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gojoho · 2 years

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KARMA

• premise; he's seen a lot of curses in his time, how they damage those around them but would gladly be the savior if it meant getting his fill.

• pairing; vol.0!suguru geto x reader [ nsfw ]

• words; 3,779

• note & warning; so this has been sitting in my drafts for a while, wasn’t going to post it since i kinda hate it but…fuck it. here’s some vol 0 suguru. enjoy, i guess? oh yeah, you guys know i can’t proof read for shit so some grammatical mistakes. it isn’t crazy, just some light degradation, choking, if you squint really hard gaslighting and manipulation, lastly unprotected sex ( wrap it before you tap it )

Suguru Geto was a name that went alongside indiscretion, and his presence was not always as welcomed as he would have wanted. A cursory circumstance; whether you liked him or despised him, either way, it was a grisly fate that awaited those who were brave enough to stand in his opposition. No stranger to your sharp tongue or defiance, he was well aware that this time around it was hatred that followed his character.

Submission was demanded through intimidation. A predator of the defenseless, feeding on their vulnerabilities. Curses were not just seen by everyone, not totally, but that didn't make them any less of a threat. And, his talent to discern the evil among humanity earned him respect. Why the interests of your destitute elders collide with his vanity. Believing that the hand of a God would save your body from those so-called demons, not realizing that they were handing you over to a devil. Beseeching him to remove the impurity from your hips.

"All the king’s horses and all the king’s men," were his exact words. Neither formal compliance nor rejection, but he knew his voice—resonant and filled with merited arrogance— kept meaning with you.

He did, however, appreciate the irony of your reliance on his every last word. After all, you did your best to denigrate every single one (in what he would consider a pitiful insurrection). Your feeble attempts to regulate the rush of excitement, the curse's ferocious hunger; it was all amusing. Finally, Karma was on his side.

Most evenings were spent in silence, excluding your whines now and then. He’d offer a glance at where your curse had opted to feed and immediately found himself taken with how swiftly your body reacted to such an illusory touch. The very idea of modesty lost beneath midnight, but it was the ghostly sight of your pleasure that had buried his consciousness alive. Condemning his sorrowful insomnia, this was a far better reason to be awake rather than simple paranoia.

A full state of obedience that begged for more, a wonderful warm pink glow in your cheeks to rival the one he envisioned below your pelvis, and with that his blood starts to boil. The very concept of your flavor was contemporary and nothing short of delicious to his imagination. Tender flesh, more delicate than anything his tongue had ever encountered.

Suguru's self-indulgence is why, more often than not, a glance transforms into a gaze. Seeing you surrender to the greedy hands of your curse, whether it was between your knees or your chest. Your desperate efforts to keep the sounds of your pleasure at bay only fuel his need to hear them out in the open. More or less commanded by his own hand.

What was to be your moments of humility have devolved into nothing more than his own punishment. Because, with all his senses obscured by a long-neglected hunger, he can't help but succumb to his curiosity. Longing for a taste, a feel. "Curses are a product of humanity's indiscretion."

And as his voice fills the night for the first time in what seems like weeks, you could only raise your usual objections. The day went on longer for not only him it would seem, "I'm not in the mood for one of your lectures."

Not that he'd have it any other way, your stubbornness is the only constant in all his confusion. It was almost...assuring.

"The incompetence of emotion feeds their livelihood, it is their life force." All but one of the candles went out, their flames smother by his dull fingers. "Without their hunger, they might as well already be dead."

"Let me guess, I should probably be thanking you for all you've done for me and my people."

Suguru chuckled wryly, allowing for the moon's turmoil to guide his eyes to the back of your frame. The frail pins in your hair, help the back of your neck remain subjected to attention. His fingers twitched at the thought of being coiled around it, trapped in its delicacy and his fervor.

“Wouldn’t think a monkey like you were capable of gratitude.” His words, low as they were, picked your nerves apart. He could very much feel it. The usual condescension in his tone stirs the rebellion in you that’s been dormant for days. Thickening the tension that suffocates his sagacity.

The room, his room—Suguru found too much enjoyment in your suffering to have you settle with the rest of his flock. More importantly, even though you were a thorn in his side, you were inexplicably dangerous among the others. Whether it was Suda's disapproval or your ignorance, death wasn't yet an impossibility. Exasperating as it was, you were of no use to him dead, and with the furrow of your brow compromised by the warm color in your cheeks—it would be a shame to let such an opportunity waste. As much of a nuisance that was, he’d give credit where it was due and your skin under moonlight deserved much more than praise. It deserved a mark, specifically those of his teeth.

"Don't call me that."

He hummed, stepping forward to hover at the foot of the bed. The robes hung loosely from his shoulders barely kept up with their duties at this hour. Putting up on display the full course of his well-fitted chest, something unusual for a supposed monk. The thought was slightly promiscuous with the gentle expression in his half-lidded eyes. “And what should I call you, if it is not the very thing you are?”

You'd have half a mind letting him call you something so degrading, but Suguru’s only explanation for your quietness resides in the beady eyes of your pudgy curse peering at him from the shadows. It’s sticky hands creeping up for a feel of your chest, while two more creep around your hips.

The disgusting creature, he noted while your breath rushes through your lips, has a habit of going straight for its meal. Groping feverishly at the axis of your thighs, which he found pitiful. To enjoy the fruits of labor, it first must be earned and if it were up to him he'd earn your taste. Starting slow until it's like meat falling from the bone.

Your whimper is tempting but Suguru takes a moment to watch the pressure work over your body. How it fights to keep from crumbling right where you sat on his bed.

“You wish to be something more, to replace that fear of being nothing, so my callings are a threat to you, but you see…” He trailed, bringing a finger to your chin, forcing your lustful eyes to look upon his own. “In this world, those who are blind can never expect to see the heavens without first witnessing hell.”

