and I am pretty sure she will grow on him like a little kid or a little sister cause she is much younger. And then she presents him with her plan which he knows its not gonna work and not only that he won’t let it work. And I am working on the details on my plot here but she eventually does come with the Minutemen to Nuka World to stop the raiders, Gage does turn to her and yeah she does have to fight him :/ I love the angst though, she considered him to be her friend and she thought he was changed, that he became good. And I think this taught her a very, very valuable lesson that not everyone can be changed by “the power of friendship” and she needs to be more careful who she trusts. Because I make Disney features exclusively Gage doesn’t die but he fucks off somewhere far away and he still remains an antagonist from start to finish. And Tracie as I said above frees the merchants, instead of killing the raiders offers them to work in the park or leave the Commonwealth with their heads and turns Nuka World into a huge settlement/trading center/city. Oh and they are cool with Preston in the end, they still love each other. So yay! Happy ending! 

I just felt like writing a friend to enemy arc for once and I felt that Gage is not the character to get a redemption arc. He shows no remorse for his raider life and in fact he willingly joined it. He is living by those ideals and has been for all of his life so stripping him of that with some half baked redemption arc will ruin his character in my opinion. This doesn’t mean he cannot love or like the Sole Survivor, I’m just saying unlike me making the ex-antagonists from FNV and FO4 (Benny, Ulysses, X6) into friends or at least weird uncles to the protagonists in all my stories, I wanted to not do that for once and I think it fits Gage. 

So that’s all I will probably infodump the details of this story someday like all Disney and stuff, but I am testing the grounds because I really don’t want someone coming at me for I don’t know “demonizing” or “vilifying” Gage or whatever. 

#Anonymous

[fitnesshealthyoga-blog]

New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/how-to-love-yourself-with-on-being-humans-jennifer-pastiloff/

How to Love Yourself with On Being Human's Jennifer Pastiloff

When I tell you hundreds of books cross my desk each year, I mean it. Staff editors at wellness publications get review copies and manuscripts—most selling self love, radical happiness, promising to be life changing—every single day. At Yoga Journal, the interesting ones become the building blocks of desk-top fortresses. Few get read in entirety. None have ever actually impacted my life in any significant way. 

I started reading On Being Human one particularly lonely March weekend when my friends and husband were partying in an HGTV house we’d rented from AirBnb for a birthday party. Instead of revelry in the Rocky Mountains, I was in the fetal position thinking about dying—because endometriosis is murder and that’s another story. I’d brought home a review copy of Jennifer Pastiloff’s On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard, simply because I’d recognized her name from Instagram. Or maybe it was because magic is real and the Universe was offering me an olive branch. I kind of like not knowing.

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Pastiloff’s memoir brilliantly details her own triumph over anorexia and self-hatred fueled by crippling depression—and the similar transformations of women in her retreats and workshops that she bears witness to as some kind of anomalous yoga teacher/sisterhood guru. Suddenly I was cutting up Post-Its to mark passages, highlighting words I needed to hear and keep hearing, and texting iPhone photos of paragraphs to friends whose very own souls also seemed to be leaping off the pages of a manifesto relishing imperfection and shushing self doubt. I felt a surge of cosmic connection—of being seen by a stranger. So I did something bold and unusual and a little bit scary. I messaged Jen and told her how I felt like she was speaking directly to me. That I felt a little silly telling her that at all, but fuck it, right? That I’d love to attend, and write about, her On Being Human retreat in France in May. And could she offer a reduced media rate or host a member of the press—aka me?

Three months later, as I try to put the beauty and absurdity of the past week on paper—seven days spent workshopping and laughing and dancing and swimming and stargazing and holding hands and hearts at a dreamy 17th century chateau with some of the most dazzling people I’ve ever met, I can’t help thinking: This book actually changed my life.

Besides lasting friendships and precious memories, I’m walking away with tools to make every day a bit brighter. To see the beauty in myself and others and to quiet that little voice that tells me I’m not good enough; that I should have published my own book by now; that I’m behind or undeserving or a bad wife or too fat or unlovable. 

Here are just a few of the ways I learned to open up and love myself more—and you can too.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

17th-century country estate Chateau de Bardouly plays host to yoga retreats in Southwest France.

1. Be A Beauty Hunter 

Beauty hunting means looking around and counting as many gorgeous, amazing miracles you can possibly take in in that moment. The sound of rain on the roof. Clouds parting in the sky. Puppies. Baby feet. The smell of barbecues and fresh-cut grass and a hoppy IPA. It’s actually kind of impossible to be miserable and ungrateful when you’re collecting lovely things. The crooked smile of the concierge even after you’ve missed your flight (I did on the way to this retreat). The fact that humans even know how to fly at all. Beauty hunting. You’ll be surprised. The more beauty you seek and appreciate about a person or place or experience—quieting the inner monologue about what’s annoying you (a screaming baby, impossibly small airplane seats, no room in the overhead bin)—the more you’ll actually like yourself, too. Love and compassion are just muscles. Use them on others when it’s too hard to use them on yourself, and pretty soon it’ll be difficult to remember why you were so self-critical in the first place.

2. Banish Your “Just-A” Box

No one is just one thing. You’re not “just a mom,” “just a yoga instructor,” “just a teacher.” We all have multitudes. We are constantly evolving and growing and becoming better and best versions of ourselves. And this is the most important part: There is no timeline.

At the retreat, I shared space with women who accomplished many enviable things at varying times in their lives. One published a book in her 60s. One had her first baby at 20 and another had hers at 41. We all went around the room and listed off the things we were afraid of—scared we were too late for or had missed our shots at. I don’t want kids but I’m scared of not having kids. I’m afraid I’ll never publish my book or write for TV or film or get unstuck or feel fall-in-lovable. 