The curse-user pulled at your bottom lip before he pressed his thumb to your tongue. The warmth of your mouth ran straight through his body with a shock. And as your breath meets his skin, all else fades without importance.

He suppose, killing the curse the first time he laid eyes on it would've saved him the trouble in his loins, but the defying salacious look all over your face would've been lost to the constant pondering of what if. So with no hesitation, he pushed his finger further into your mouth half expecting some sort of wrenching resistance but there was nothing.

“Well, well,” he mused, “You really do have such a filthy mouth.”

Your groan only encouraged his teasing, and the saliva gathered around his digit traces your lips entirely until they glistened. Suguru clicked his tongue, “We’ll just have to fix that as well. Give it something else to do other than run on and on.”

The worrisome expression on your face is all the more amusing when it dilutes into a flustered and timid blush. “Relax, pet, I’m not the monster you make me out to be. Not even I am that cruel. Besides you wouldn’t be able to handle all of me in one night.”

It was as if he could see the cogs turning behind your eyes, their little glimmer from the scattered moonlight illuminating a look he’s never seen in them. Fascinating was the first word to come to mind, anything after followed a play of what he would do to you within the span of the next few minutes.

“But you’d like that, wouldn’t you? To know that you'd been right all along about the snake their garden.” He cajoled, cupping your jaw with the same hand t before leaning down to brush his lips against your neck. “Or is it something else?”

The intoxicating gentle scent of jasmine and vanilla bombards his nose at such close range; it’s suffocating. With one deep breath and a feathery kiss just beneath your ear, he is addicted. He grinned at the patent irony, unabashed about whether or not you can feel his lips spread.

“Don’t-“ you choked out to his surprise.

And it’s then he sees it in his lowering gaze, just how tightly your knees are clamped together. Grasping at the little friction your thighs give off. Though more importantly, the tender swelling poking out from the fabric that covers your chest. Admittedly it was a bit of a chill evening but your reaction wasn’t just provoked by the cold.

He hummed, grinning wider now, still lingering below your ear. “What was that little one? Don’t tell me you’ve gone all shy on me now? I was looking forward to that fire of yours.”

The curse, still annoyingly alive, gurgled, and soon after you whimper directly into his ear. “Don’t tease me.”

At this, he shoots up with a rambunctious chuckle. Pulling away from you in amusement. The single candle left gave him enough light to work with the embarrassment written into your expression.

“You know, you’re quite cute,” Suguru smirked, “Rebellious and stubborn one minute, and the next you’re a flustered mess. I can’t help but to be flattered knowing I have this much of an affect on you.”

“Fuck you.”

“We’ll get to that part, but first…” he quipped, raking back a few strays of hair that managed to slip free from their tie. His tone grows darker when he speaks again, “Admit just how you need a tyrant like me to heal that body of yours. That is what you called me isn’t it, a tyrant?”

Amongst all the words in your colorful vocabulary, 'tyrant' is the one that stuck with him the most. A newfound sense of pride came from hearing it. It's inaccurate but precious to think that you're well established to waste your strength on non-curse users.

“Is that not the very thing you are?” You mock his words from earlier, and while he knows it’s a weak jab at his ego Suguru scoffs.

“Even now you pass judgment,” he looked down at you with a condescending brow. “When your body is the way it is. If I were you I’d beg.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Let’s settle this,” he sighs pulling his hair-free. Letting a stream of black silk spill over his shoulders and down his face. “Beg.”

Your curse sputters out more of its incoherent nonsense when a new taste comes from your body, but between his temper and little patience, Suguru flicks his hand. He found it irritating, how such a filthy creature had been reaping his benefits. If only you weren’t so stubborn, he thought, then maybe you wouldn’t be in this state.

The curse shrinks in on itself, rounding over its edges into a dense mass of energy. The force its density has against the floor is loud but only a slight creak to your ears. He can see the mix of relief and confusion stretch in your brows as you tilt your head to look at him, wondering what's going on.

“If you know whats good for you,” —he worked his fingers through his hair, tying everything back up into a neat and quick bun— “don’t make me repeat myself.”

“You’re crazy,” you whisper out in disbelief. “What makes you think I’ll do what you say?”

“I don’t think,” he sneered, “I know you’ll do as I say. That is if you want to finally orgasm. How long has it been? Weeks?”

He can practically hear your heartbeat from where he stood, the change in your breathing as he works his obi from around his torso obvious to ears like his.

“Curses are restless, kill one and two more sprung up in its place. How long do you think it is before another sniffs you out?” There isn't much under his yukata, and when his obi is loose enough to collapse with the slightest touch Suguru looks at you expectantly.

“You don’t have to be so crude,” you murmur timidly, complying with the inevitable.

He could have teased you, but after exorcising the curse, Suguru had used up all of his patience. Instead, he stalked back over to the bed and appointed himself between your knees. Pinning your reaching wrists above your head, he let your scent fill his nose once more as his lips found your neck again.

“Then be a good pet,” he hummed gently against your skin. “Give me what I want and I’ll show you just how sweet I can be.”

You were used to everyone at your beck and call, following every order, having admiration follow your name. But then he slithered through the grass and into the clearing. He was well aware you wouldn’t succumb to his facade, but he never imagined it would lead the two of you here.

Your body, warm and writhing beneath him, responds easily to his touch. The way his lips trail down the ridge of your neck and along your collarbone, or the way his free hand skims the wide surface of your thigh as it folds around his hips.

“Suguru.”

It isn’t the first time you've said his name, but the gentle sultry tone in which it falls from your lips is a betrayal to all the times before. A sound sweet enough to stroke his ego, and have his cock twitch to life. Yet he’s antagonizing slow with his peppered kisses, each one aiding your arching back up further against him wanting more. And as he trails further down he keeps his eyes on your face; parting lips, skewed brows, and eyes rolled back.

Karma is so sweet to him, he thought giving one long swipe of his tongue down your sternum. Suguru can’t think of a better way to break your pride and reinforce his own.

“C’mon,” he cooed, “You can do better than that.”

“I…” you whisper with a voice that is not your own. It is too weak with desperation written so plainly into a single word. “I need it.”

“Need what?”

And in defeat, you rasp out “You. I need you.”

He doesn't hesitate to secure one of your breasts into his hot mouth and the other into his hand. Freeing your wrist to let them guide your hands into his hair. The tug on his scalp sends a jolt of electricity through him and settles in his groin. His lap presses firmly to the back of your thighs, giving acknowledgment to his growing bulge.

Your nipples harden under his tongue and fingers, inviting him in for more. He playful nips at them, and your hips relax into the bed, allowing him to press further against you. The length of your yukata never crossed his mind, but the more he pressed against you, the more obvious it became. He wouldn't complain about it now, your heat is keeping his erection entertained with occasional throbbing.

He lets go of your nipple with a slight pop, and then gives the next nipple the same abuse. Meeting your hips as you grind into him, it’s a faint sensation, the sticky dampness between you two. Whether it’s been from your arousal or his own, it makes things much easier.

Pulling back from your chest, he rests on his knees. Watching you heave feverishly awaiting his next move. He sheds from his yukata, and then pulls at yours, stripping you bare before him. His eyes are sharp, darkly baring into yours as his lips move parallel to his fingers to spit into them.

His hand is cold against his cock, but Suguru doesn’t hesitate to give himself a slow stroke down to the hilt and back to the tip. Watching your fluttering lashes staring at his hand while your hips buck in time with it. The warmth of his knuckles over your tender bud soothes the ache that’s been there for days.

“You look so pathetic,” he says softly. “So hungry for my cock.”

With no warning, he pushes your hips up against his lap, and fits his girth between your folds, as he thrusts slowly against you.

“And to think I was worried you’d ruin everything. If I’d known you’d been this desperate for a cock, I’d fuck you a lot sooner.”

You frown, getting ready to protest but with a few light taps over your clit with his tip and a slow thrust your mouth falls open for a different reason. “That’s it, no need to get all worked up. Just relax, and be a good pet. ”

He wore your walls thin, stretching you out around his cock to satisfy the inexplicable neediness in them. The gasp parting your lips is a mere compliment in dramatics. Suguru chuckled a low rumbling that reached deep into the pit of your stomach.

"Good," he mumbled, the pad of his thumb pressing against your clit. Teasing its ache with a gentle swipe, before spreading your labia wider. Eyeing where your body met his own.

Suguru would’ve thought otherwise with just how homely it was there inside your cunt, but he was sure it wasn’t the first time you’ve been with a man, maybe the first in a long while. Still, surely not the first.

He turned his attention back to where you needed it the most, pressing himself on top of the nerves. Your writhing made him seep deeper. Musing, he watched your hips roll over him, impatient with his stagnant position. "Like a bitch in heat, this is all you needed isn’t it? A good filling."

His pace was slow, but powerful and sharp all the same. Each thrust brings your hips onto him ruthlessly. A sting outweighed by pleasure. The drive anchoring you beneath him. "Don’t you...don’t you think you're being a little, fuck, rough."

There’s a moment of silence as he leans closer to your face, the closest he’s ever been, and the sincere plead in your brows makes him chuckle.

"Oh baby," He mewled, nose brushing up your cheek. Inhaling that scent he loved so much, before whispering "This isn’t even the half of it."

In line with his words, Suguru wrapped a hand around your throat with another on your side and rocked with a generous rhythm. Fucking into you without pity. All his stress from over the past week funneling into his pelvis slamming down into your own. You deserved this, earned it really. For causing him so much trouble. All because you’d been in need of a good fuck.

Surprised but unbothered by his hand around your throat, the slight squeeze made it barely seem as if it’d been there. As much as you drove him crazy, you made him feel equally as good. The face you give him as he drives into you proves the vice versa.

“There you go,” he breathed out. “Take it.”

And you do; you take every inch of his cock whimpering, whining, and moaning till there are tears forming at the corner of your eyes. Afraid to cry out and have everyone hear just how good he’s making you feel. So to compensate for his pleasure in drilling his cock into you mercilessly, his lips finally meet yours for the first time all night.

Suguru releases your neck and wraps his arm under you, pulling you closer, and swallows your groans. He was mental, absolutely insane, but the way you feel over his cock and his lips makes it all seem worth it. His curiosity was solved effortlessly. To have you melt for him, submit to him one way or another—he could cum right then and there. Though he didn’t want to be over so soon. He just got his hands on you, and so he slows his strokes, giving you both a chance to catch your breaths.

“Don’t stop,” you whisper on his lips. “For the love of god, please don’t stop.”

The sounds of your avidity, make him moan and for a minute he forgets everything that led up to that point. The only thought in his head was that sooner or later he was going explode. Helpless and craving for that release, he buries his head into your neck panting uncontrollably. His limbs are firm, tense with anticipation, “Cum for me.”

“Make me,” you beg. Even after your strong front earlier into the evening there you were begging.

He grunts at the slight contraction sucking him back in and take note of your legs locking around him. You were close. And so he shifted his weight around, grabbed a handful of your hair, and pulled your head back. Forcing your eyes to meet his own.

“Cum for me.” He repeated firmly, nearly drawing all the way out of your body to slam back inside at a bruising pace.

“Yes,” you whine once, then twice before doing so over and over with each one of his thrusts until finally, you’re shuddering beneath him.

Your fluttering walls, earn a few more sloppy thrusts until he rests his forehead against yours grunting lowly as his cock spasmed. Spilling the tension that bound his muscles. All over you. Inside you.