One particularly vibrant, intelligent, successful woman confessed that at 31, she was afraid she’d missed her chance at love. Oh, how the room scoffed at her perceived disillusion: You’re gorgeous! You’re so young! You’re so amazing! You’ll have everything! You have so much time!

But her fears are real for her and worth validation. We’re all afraid of things that won’t come true. It’s easier to look at the people around us and assure them that their worries are ridiculous and unfounded and of course there are wonderful things ahead. But it’s much harder to do it for ourselves. Think about the people you know and love in your life. Do you think of them as “just a _____”? I’m sure you don’t. Stop thinking about yourself that way.

3. Outsmart Your Inner Asshole

Your Inner Asshole (IA) is the voice of shame and degradation that tells you you’re awful and no one likes you and you’ll never accomplish your dreams and you’re stupid for even wanting them. Or at least that’s what mine says to me. Each IA is different. But they all have one thing in common: They’re A-holes. The IA will never stop trying to tell you what Jen calls “bullshit stories”: Messages of self-doubt or loathing that are completely unfounded but often paralyzing. In one of her workshops, she asked us each to write some of ours down. I’m too screwed up to find radical happiness. Passionate love doesn’t last. I’m not important enough to write what I want. I’ll never find financial freedom. I’m bad at marriage because of my parents’ shitty relationships.

Then she asked us to close our eyes and think of someone who makes us feel safe, loved, and understood—and write a letter to ourselves from that person’s point of view, beginning with: If you could see what I see, you’d know that…

I thought of my dear friend Hannah and how she laughs at my jokes and thinks I’m adorable when I’m gross and never judges my questionable choices as long as I’m following my truth. I channeled her voice and wrote myself a letter of admiration:

Linds,

If you could see what I see, you’d know that you are a badass B. I’ve watched you reawaken and take responsibility for your life in a way that is so cool and powerful. I love seeing you realize what you deserve and going for it. You’ve always had a way of making those around you recognize their own light. Yours, too, is so bright: I love seeing you shine. You are strong. You are brave. You are beautiful. You don’t even know yet that you’re halfway there. Keep going. I’ve got you. I’m walking you home.

Love, Hannah

Hannah is smarter than my IA. She knows that the things it tells me are 99 percent untrue. So from now on, when my IA pipes up to make me feel small or unworthy, I will be channelling Hannah when I tell it to kindly shut the hell up.

See also  10 Ways to Love Yourself (More) in the Modern World

4. Embrace Vulnerability

When Brené Brown coined the term “vulnerability hangover,” the woman had my number. I am the queen of wallowing in self-loathing after a night of putting my true self out on the table (this exposure is often helped along by lowering my inhibitions with alcohol, if I’m being honest). A friend of mine in college called it “the Weirds” when I woke up hungover, cripplingly afraid that no one liked me. “We all get the Weirds,” he said, reassuringly. 

And no matter how many times I’ve woken up with said Weirds, no one who’s witnessed me be outrageously myself has ever decided they no longer enjoy my company. As it turns out, I’m the only person who cringes after a night of wearing my heart on my sleeve.

In Jen’s workshop, we were vulnerable from day one. We wrote down our deepest fears about ourselves and read them out loud before we could even remember each other’s names. We read letters to our 16-year-old selves and poems we’d only been given a few minutes to write. We told each other all the horrible self-loathing thoughts our IA’s were ramming down our throats. And you know what? It was freeing. 

There were no pretenses to keep up with. We had come without our armor to a safe space and we did not die without it. We loved each other more because we could see each other better. In writing this now, I looked back at On Being Human and found this passage, which accurately confirms all I’ve just described (or maybe vise versa):

As my workshop started to morph into something more than yoga poses, I began to feel like I was falling in love with everyone in the room who allowed themselves to be vulnerable. And it dawned on me that the part of them I was smitten with was the side they probably tried to hide, just as I had done with my own vulnerability or perceived weaknesses. It wasn’t people being strong or snarky or guarded who made me want to know them more, who made me want wrap my arms around them. It was the ones who had snot dripping from their nose, who whispered “I am afraid,” who admitted they had no idea what they were doing. It was the ones who let themselves be silly and sing out loud, the ones who told the truth, the ones who shared their stories wholeheartedly. It was when they started to take off their armor and soften that I felt that surge of love, the same one I feel now when my son says Mommy, or when he wakes up with his hair sticking straight up. It was the feeling I got when someone was utterly themselves without any self-consciousness, when they allowed themselves to be seen. What is more desirable than that?

5. Give Yourself A F’ing Medal

At her workshops and in her book, Jen tells a story about “the one and the 100”: One person out of 100 may not like you. Do not try to please the one. 

At one of Jen’s earlier retreats, there was a woman wearing a big hat who just was not having all the Kum-ba-yah-ing. As she drove away a day or so early, she said to Jen, “I have to go. I need yoga. This is Feelings 101.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she continued, “because you just gave that whole speech about the one and the 100, and I am being the one.”

Here’s (a slightly abridged version of) how she tells it in On Being Human:

Later that night, in the kitchen, as I was chatting with some women at the retreat, I mentioned the woman leaving, even though I had promised myself I would not talk about it or feed it to give it energy. My IA was like, “Girl, you know you wanna gossip.”

So I stood there with my wine and said things like, “I mean, look what I’ve accomplished being a college dropout, having waited tables at the same place for almost 14 years, being deaf. I’ve overcome so much, and I guess there is always going to be that person.”

I said a lot of other things, but what I remember is one woman wouldn’t give me what I was looking for. A pat on the back. I wanted to be told it was going to be okay, that I didn’t suck. I wanted someone to appease my IA. The woman just listened.

In that moment, an epiphany struck me and I said, “Excuse me,” so I could call my friend.

“Elise,” I said excitedly into the phone. “I had my epiphany: No one is going to give me a fucking medal,” I yelled. “I have to give myself one.” 

There it was. My whole life I had been waiting for permission, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be acknowledged, chosen, given permission to take up space. All of my life I had been waiting for someone to tell me I was enough.

The lady who left my retreat gave me a gift. She gifted me with the revelation that you have to do all the hard work of loving yourself yourself. In that moment in the kitchen with those ladies and the wine and the chocolate ganache, I finally realized that no one was ever going to save me. No one was ever going to give me permission to be me. I had to do it.

So on one of our very last days together last week, we sat baking in the warm sun together on a wooden yoga platform in Southern France. We stood up, one after another, and gave ourselves fucking medals. For being fiercely feminist. For having kids. For not having kids. For telling the hard stories. For surviving. For getting out of bed. For beating cancer. For eating the bread. And we all cheered and laughed and said “I got you” and were in awe of each other’s strength and beauty and we meant it. 

YJ senior editor Lindsay Tucker spent the past week with Jennifer Pastiloff at her On Being Human Retreat.

On Being Human goes on sale today. To learn more about Jen or attending one of her workshops or retreats, visit jenniferpastiloff.com.

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[krisiunicornio]

Senior editor, Lindsay Tucker spent a week in Southern France with Jen Pastillof on her On Being Human Retreat. Here are just a few ways she learned to open up and love herself more—and you can too.

When I tell you hundreds of books cross my desk each year, I mean it. Staff editors at wellness publications get review copies and manuscripts—most selling self love, radical happiness, promising to be life changing—every single day. At Yoga Journal, the interesting ones become the building blocks of desk-top fortresses. Few get read in entirety. None have ever actually impacted my life in any significant way. 

I started reading On Being Human one particularly lonely March weekend when my friends and husband were partying in an HGTV house we’d rented from AirBnb for a birthday party. Instead of revelry in the Rocky Mountains, I was in the fetal position thinking about dying—because endometriosis is murder and that’s another story. I’d brought home a review copy of Jennifer Pastiloff’s On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard, simply because I’d recognized her name from Instagram. Or maybe it was because magic is real and the Universe was offering me an olive branch. I kind of like not knowing.

Pastiloff’s memoir brilliantly details her own triumph over anorexia and self-hatred fueled by crippling depression—and the similar transformations of women in her retreats and workshops that she bears witness to as some kind of anomalous yoga teacher/sisterhood guru. Suddenly I was cutting up Post-Its to mark passages, highlighting words I needed to hear and keep hearing, and texting iPhone photos of paragraphs to friends whose very own souls also seemed to be leaping off the pages of a manifesto relishing imperfection and shushing self doubt. I felt a surge of cosmic connection—of being seen by a stranger. So I did something bold and unusual and a little bit scary. I messaged Jen and told her how I felt like she was speaking directly to me. That I felt a little silly telling her that at all, but fuck it, right? That I’d love to attend, and write about, her On Being Human retreat in France in May. And could she offer a reduced media rate or host a member of the press—aka me?

Three months later, as I try to put the beauty and absurdity of the past week on paper—seven days spent workshopping and laughing and dancing and swimming and stargazing and holding hands and hearts at a dreamy 17th century chateau with some of the most dazzling people I’ve ever met, I can’t help thinking: This book actually changed my life.

Besides lasting friendships and precious memories, I’m walking away with tools to make every day a bit brighter. To see the beauty in myself and others and to quiet that little voice that tells me I’m not good enough; that I should have published my own book by now; that I’m behind or undeserving or a bad wife or too fat or unlovable. 

Here are just a few of the ways I learned to open up and love myself more—and you can too.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

17th-century country estate Chateau de Bardouly plays host to yoga retreats in Southwest France.

1. Be A Beauty Hunter 

Beauty hunting means looking around and counting as many gorgeous, amazing miracles you can possibly take in in that moment. The sound of rain on the roof. Clouds parting in the sky. Puppies. Baby feet. The smell of barbecues and fresh-cut grass and a hoppy IPA. It’s actually kind of impossible to be miserable and ungrateful when you’re collecting lovely things. The crooked smile of the concierge even after you’ve missed your flight (I did on the way to this retreat). The fact that humans even know how to fly at all. Beauty hunting. You’ll be surprised. The more beauty you seek and appreciate about a person or place or experience—quieting the inner monologue about what’s annoying you (a screaming baby, impossibly small airplane seats, no room in the overhead bin)—the more you’ll actually like yourself, too. Love and compassion are just muscles. Use them on others when it’s too hard to use them on yourself, and pretty soon it’ll be difficult to remember why you were so self-critical in the first place.

2. Banish Your “Just-A” Box

No one is just one thing. You’re not “just a mom,” “just a yoga instructor,” “just a teacher.” We all have multitudes. We are constantly evolving and growing and becoming better and best versions of ourselves. And this is the most important part: There is no timeline.

At the retreat, I shared space with women who accomplished many amazing, enviable things at varying times in their lives. One published a book in her 60s. One had her first baby at 20 and another had hers at 41. We all went around the room and listed off the things we were afraid of—scared we were too late for or had missed our shots at. I don’t want kids but I’m scared of not having kids. I’m afraid I’ll never publish my book or write for TV or film or get unstuck or feel fall-in-lovable. 

One particularly vibrant, intelligent, successful woman confessed that at 31, she was afraid she’d missed her chance at love. Oh, how the room scoffed at her perceived disillusion: You’re gorgeous! You’re so young! You’re so amazing! You’ll have everything! You have so much time!

But her fears are real for her and worth validation. We’re all afraid of things that won’t come true. It’s easier to look at the people around us and assure them that their worries are ridiculous and unfounded and of course there are wonderful things ahead. But it’s much harder to do it for ourselves. Think about the people you know and love in your life. Do you think of them as “just a _____”? I’m sure you don’t. Stop thinking about yourself that way.