He holds you still, unable to handle any sudden movements. Even his own twitching proved to be a problem for his composure. It’s silent for a split second, nothing but heavy breaths filling in the ambience.

“Hey,” you spoke quietly after relearning to breathe. “Just answer me honestly. Are you really a monk?”

“Fuck,” he hissed his hand still tangled in your hair.

Suguru rolled his eyes, but still spared a glance at you. Your eyes are softer than normal, not filled with the usual hatred or disgust but with…hope.

“No,” he said flatly.

It’s then he noticed that the candle had long gone out and that he’d just been close enough to see the look on your face. While he expected some sort of reaction for having known the truth, there’s nothing but simple quiet despondent “okay” in return.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #geto suguru #jjk geto #geto suguru x reader #geto suguru smut #geto suguru x reader smut

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cvtqr · 3 years

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you need me

pairings; eren jaeger x reader

content warning; corruption , extremely toxic and unhealthy relationship, mentions of sex, choking, degrading, gaslighting / manipulative behavior

eren yeager. from the very second he saw you on campus, he was the a predator, and you were his prey. now, all he needed was a way to capture you. take you all for himself. now that can't be that hard, right?

but what was he really chasing after? some girl he doesn't even know. after following close behind you on campus for a week the only thing he's learned about you was your first name. so what did he really want? did he want you or did he just want someone to corrupt? you looked at everyone with such innocent eyes, always offering to help. come on, you should know better than that. there's bound to be people who want to take advantage of you. eren knew you needed someone close by to protect you.

two months later he finally had you. after constant accidentally "forgetting" his notebook and needing you to send the lecture notes, you were the one to ask him to hang out off campus. eren liked being with you, but he liked protecting you even more. he did know that he had to play nice and keep you close so that you'd never leave him. not much would happen on campus, just a constant walk to class, then a walk to either yours or eren’s dorm. he knew he couldn't give you up just yet. the real world would be much, much worse than this.

a little over a year later, the both of you graduated college. during the last few months of college eren reconnected with an old friend from high school, jean. he thought of an offer jean made him a few weeks earlier. he was living in an apartment with a huge extra bedroom. he offered that you and eren come and take the room. with the rent split between all three of you it would be very cheap per person. even though eren preferred the both of you to be isolated, you guys took the offer for expense reasons.

after graduation, the both of you went your separate ways for a week to see your families and to gather anything else you may have needed from home. with that, you and eren moved into jean’s apartment. with four months of living there, you and jean formed a good relationship. every friday night when eren had to work his side-job late jean would be there for you. he would buy take out, set up a movie, and by the time it was over you were passed out on the couch or eren would be coming home soon. nothing more, nothing less.

but when eren found out about this? oh. he was mad. he never trusted jean entirely from the start, from the way he'd eyeball you when you pranced around in your little skirts. always finding a way to see or talk to you. eren wasn't an idiot, he knew that jean was just looking for a right time to fuck you. something in eren snapped though. when the three of you were eating together before jean had to leave on a trip, his hand was rested right on your leg. your leg which slowly crept up to your thigh. at the moment, eren just sat there. he was just waiting for jean to get the hell out of there.

it felt like two seconds after the door shut when eren took you to your room and slammed the door behind you two. "eren what-" you were cut off by him slamming you against the wall. you felt powerless. the way he hovered over you, trapping you. you had no way out of this one, he had all the power over you. "men are animals." you didn't know what he meant by that so you just let eyes trail off to the side. "look at me when i talk to you." you didn't budge. "im not going to say it again. look at me when im talking to you." you met his gaze once more.

"i know you aren't foreign to the fact that he wants to fuck you. hm, you're not that naive baby." the silence in the room grew louder after eren said that. "come on, i wanna hear you say it. say you know he wants to fuck you." ... "i know he wants to f-uck me." your voice was shaky. "is that why you prance around him all the time? i bet you're dying to give in, try out a new cock hm?"

"n-no eren its not, its not like that." he moved his large hand onto your little throat, slightly squeezing. "you provoke him like crazy. i wonder how many times he's jacked off wishing he was buried deep inside that little cunt of yours. you do it on purpose. god, if it weren't for me you'd just be a little hole for everyone to use."

"eren stop you're hu-hurting me."

instead of letting go he pulled you closer by your neck. you wanted to scream in his face, oh how you can say so many things to him right now. but you know with all the power he has over you now, you know not to push your luck. "im not the one hurting you. you did this to yourself. the truth of you being a little slut finally came out. and you're blaming me?"

"go ahead. you want to leave me now. so go. walk out that door, y/n." after he let go of your neck, you found yourself heading to the door. right when you put your hand on the knob, you felt the wrath of eren hovering over you from behind. "you're going to be like a lost puppy without me. men are going to latch onto you left and right, taking advantage of you. your just going to be a worthless whore only good for fucking. and without me, you're going to have no one to save you. so go ahead y/n. leave." he was right. you were nothing without eren. you've never been in the real world alone, he was always there. you needed him.

with that you let go of the knob and shoved him out of the way. he let out a low chuckle after you pushed him. getting into your shared bed you pulled the covers over you. he crawled into the bed soon after, wrapping his big hands around your waist. even though the two of you were sitting in the bed together, it felt so empty.

#aot #attack on titan #snk #aot smut #snk smut #eren jaeger #eren yaegar #eren yeager #eren x reader #eren sumt #eren x reder #eren jaeger x reader #eren yaeger smut #eren jaeger smut #aot x reader #attack on titan smut #anime #tw: toxic relationship

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sagegr33n · 3 years

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I wanted to know will there ever be a part 2 to “The Hills” I just have so many questions lol. Like does reader get the chance to actually break it up or does Bakugou become serious for once and starts a serious relationship with just her? What would happen if Bakugou did actually leak reader’s photos? Please let me know 😪❤️

I dont think Ill ever write a complete part two , but i wouldn't mind writing a lil summary of each of the possible endings you mentioned above.

The Hills Follow up

Cw- Toxic Relationship, black mail, Leaking of pictures, Black Fem reader

The least likely to occur- Katuski straightens himself out for the reader.

This is the least likely to occur because Katsuki truly has a fear of commitment / just rejects the idea of it completely. I think he of course has deeper feelings he's in denial about since he refuses to let the reader leave him, but even if these feelings are love-he'll just chalk it up to the reader being a good fuck. He wants something that's constant that he dosent have to be constant too.

Second least likely to occur - Katsuki Leaks readers pictures

This is only the second least likely to occur because I truly dont see Him ever actually following through with the threats of leaking them. Of course its not out of the goodness of his own heart its just that Bakugou is never letting go of the leverage they hold. He's a dirtbag but he's a smart dirtbag and he knows once the initial damage of leaking them is over he'll have nothing to hold over reader and she can just leave.

Third least likely to occur- Reader leaves him.

despite this being what everyone's know doubt rooting for ,between their attachment to Katsuki and the hostile behavior shows when reader brings up leaving I truly think this is the least likely to happen. We've already established that Katsuki's a scumbag and he would know doubt enable those gaslighting methods men love to use to combat forsaken" breakups" if leaking the readers pictures ever stop being an effective way to make them stay.

I could see him threatening to physically hurt himself or the reader if they try to leave him or start degrading them to the point where they think all there worth is a quick fuck and anything more is asking for too much. However if reader does manage to get away from him and leave him for good I think she'd end up doing some self searching and take a break from hookups/dating etc.

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That's all folks-maybe there will be an official part two when i clear out my ask box 🤔 but for now i hope this answered your questions love.

Notes and reblogs are always appreciated and if you enjoyed this consider stopping by the slutshop to see my other writing or checking out the hills.

#toxic bakugou #toxic!bakugouxblackreader #follow up ask #x black reader #black!reader #bakugou x black reader #mhaxblackreader

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yellowocaballero · 3 years

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The Crocodile's Dilemma: In Which Helen exploits Michael's Labor, Michael suffers an un-identity crisis, and unpaid internships should be illegal

It’s tough being a teenage embodiment of the Spiral. Your boss/wine aunt figure Helen’s a Tory, your inattentive cousin figure Mike Crew keeps attending philosophy classes and day drinking, and you’re pretty sure that this internship doesn’t have any dental. At least it’s good job experience for your future career in...being evil? But do you even want to be evil?

This small story is technically part of my Roleswap AU, but I specifically wrote it so that no knowledge is required. Still, if you’re wondering why Michael’s an eighteen(ish) year old, Mike Crew’s an Avatar of the Spiral, and everybody is obsessed with Melanie King, check it out. Still, no need. Rest under the cut.

Maybe Helen was right.

Not that Helen was ever strictly right, much as Helen was never wrong, but Michael just had to be doing this whole fear demon thing incorrectly. If someone had explained the whole fear demon thing to them two years ago (“Okay, so it’s like you’re the semi-sentient appendage of an extradimensional force of evil that has to consume trauma relentlessly in order to propagate its own debatable existence, also you’re nonbinary now, no those things are not strictly related, probably”), then they would have called them crazy. Which, of course, they were, but that wasn’t the point. So long as the point existed. So long as anything -

An essential theorem within quantum physics was the quantum Zeno effect.

Simply put, it was the fact that a quantum state would decay if left alone, but does not decay under continuous observation. Even observing the results after the photon is produced leads to collapsing the wave function and loading a back-history as shown by delayed choice quantum eraser. If something was seen, it no longer existed; if something persisted unperceived, it would exist as long as it liked.

So it was explained to Michael by the physics professor he was torturing that day. Michael had trapped the man in the physics building of his university, lured in by one too many late nights in his office and the persistent sense that his life was going nowhere meaningful. After a few classes spent sitting in on his Physics 101 class, maintaining constant and forever eye contact, Michael had eventually tricked the man into giving a persistent and ongoing physics lecture to an empty classroom, desperately trying to explain the inexplicable to a college freshman who did not care. Truly miserable, yet ultimately harmless - Michael’s favorite kind of trick.

But, despite themself, Michael grew interested. They didn’t understand any of what the man was talking about, but that was all of the fun. Understanding ruined the magic of things; broke down the beauty of the universe into cogs and gears. No thanks. They could tell that it bothered the professor, that he said so much and yet knew nothing. That there was so much he would never know, and that he wasn’t so smart after all. How would any of his colleagues respect him?

“So photons degrade if they’re observed?” Michael asked one day, after...some period of time. They had raised their hand and everything, they were so proud of themself. Uni was just like secondary school after all. “Is that true of people too?”

The professor had sweated, deeply uncomfortable with Michael as a person and as a non-euclidean concept. “No - no, not at all. Humans are much more than photons -”

Michael grinned. It wasn’t quite right. “Are you sure?”

The professor sweated harder. “I - no, I’m not. But humans are constantly observed by - by the universe, or something.”

Michael grinned sharper. “Are you sure? Are you being observed right now? Are you sure?”

And the professor was not sure, not anymore, and the fragment of this man’s reality collapsed.

Well, Michael thought to themself, slipping out of an improbable yellow door, that’s another Statement for the Magnus Institute. Not that they would read it.

****

“Now, remember this - the first step to being a successful Avatar is presentation!”

Michael squinted at Helen dubiously. “I thought we were fear demons?”

Helen sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with two sharp knife fingers. It looked as if it hurt quite a bit, but Michael reasoned that they had probably gone through the fifth dimension. “This is the stupidest dimension - fine, fine! Fear demons, then. It is absolutely vital that we conduct our business with style, grace, and the slightest sprinkling of pizazz!”