3. Outsmart Your Inner Asshole

Your Inner Asshole (IA) is the voice of shame and degradation that tells you you’re awful and no one likes you and you’ll never accomplish your dreams and you’re stupid for even wanting them. Or at least that’s what mine says to me. Each IA is different. But they all have one thing in common: They’re A-holes. The IA will never stop trying to tell you what Jen calls “bullshit stories”: Messages of self-doubt or loathing that are completely unfounded but often paralyzing. In one of her workshops, she asked us each to write some of ours down. I’m too screwed up to find radical happiness. Passionate love doesn’t last. I’m not important enough to write what I want. I’ll never find financial freedom. I’m bad at marriage because of my parents’ shitty relationships.

Then she asked us to close our eyes and think of someone who makes us feel safe, loved, and understood—and write a letter to ourselves from that person's point of view, beginning with: If you could see what I see, you’d know that… I thought of my dear friend Hannah and how she laughs at my jokes and thinks I’m adorable when I’m gross and never judges my questionable choices as long as I’m following my truth. I channeled her voice and wrote myself a letter of admiration:

Linds,

If you could see what I see, you’d know that you are a badass B. I’ve watched you reawaken and take responsibility for your life in a way that is so cool and powerful. I love seeing you realize what you deserve and going for it. You’ve always had a way of making those around you recognize their own light. Yours, too, is so bright: I love seeing you shine. You are strong. You are brave. You are beautiful. You don’t even know yet that you’re halfway there. Keep going. I’ve got you. I’m walking you home.

Love, Hannah

Hannah is smarter than my IA. She knows that the things it tells me are 99 percent untrue. So from now on, when my IA pipes up to make me feel small or unworthy, I will be channelling Hannah when I tell it to kindly shut the hell up.

See also  10 Ways to Love Yourself (More) in the Modern World

4. Embrace Vulnerability

When Brené Brown coined the term “vulnerability hangover,” the woman had my number. I am the queen of wallowing in self-loathing after a night of putting my true self out on the table (this exposure is often helped along by lowering my inhibitions with alcohol, if I’m being honest). A friend of mine in college called it “the Weirds” when I woke up hungover, cripplingly afraid that no one liked me. “We all get the Weirds,” he said, reassuringly. 

And no matter how many times I’ve woken up with said Weirds, no one who's witnessed me be outrageously myself has ever decided they no longer enjoy my company. As it turns out, I’m the only person who cringes after a night of wearing my heart on my sleeve.

In Jen’s workshop, we were vulnerable from day one. We wrote down our deepest fears about ourselves and read them out loud before we could even remember each other's names. We read letters to our 16-year-old selves and poems we'd only been given a few minutes to write. We told each other all the horrible self-loathing thoughts our IA’s were ramming down our throats. And you know what? It was freeing. 

There were no pretenses to keep up with. We had come without our armor to a safe space and we did not die without it. We loved each other more because we could see each other better. In writing this now, I looked back at On Being Human and found this passage, which accurately confirms all I’ve just described (or maybe vise versa):

As my workshop started to morph into something more than yoga poses, I began to feel like I was falling in love with everyone in the room who allowed themselves to be vulnerable. And it dawned on me that the part of them I was smitten with was the side they probably tried to hide, just as I had done with my own vulnerability or perceived weaknesses. It wasn’t people being strong or snarky or guarded who made me want to know them more, who made me want wrap my arms around them. It was the ones who had snot dripping from their nose, who whispered "I am afraid," who admitted they had no idea what they were doing. It was the ones who let themselves be silly and sing out loud, the ones who told the truth, the ones who shared their stories wholeheartedly. It was when they started to take off their armor and soften that I felt that surge of love, the same one I feel now when my son says Mommy, or when he wakes up with his hair sticking straight up. It was the feeling I got when someone was utterly themselves without any self-consciousness, when they allowed themselves to be seen. What is more desirable than that?

5. Give Yourself A F'ing Medal

At her workshops and in her book, Jen tells a story about “the one and the 100”: One person out of 100 may not like you. Do not try to please the one. 

At one of Jen's earlier retreats, there was a woman wearing a big hat who just was not having all the Kum-ba-yah-ing. As she drove away a day or so early, she said to Jen, “I have to go. I need yoga. This is Feelings 101.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she continued, “because you just gave that whole speech about the one and the 100, and I am being the one.”

Here’s (a slightly abridged version of) how she tells it in On Being Human:

Later that night, in the kitchen, as I was chatting with some women at the retreat, I mentioned the woman leaving, even though I had promised myself I would not talk about it or feed it to give it energy. My IA was like, "Girl, you know you wanna gossip."

So I stood there with my wine and said things like, “I mean, look what I’ve accomplished being a college dropout, having waited tables at the same place for almost 14 years, being deaf. I’ve overcome so much, and I guess there is always going to be that person.”

I said a lot of other things, but what I remember is one woman wouldn’t give me what I was looking for. A pat on the back. I wanted to be told it was going to be okay, that I didn’t suck. I wanted someone to appease my IA. The woman just listened.

In that moment, an epiphany struck me and I said, “Excuse me,” so I could call my friend.

“Elise,” I said excitedly into the phone. “I had my epiphany: No one is going to give me a fucking medal,” I yelled. “I have to give myself one.” 

There it was. My whole life I had been waiting for permission, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be acknowledged, chosen, given permission to take up space. All of my life I had been waiting for someone to tell me I was enough.

The lady who left my retreat gave me a gift. She gifted me with the revelation that you have to do all the hard work of loving yourself yourself. In that moment in the kitchen with those ladies and the wine and the chocolate ganache, I finally realized that no one was ever going to save me. No one was ever going to give me permission to be me. I had to do it.