Just for the flourish, Helen twirled her fingers, and a faint shower of confetti came raining down from the ceiling. Michael sneezed.

“I thought it was vital that we harvest fear and trauma from people to propagate our cursed existence,” Michael said.

Helen’s eyebrow twitched. “More than two things can be vital, Michael. Please pay attention. Now, as a demonstration, I’d like you to take a gander at that man over there.”

Obediently, Michael looked across the bar. They were sitting on barstools in a high-class pub, because Helen knew her worth and never settled for anything less, with glass counters and lots of private booths. But all pubs had their sad men drinking alone, and this one was no exception.

This man wasn’t sullen and slow like a lot of them. He was wearing a nice suit and thin tie, looking straight out of Canary Wharf. Michael silently agreed with Helen’s choice - they took eat the rich very seriously, and also literally. He also seemed a little jumped up on something, with shaking hands and erratic eyes.

“He looks happy,” Michael observed. “Think it’s his birthday?”

“He’s on cocaine, Michael,” Helen said flatly. “Cocaine. We are at a posh bar, and he is currently doing a line off his watch.”

Oh! Michael suddenly felt very uncool. They had never been one of those people in secondary school who did cocaine. They hadn’t been cool. “I knew that,” Michael bluffed. “What are we going to do to him?”

“Take the teenager as your intern, they said,” Helen groused, “it’s investing in the future, they said, it’ll stop them from eating you when they grow up, they said.” She sighed, jabbing a finger at the now very obviously coked up man who was staring at the bottles behind the bartender as if they were whispering secrets of the universe into his ear. Helen liked that one. “Use your intuition. Find a good angle to squeeze. What are his weaknesses to exploit?”

Oh, Michael knew how to do this. They shifted vibrations just a bit, dropping out of what Michael liked to call the ‘mild’ spectrum into the ‘spicy’ spectrum. They were distantly aware of a patron’s glass shattering.

They squinted at the man, picking out his little fears and insecurities like Dionysus picking grapes. Maybe. Michael had gotten a C in English, but they were somewhat cognizant of the Spiral munching heavily on Bacchanalia. Sometimes they felt like some of those children who spoke in tongues and claimed to be from a past life. That had also been the Spiral.

“He owns a Nintendo NES,” Michael said confidently, absolutely sure that this was important. Helen groaned. “His house is painted white, and his girlfriend does tax fraud.”

“Something relevant?” Helen hinted desperately.

Michael just squinted at her. “Relevant to what?”

“...good point. But something useful, please.”

Picky. Michael scowled, but gave the man another good gander. “He only remembers faint details of his father’s face, and he worries that his recollections aren’t accurate,” Michael proclaimed finally.

Helen clapped, delighted, as Michael took a careful sip of their water, turning it into fizzy water. She took a sip of her own wine, turning it into champagne. Or maybe just sparkling unreality? “Wonderful. Now, how should we play this? Insert a false father into his life, completely separate from his recollections, or is that a bit too Stranger? I suppose we could do some good old-fashioned gaslighting, but sometimes that’s just a bit too Melanie, if you catch my drift -”

“Are you jealous that the Archive girls are better at gaslighting than you are?”

“Shut it, kid,” Helen hissed, before taking a long drag of her champagne. “My vote is that we convince him to top off his coke bender with some LSD. Then he hallucinates - oh, he hallucinates that he’s in a mental institution, that’s a good one -”

“Why don’t we shift everything thirty cm to the right?” Michael asked brightly.

Helen squinted at them. They beamed back.

“You are so bad at this,” Helen said.

Michael would have felt crushed if Helen didn’t express this sentiment roughly once per lunar cycle, contrariwise. As it was, they bore the criticism with a stiff upper lip. Helen had her way of harvesting fear from unsuspecting humans, and Michael had theirs. “Look, Helen, you’re being uncreative! We don’t have to traumatize people every single time.”

Helen squinted further. “We’re personifications of deceit. We eat trauma.”

“No, we eat confusion,” Michael pointed out patiently. “Look at it this way. If you give someone one really terrible experience, then they repress it for the rest of their lives and consider it a brush with Hell. One and done, see? But if you minorly inconvenience them for a really long time, then they’ll never be able to break out of it. They’ll feel as if something’s wrong, but they’ll never know it. You can keep the game going for years that way!”

The idea was very good. Michael had been working on it for a while. Truth be told, Michael felt bad traumatizing people outright and making them scream and cry and everything. They always felt as if they were doing something wrong by making other people’s existences a living nightmare. Michael much preferred rigging a corn maze so you were stuck in it for days inside the maze but only an hour outside. It was funner, and much more confusing.

But Helen just pursed her lips and stared Michael up and down, making them squirm awkwardly on their barstool. Finally, as if she was delivering a life sentence, she imperiously said, “Well, we all have our different styles, I suppose! It would be quite boring if we were both exactly the same.” Michael nodded vigorously at this, and Helen held up a scaly claw. “But! You’re my intern, which means that you’re learning from the master here. So shut up and let me teach you how to ruin lives.”

“Yes, boss,” Michael said miserably.

Helen tsked, but she patted them on the head anyway. It tasted like batteries. “Honestly, kid. A literal bleeding heart’s fun for the whole family, but a metaphorical bleeding heart will get you nowhere in life. You can’t exist as you are and feel bad for them. It ruins the point. It’s a paradox.”

“I thought we liked paradoxes, though?”

Helen shrugged, downing the rest of her wine. “Rules for thee but not for me, honey. But I’m a good boss and drunken aunt figure, so I’ll appease you today. Now come on, let’s convince this bar to vote for Brexit.”