So on one of our very last days together last week, we sat baking in the warm sun together on a wooden yoga platform in Southern France. We stood up, one after another, and gave ourselves fucking medals. For being fiercely feminist. For having kids. For not having kids. For telling the hard stories. For surviving. For getting out of bed. For beating cancer. For eating the bread. And we all cheered and laughed and said “I got you” and were in awe of each other’s strength and beauty and we meant it. 

YJ senior editor Lindsay Tucker spent the past week with Jennifer Pastiloff at her On Being Human Retreat.

On Being Human goes on sale today. To learn more about Jen or attending one of her workshops or retreats, visit jenniferpastiloff.com.

#sleep sounds #sleep music #white noise app #nature sounds #relaxing sounds #rain sounds for sleeping

[cedarrrun]

Senior editor, Lindsay Tucker spent a week in Southern France with Jen Pastillof on her On Being Human Retreat. Here are just a few ways she learned to open up and love herself more—and you can too.

When I tell you hundreds of books cross my desk each year, I mean it. Staff editors at wellness publications get review copies and manuscripts—most selling self love, radical happiness, promising to be life changing—every single day. At Yoga Journal, the interesting ones become the building blocks of desk-top fortresses. Few get read in entirety. None have ever actually impacted my life in any significant way. 

I started reading On Being Human one particularly lonely March weekend when my friends and husband were partying in an HGTV house we’d rented from AirBnb for a birthday party. Instead of revelry in the Rocky Mountains, I was in the fetal position thinking about dying—because endometriosis is murder and that’s another story. I’d brought home a review copy of Jennifer Pastiloff’s On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard, simply because I’d recognized her name from Instagram. Or maybe it was because magic is real and the Universe was offering me an olive branch. I kind of like not knowing.

Pastiloff’s memoir brilliantly details her own triumph over anorexia and self-hatred fueled by crippling depression—and the similar transformations of women in her retreats and workshops that she bears witness to as some kind of anomalous yoga teacher/sisterhood guru. Suddenly I was cutting up Post-Its to mark passages, highlighting words I needed to hear and keep hearing, and texting iPhone photos of paragraphs to friends whose very own souls also seemed to be leaping off the pages of a manifesto relishing imperfection and shushing self doubt. I felt a surge of cosmic connection—of being seen by a stranger. So I did something bold and unusual and a little bit scary. I messaged Jen and told her how I felt like she was speaking directly to me. That I felt a little silly telling her that at all, but fuck it, right? That I’d love to attend, and write about, her On Being Human retreat in France in May. And could she offer a reduced media rate or host a member of the press—aka me?

Three months later, as I try to put the beauty and absurdity of the past week on paper—seven days spent workshopping and laughing and dancing and swimming and stargazing and holding hands and hearts at a dreamy 17th century chateau with some of the most dazzling people I’ve ever met, I can’t help thinking: This book actually changed my life.

Besides lasting friendships and precious memories, I’m walking away with tools to make every day a bit brighter. To see the beauty in myself and others and to quiet that little voice that tells me I’m not good enough; that I should have published my own book by now; that I’m behind or undeserving or a bad wife or too fat or unlovable. 

Here are just a few of the ways I learned to open up and love myself more—and you can too.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

17th-century country estate Chateau de Bardouly plays host to yoga retreats in Southwest France.

1. Be A Beauty Hunter 

Beauty hunting means looking around and counting as many gorgeous, amazing miracles you can possibly take in in that moment. The sound of rain on the roof. Clouds parting in the sky. Puppies. Baby feet. The smell of barbecues and fresh-cut grass and a hoppy IPA. It’s actually kind of impossible to be miserable and ungrateful when you’re collecting lovely things. The crooked smile of the concierge even after you’ve missed your flight (I did on the way to this retreat). The fact that humans even know how to fly at all. Beauty hunting. You’ll be surprised. The more beauty you seek and appreciate about a person or place or experience—quieting the inner monologue about what’s annoying you (a screaming baby, impossibly small airplane seats, no room in the overhead bin)—the more you’ll actually like yourself, too. Love and compassion are just muscles. Use them on others when it’s too hard to use them on yourself, and pretty soon it’ll be difficult to remember why you were so self-critical in the first place.

2. Banish Your “Just-A” Box

No one is just one thing. You’re not “just a mom,” “just a yoga instructor,” “just a teacher.” We all have multitudes. We are constantly evolving and growing and becoming better and best versions of ourselves. And this is the most important part: There is no timeline.

At the retreat, I shared space with women who accomplished many amazing, enviable things at varying times in their lives. One published a book in her 60s. One had her first baby at 20 and another had hers at 41. We all went around the room and listed off the things we were afraid of—scared we were too late for or had missed our shots at. I don’t want kids but I’m scared of not having kids. I’m afraid I’ll never publish my book or write for TV or film or get unstuck or feel fall-in-lovable. 

One particularly vibrant, intelligent, successful woman confessed that at 31, she was afraid she’d missed her chance at love. Oh, how the room scoffed at her perceived disillusion: You’re gorgeous! You’re so young! You’re so amazing! You’ll have everything! You have so much time!

But her fears are real for her and worth validation. We’re all afraid of things that won’t come true. It’s easier to look at the people around us and assure them that their worries are ridiculous and unfounded and of course there are wonderful things ahead. But it’s much harder to do it for ourselves. Think about the people you know and love in your life. Do you think of them as “just a _____”? I’m sure you don’t. Stop thinking about yourself that way.