They did. It was quite fun after all, tricking a roomful of people into doing something actively against their own interests. But something about the whole thing left a strange taste in Michael’s mouth: not the good kind of strange, or the bad kind of strange that was also good. Just strange, and undeniable, and something that couldn’t be exploited at all.

****

Maybe Helen was right.

Michael was a bad fear demon of the Spiral and Infinite Twisting and That Is Not What It Is and The Twisted Door, etc, etc, All Fear Its Name, etc etc all Hail, because they didn’t always like how their internal monologue could no longer be described through common language. Words and images and understandings were nothing but approximations for Michael now, and sometimes it was frustrating existing outside the boundaries of understanding. Which, of course, was the point, so long as the point existed, so long as anything existed -

It wasn’t always easy. Still, nobody ever got what they wanted if they weren’t willing to put the effort in. The adult world and labouring under capitalism wasn’t easy for anybody. That was what Mum had always said. Who was Michael to complain about their 9-5? Or 24/24? Or infinite/infinite? Or nothing/nothing? Or -

Was it too much to ask to have a linear thought once in a while?

Helen wouldn’t understand. There were only two other approximations of concepts that Michael knew, and Helen would hardly be any help. The other “person” would probably be a better sounding board, but there was the fact that he was kind of pretentious. Still, it was better than nothing. Well, it was nothing, but only in the sense that everything was - argh!

A yellow door appeared in a nondescript basement, and Michael appeared with it. They melted out of the “wood”, taking a second to check their outfit for this apparition - a nice vintage 50s dress with a painstaking stitch that reminded one of the oppressive nature of housewifery, nice. They elongated their curly blonde hair from a roguish mop into a nice little shag and melted into the crowd.

It must have been a passing period, because Michael was buffeted to and fro by tall white men wearing backpacks and shorter white girls hoisting strangely identical water bottles. Somewhere Northern, Michael decided, likely private and small. Not that it strictly mattered, but it helped to solidify their grip in reality a bit if they had some idea. They already knew geography was purposeless and a distraction from the real issues, like shrimp, but occasionally it could be useful. Helen had been careful to impart the central tenet of existence as a non-euclidean concept in undefinable space in the twenty seventh dimension: location, location, location!

It was obviously the Philosophy Department, because all philosophy classes were held in old basements built in the ‘60s in identical hallways. For kicks, Michael turned all of the school hallways inwards and sent them in a mobius strip, and changed all of the door numbers into a headache. The key to enjoying your job was to take initiative in the workplace environment and to just have fun with it!

Michael found themselves in front of a door identical to all of the others, with fake laminated wood, and they decided to go in. The universe had guided them to this door for a reason, and who were they to reject its call?

The small classroom was like most other small, private colleges in unpopular departments that nobody cared about. Lots of single person desks - Michael snapped their fingers and turned them all into left-handed desks - complete with a smartboard and a teacher’s podium. It was already half-full, so Michael carefully slid into a chair in the back and pretended that they had been there all along. A student wandered close, convinced that this was her seat, but Michael successfully convinced her that a different seat near the front was hers, prompting an impromptu game of musical chairs that sent ripples through the otherwise sedate classroom.

There was a blond student already sitting in the front, flipping through a spiral notebook and clicking a pen in no particular pattern. He was wearing a pea coat, jeans, and his hair was weirdly perfect. Michael wished they had a notebook. Was this what you did in university? They had never had the opportunity to go.

Actually, they had never quite graduated secondary - three months away from graduation, actually. It probably wasn’t all that important. You didn’t really need a diploma to become a trauma eating fear demon. Was there a university of eating fear? That would be funny. What would the classes be in, ‘Enforcing the Powerlessness of Capitalism 101’? What was the difference between that and a Business major?

Maybe Business majors were the real fear demons, Michael thought grandly. It was a good thought, they would have to remember to tell it to Melanie later. Melanie would approve. Hadn’t Tim been a business major? Yeah, in that case she would definitely approve.

The student sitting in the front seemed to have finally noticed the game of musical chairs, and as the professor started clearing their throat and announcing something unimportant to the class, he turned around to find Michael sitting in the back of the class. They waved cheerfully. The student scowled.

‘What are you doing here!’, the guy mouthed angrily.

‘Hi Mike!’ Michael mouthed back.

‘Go away!’ Mike mouthed back.

‘But I’m going to eat your teacher :(‘ Michael mouthed back. They didn’t actually frown.

‘ >:(!’, Mike Crew mouthed back, also without changing his facial expression.

This was probably why Mike wasn’t Michael’s biggest fan. Which was a pity, because Michael thought Mike was really cool. He had the coolest name, for one. But shorter, and snappier. Mike was the kind of name girls would call you at clubs. Michael was what, like, your Mum would say as she yelled at you to clean up your room before her book club girls came over. Why were they girls? They were, like, fifty.

Mike Crew was an Avatar of the Spiral completely unwillingly. Chosen as a child and chased throughout his life by an improbably long lasting Lichtenberg scar, he had eventually succumbed to the inevitable and transformed into an even more improbable man. Personally, Michael found it strange that ‘inevitable’ and ‘Spiral’ was in the same sentence, but - well, it had to be everything at one point. Even a melting clock was right once an endless twilight.

Strangest of all, Mike Crew was a philosophy major. The class, of course, was a high level philosophy course. Mike Crew had been in uni - well, a while - and he tended not to waste his time with the boring shit anymore. Michael listened with interest as the professor dived into the lecture.

Two minutes in, Mike subtly gathered his things and slipped into the conveniently empty chair next to Michael. He was still glaring at them, as Michael tried their best to look innocent and cute. The effect was a little ruined by the inherent maliciousness of Michael’s pores, but they liked to think it was the thought that counted.

“To continue our conversation on the topic of paradoxes,” the professor began, “I’d like to introduce a few thought experiments for your consideration as a class. I’ll mention the concept, and then allow you to break into pairs to discuss them.”