3. Outsmart Your Inner Asshole

Your Inner Asshole (IA) is the voice of shame and degradation that tells you you’re awful and no one likes you and you’ll never accomplish your dreams and you’re stupid for even wanting them. Or at least that’s what mine says to me. Each IA is different. But they all have one thing in common: They’re A-holes. The IA will never stop trying to tell you what Jen calls “bullshit stories”: Messages of self-doubt or loathing that are completely unfounded but often paralyzing. In one of her workshops, she asked us each to write some of ours down. I’m too screwed up to find radical happiness. Passionate love doesn’t last. I’m not important enough to write what I want. I’ll never find financial freedom. I’m bad at marriage because of my parents’ shitty relationships.

Then she asked us to close our eyes and think of someone who makes us feel safe, loved, and understood—and write a letter to ourselves from that person's point of view, beginning with: If you could see what I see, you’d know that… I thought of my dear friend Hannah and how she laughs at my jokes and thinks I’m adorable when I’m gross and never judges my questionable choices as long as I’m following my truth. I channeled her voice and wrote myself a letter of admiration:

Linds,

If you could see what I see, you’d know that you are a badass B. I’ve watched you reawaken and take responsibility for your life in a way that is so cool and powerful. I love seeing you realize what you deserve and going for it. You’ve always had a way of making those around you recognize their own light. Yours, too, is so bright: I love seeing you shine. You are strong. You are brave. You are beautiful. You don’t even know yet that you’re halfway there. Keep going. I’ve got you. I’m walking you home.

Love, Hannah

Hannah is smarter than my IA. She knows that the things it tells me are 99 percent untrue. So from now on, when my IA pipes up to make me feel small or unworthy, I will be channelling Hannah when I tell it to kindly shut the hell up.

See also  10 Ways to Love Yourself (More) in the Modern World

4. Embrace Vulnerability

When Brené Brown coined the term “vulnerability hangover,” the woman had my number. I am the queen of wallowing in self-loathing after a night of putting my true self out on the table (this exposure is often helped along by lowering my inhibitions with alcohol, if I’m being honest). A friend of mine in college called it “the Weirds” when I woke up hungover, cripplingly afraid that no one liked me. “We all get the Weirds,” he said, reassuringly. 

And no matter how many times I’ve woken up with said Weirds, no one who's witnessed me be outrageously myself has ever decided they no longer enjoy my company. As it turns out, I’m the only person who cringes after a night of wearing my heart on my sleeve.

In Jen’s workshop, we were vulnerable from day one. We wrote down our deepest fears about ourselves and read them out loud before we could even remember each other's names. We read letters to our 16-year-old selves and poems we'd only been given a few minutes to write. We told each other all the horrible self-loathing thoughts our IA’s were ramming down our throats. And you know what? It was freeing. 

There were no pretenses to keep up with. We had come without our armor to a safe space and we did not die without it. We loved each other more because we could see each other better. In writing this now, I looked back at On Being Human and found this passage, which accurately confirms all I’ve just described (or maybe vise versa):

As my workshop started to morph into something more than yoga poses, I began to feel like I was falling in love with everyone in the room who allowed themselves to be vulnerable. And it dawned on me that the part of them I was smitten with was the side they probably tried to hide, just as I had done with my own vulnerability or perceived weaknesses. It wasn’t people being strong or snarky or guarded who made me want to know them more, who made me want wrap my arms around them. It was the ones who had snot dripping from their nose, who whispered "I am afraid," who admitted they had no idea what they were doing. It was the ones who let themselves be silly and sing out loud, the ones who told the truth, the ones who shared their stories wholeheartedly. It was when they started to take off their armor and soften that I felt that surge of love, the same one I feel now when my son says Mommy, or when he wakes up with his hair sticking straight up. It was the feeling I got when someone was utterly themselves without any self-consciousness, when they allowed themselves to be seen. What is more desirable than that?

5. Give Yourself A F'ing Medal

At her workshops and in her book, Jen tells a story about “the one and the 100”: One person out of 100 may not like you. Do not try to please the one. 

At one of Jen's earlier retreats, there was a woman wearing a big hat who just was not having all the Kum-ba-yah-ing. As she drove away a day or so early, she said to Jen, “I have to go. I need yoga. This is Feelings 101.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she continued, “because you just gave that whole speech about the one and the 100, and I am being the one.”

Here’s (a slightly abridged version of) how she tells it in On Being Human:

Later that night, in the kitchen, as I was chatting with some women at the retreat, I mentioned the woman leaving, even though I had promised myself I would not talk about it or feed it to give it energy. My IA was like, "Girl, you know you wanna gossip."

So I stood there with my wine and said things like, “I mean, look what I’ve accomplished being a college dropout, having waited tables at the same place for almost 14 years, being deaf. I’ve overcome so much, and I guess there is always going to be that person.”

I said a lot of other things, but what I remember is one woman wouldn’t give me what I was looking for. A pat on the back. I wanted to be told it was going to be okay, that I didn’t suck. I wanted someone to appease my IA. The woman just listened.

In that moment, an epiphany struck me and I said, “Excuse me,” so I could call my friend.

“Elise,” I said excitedly into the phone. “I had my epiphany: No one is going to give me a fucking medal,” I yelled. “I have to give myself one.” 

There it was. My whole life I had been waiting for permission, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be acknowledged, chosen, given permission to take up space. All of my life I had been waiting for someone to tell me I was enough.

The lady who left my retreat gave me a gift. She gifted me with the revelation that you have to do all the hard work of loving yourself yourself. In that moment in the kitchen with those ladies and the wine and the chocolate ganache, I finally realized that no one was ever going to save me. No one was ever going to give me permission to be me. I had to do it.

So on one of our very last days together last week, we sat baking in the warm sun together on a wooden yoga platform in Southern France. We stood up, one after another, and gave ourselves fucking medals. For being fiercely feminist. For having kids. For not having kids. For telling the hard stories. For surviving. For getting out of bed. For beating cancer. For eating the bread. And we all cheered and laughed and said “I got you” and were in awe of each other’s strength and beauty and we meant it. 

YJ senior editor Lindsay Tucker spent the past week with Jennifer Pastiloff at her On Being Human Retreat.

On Being Human goes on sale today. To learn more about Jen or attending one of her workshops or retreats, visit jenniferpastiloff.com.

#sleep sounds #sleep music #white noise app #nature sounds #relaxing sounds #rain sounds for sleeping

[amyddaniels]

5 Ways to Radically Love Yourself Today

Senior editor, Lindsay Tucker spent a week in Southern France with Jen Pastillof on her On Being Human Retreat. Here are just a few ways she learned to open up and love herself more—and you can too.

When I tell you hundreds of books cross my desk each year, I mean it. Staff editors at wellness publications get review copies and manuscripts—most selling self love, radical happiness, promising to be life changing—every single day. At Yoga Journal, the interesting ones become the building blocks of desk-top fortresses. Few get read in entirety. None have ever actually impacted my life in any significant way. 

I started reading On Being Human one particularly lonely March weekend when my friends and husband were partying in an HGTV house we’d rented from AirBnb for a birthday party. Instead of revelry in the Rocky Mountains, I was in the fetal position thinking about dying—because endometriosis is murder and that’s another story. I’d brought home a review copy of Jennifer Pastiloff’s On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard, simply because I’d recognized her name from Instagram. Or maybe it was because magic is real and the Universe was offering me an olive branch. I kind of like not knowing.

Pastiloff’s memoir brilliantly details her own triumph over anorexia and self-hatred fueled by crippling depression—and the similar transformations of women in her retreats and workshops that she bears witness to as some kind of anomalous yoga teacher/sisterhood guru. Suddenly I was cutting up Post-Its to mark passages, highlighting words I needed to hear and keep hearing, and texting iPhone photos of paragraphs to friends whose very own souls also seemed to be leaping off the pages of a manifesto relishing imperfection and shushing self doubt. I felt a surge of cosmic connection—of being seen by a stranger. So I did something bold and unusual and a little bit scary. I messaged Jen and told her how I felt like she was speaking directly to me. That I felt a little silly telling her that at all, but fuck it, right? That I’d love to attend, and write about, her On Being Human retreat in France in May. And could she offer a reduced media rate or host a member of the press—aka me?

Three months later, as I try to put the beauty and absurdity of the past week on paper—seven days spent workshopping and laughing and dancing and swimming and stargazing and holding hands and hearts at a dreamy 17th century chateau with some of the most dazzling people I’ve ever met, I can’t help thinking: This book actually changed my life.

Besides lasting friendships and precious memories, I’m walking away with tools to make every day a bit brighter. To see the beauty in myself and others and to quiet that little voice that tells me I’m not good enough; that I should have published my own book by now; that I’m behind or undeserving or a bad wife or too fat or unlovable. 

Here are just a few of the ways I learned to open up and love myself more—and you can too.

See also 5 Poses to Inspire More Self-Love, Less Self Smack-Talk

17th-century country estate Chateau de Bardouly plays host to yoga retreats in Southwest France.

1. Be A Beauty Hunter 

Beauty hunting means looking around and counting as many gorgeous, amazing miracles you can possibly take in in that moment. The sound of rain on the roof. Clouds parting in the sky. Puppies. Baby feet. The smell of barbecues and fresh-cut grass and a hoppy IPA. It’s actually kind of impossible to be miserable and ungrateful when you’re collecting lovely things. The crooked smile of the concierge even after you’ve missed your flight (I did on the way to this retreat). The fact that humans even know how to fly at all. Beauty hunting. You’ll be surprised. The more beauty you seek and appreciate about a person or place or experience—quieting the inner monologue about what’s annoying you (a screaming baby, impossibly small airplane seats, no room in the overhead bin)—the more you’ll actually like yourself, too. Love and compassion are just muscles. Use them on others when it’s too hard to use them on yourself, and pretty soon it’ll be difficult to remember why you were so self-critical in the first place.

2. Banish Your “Just-A” Box

No one is just one thing. You’re not “just a mom,” “just a yoga instructor,” “just a teacher.” We all have multitudes. We are constantly evolving and growing and becoming better and best versions of ourselves. And this is the most important part: There is no timeline.

At the retreat, I shared space with women who accomplished many amazing, enviable things at varying times in their lives. One published a book in her 60s. One had her first baby at 20 and another had hers at 41. We all went around the room and listed off the things we were afraid of—scared we were too late for or had missed our shots at. I don’t want kids but I’m scared of not having kids. I’m afraid I’ll never publish my book or write for TV or film or get unstuck or feel fall-in-lovable. 

One particularly vibrant, intelligent, successful woman confessed that at 31, she was afraid she’d missed her chance at love. Oh, how the room scoffed at her perceived disillusion: You’re gorgeous! You’re so young! You’re so amazing! You’ll have everything! You have so much time!

But her fears are real for her and worth validation. We’re all afraid of things that won’t come true. It’s easier to look at the people around us and assure them that their worries are ridiculous and unfounded and of course there are wonderful things ahead. But it’s much harder to do it for ourselves. Think about the people you know and love in your life. Do you think of them as “just a _____”? I’m sure you don’t. Stop thinking about yourself that way.

3. Outsmart Your Inner Asshole

Your Inner Asshole (IA) is the voice of shame and degradation that tells you you’re awful and no one likes you and you’ll never accomplish your dreams and you’re stupid for even wanting them. Or at least that’s what mine says to me. Each IA is different. But they all have one thing in common: They’re A-holes. The IA will never stop trying to tell you what Jen calls “bullshit stories”: Messages of self-doubt or loathing that are completely unfounded but often paralyzing. In one of her workshops, she asked us each to write some of ours down. I’m too screwed up to find radical happiness. Passionate love doesn’t last. I’m not important enough to write what I want. I’ll never find financial freedom. I’m bad at marriage because of my parents’ shitty relationships.

Then she asked us to close our eyes and think of someone who makes us feel safe, loved, and understood—and write a letter to ourselves from that person's point of view, beginning with: If you could see what I see, you’d know that… I thought of my dear friend Hannah and how she laughs at my jokes and thinks I’m adorable when I’m gross and never judges my questionable choices as long as I’m following my truth. I channeled her voice and wrote myself a letter of admiration:

Linds,

If you could see what I see, you’d know that you are a badass B. I’ve watched you reawaken and take responsibility for your life in a way that is so cool and powerful. I love seeing you realize what you deserve and going for it. You’ve always had a way of making those around you recognize their own light. Yours, too, is so bright: I love seeing you shine. You are strong. You are brave. You are beautiful. You don’t even know yet that you’re halfway there. Keep going. I’ve got you. I’m walking you home.

Love, Hannah

Hannah is smarter than my IA. She knows that the things it tells me are 99 percent untrue. So from now on, when my IA pipes up to make me feel small or unworthy, I will be channelling Hannah when I tell it to kindly shut the hell up.

See also  10 Ways to Love Yourself (More) in the Modern World

4. Embrace Vulnerability

When Brené Brown coined the term “vulnerability hangover,” the woman had my number. I am the queen of wallowing in self-loathing after a night of putting my true self out on the table (this exposure is often helped along by lowering my inhibitions with alcohol, if I’m being honest). A friend of mine in college called it “the Weirds” when I woke up hungover, cripplingly afraid that no one liked me. “We all get the Weirds,” he said, reassuringly. 

And no matter how many times I’ve woken up with said Weirds, no one who's witnessed me be outrageously myself has ever decided they no longer enjoy my company. As it turns out, I’m the only person who cringes after a night of wearing my heart on my sleeve.

In Jen’s workshop, we were vulnerable from day one. We wrote down our deepest fears about ourselves and read them out loud before we could even remember each other's names. We read letters to our 16-year-old selves and poems we'd only been given a few minutes to write. We told each other all the horrible self-loathing thoughts our IA’s were ramming down our throats. And you know what? It was freeing. 

There were no pretenses to keep up with. We had come without our armor to a safe space and we did not die without it. We loved each other more because we could see each other better. In writing this now, I looked back at On Being Human and found this passage, which accurately confirms all I’ve just described (or maybe vise versa):

As my workshop started to morph into something more than yoga poses, I began to feel like I was falling in love with everyone in the room who allowed themselves to be vulnerable. And it dawned on me that the part of them I was smitten with was the side they probably tried to hide, just as I had done with my own vulnerability or perceived weaknesses. It wasn’t people being strong or snarky or guarded who made me want to know them more, who made me want wrap my arms around them. It was the ones who had snot dripping from their nose, who whispered "I am afraid," who admitted they had no idea what they were doing. It was the ones who let themselves be silly and sing out loud, the ones who told the truth, the ones who shared their stories wholeheartedly. It was when they started to take off their armor and soften that I felt that surge of love, the same one I feel now when my son says Mommy, or when he wakes up with his hair sticking straight up. It was the feeling I got when someone was utterly themselves without any self-consciousness, when they allowed themselves to be seen. What is more desirable than that?

5. Give Yourself A F'ing Medal

At her workshops and in her book, Jen tells a story about “the one and the 100”: One person out of 100 may not like you. Do not try to please the one. 

At one of Jen's earlier retreats, there was a woman wearing a big hat who just was not having all the Kum-ba-yah-ing. As she drove away a day or so early, she said to Jen, “I have to go. I need yoga. This is Feelings 101.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she continued, “because you just gave that whole speech about the one and the 100, and I am being the one.”

Here’s (a slightly abridged version of) how she tells it in On Being Human:

Later that night, in the kitchen, as I was chatting with some women at the retreat, I mentioned the woman leaving, even though I had promised myself I would not talk about it or feed it to give it energy. My IA was like, "Girl, you know you wanna gossip."

So I stood there with my wine and said things like, “I mean, look what I’ve accomplished being a college dropout, having waited tables at the same place for almost 14 years, being deaf. I’ve overcome so much, and I guess there is always going to be that person.”

I said a lot of other things, but what I remember is one woman wouldn’t give me what I was looking for. A pat on the back. I wanted to be told it was going to be okay, that I didn’t suck. I wanted someone to appease my IA. The woman just listened.

In that moment, an epiphany struck me and I said, “Excuse me,” so I could call my friend.

“Elise,” I said excitedly into the phone. “I had my epiphany: No one is going to give me a fucking medal,” I yelled. “I have to give myself one.” 

There it was. My whole life I had been waiting for permission, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be acknowledged, chosen, given permission to take up space. All of my life I had been waiting for someone to tell me I was enough.

The lady who left my retreat gave me a gift. She gifted me with the revelation that you have to do all the hard work of loving yourself yourself. In that moment in the kitchen with those ladies and the wine and the chocolate ganache, I finally realized that no one was ever going to save me. No one was ever going to give me permission to be me. I had to do it.

So on one of our very last days together last week, we sat baking in the warm sun together on a wooden yoga platform in Southern France. We stood up, one after another, and gave ourselves fucking medals. For being fiercely feminist. For having kids. For not having kids. For telling the hard stories. For surviving. For getting out of bed. For beating cancer. For eating the bread. And we all cheered and laughed and said “I got you” and were in awe of each other’s strength and beauty and we meant it. 

YJ senior editor Lindsay Tucker spent the past week with Jennifer Pastiloff at her On Being Human Retreat.

On Being Human goes on sale today. To learn more about Jen or attending one of her workshops or retreats, visit jenniferpastiloff.com.