Mike leaned into Michael’s ear. “We were discussing Descartes!”

“But isn’t this more interesting?” Michael asked.

“If you give my professor a mental breakdown we’re going to fall behind on the syllabus!”

“The first paradox I’d like to bring to your attention is the Crocodile’s Dilemma.” The professor flipped to a new slide, which helpfully had a big crocodile on it. Michael admired it. They had seen a crocodile at the zoo once. “Similar to the liar’s paradox, the premise states that a crocodile, who has stolen a child, promises the parent that his or her child will be returned if and only if he or she correctly predicts what the crocodile will do next. The outcome is fairly obvious if the parent states that the crocodile will return the child, but the crocodile faces a dilemma if the parent states that the crocodile will not return the child. No matter the outcome, the crocodile is made a liar: if the crocodile decides to not give back the child then the statement proves to be true, and he ought to return the child, thereby making it false. Whatever the outcome, he still violates his terms.”

Michael raised their hand. Mike forcibly lowered their hand.

“If I give your professor a mental breakdown then you’ll have extra time for the test,” Michael whispered back. Mike seriously considered this notion.

“The next paradox is slightly related,” the professor continued. “The Infinite Hotel Paradox.” Michael’s face stretched into a grin as Mike Crew groaned. “It is demonstrated that a fully occupied hotel with infinitely many rooms may still accommodate additional guests, even infinitely many of them, and this process may be repeated infinitely often. This is what we call a veridical paradox: it leads to a counter-intuitive result that is provably true. Therefore -”

“Okay, yeah,” Mike Crew said, slumping in his seat. “You can eat him, this guy is just begging for it.”

“Yay!” Michael went in for the hug, before Mike pushed them away. Michael’s quest for a cool big brother failed yet again. “Do you want to call the -”

“They’re your hallways,” Mike said, persnickety as always. Maybe he was just jealous that he wasn’t a hallway?

Michael raised their hand, patiently waiting for the professor to call on them. He stumbled in the middle of his lecture, adjusting his thick glasses.

“Uh, yes, Miss -”

“You no longer understand gender,” Michael said pleasantly, as they always did whenever they were misgendered. It was an understandable mistake, so they didn’t do it maliciously. Frankly, they just thought it was healthy. Everyone should not understand false things. “Professor, I have a question about the Crocodile’s Dilemma.” They waited for the professor to nod, somewhat confused. “How do you know that didn’t really happen?”

The professor blinked lethargically at them. “It’s a thought experiment. It’s not real, it’s just an idea proposed by philosophers to represent -”

“What makes you so sure?” Michael asked cheerfully. “Crocodiles eat babies. Or dingoes. I think I read a story about this happening in Australia, didn’t you?”

“I - I suppose I did, yes -”

“We wouldn’t talk about it if it didn’t really happen.” Michael felt their voice fall into a rising lilt, like an attractive song that was played to a concert hall but heard only by you. They were distantly aware of Mike lulling the rest of the students into their own hazy daze: aware enough to be confused, but trapped in their seats and the fog of misunderstandings. “Fiction isn’t real. Reality is real. But a thought experiment is in between, isn’t it? Something that strains the boundaries of reality, that proves the fundamental concepts of life, told through a framework of an intrinsic lie. A paradox is a lie telling the truth. You are a truth speaker telling only lies. What you know isn’t so much as anything at all, is it? What do you really know, anyway?”

“One of us tells only the truth and the other tells only lies,” Mike Crew called out, bored. But his eyes were shining in endless refraction, infinite rooms holding infinite guests. “But is it really a lie if you had mistaken it for the truth? What lies are you living, Dr. Young?”

Dr. Young was stammering, eyes swimming, and Michael didn’t dare to break eye contact. It was a delicate spell they wove, but Michael wasn’t so bad at bringing this simmer to a boil. Cooking was about improvisation, and Michael had always been great at that.

“If your life is a lie,” Michael breathed, “then are you really alive?”

It was clear, when it happened: the professor started inhaling deep, deeper breaths, chest wracking with heaves. His eyes rolled up in his head, he clutched at his chest, and he finally slumped down on the floor. He twitched, jerking slightly, and he would continue jerking. At which point the students would become aware, and they’d call an ambulance for him, and he would be perfectly alright in the end. If a little mentally scarred.

“Damn,” Mike Crew said, almost impressed, as both he and Michael stood up. He shoved his pens in a backpack, glad to be free of his examination for another week. “What’d you do to him?”

“Made him think he was dead,” Michael said serenely. “He thought his heart had stopped beating so he had a panic attack. He’s going to have to make an appointment with a psychiatrist but he probably should anyway, work’s very stressful for him.”

“Guess I have the rest of the hour off,” Mike sighed, as he held the door open for Michael so they could slip out of the back of the classroom. It was yellow, and a little strange. “Want to grab a pint with me at the campus pub?” He paused a beat. “Wait, are you even old enough to drink?”

“I’m as old as eternity and reborn every second.” Michael paused a beat. “But I was eighteen last time I checked, and I’ll probably be eighteen for a while, so yes?”

“Great, let’s roll. I need a drink.”

****

Mike’s uni’s pub (Michael had asked the name of the uni but the information had, unfortunately, been lost in next Tuesday, so they’ll know then) was the exact opposite of the high class pub Helen had taken them to. Instead of glassy, shiny, and chromey, Mike’s pub looked strongly as if very many people had puked in it and the staff had tackled the problem somewhat half-heartedly. Michael enjoyed the sight of the puke existing in all points in time simultaneously, giving it a sort of weird yellow-ish shine. Actually, maybe all puke had that yellowish sheen?

When they asked Mike about it as they hopped up on the bar, he just sighed. He flagged the bartender down for a pint, and when the bartender squinted dubiously at Michael they revelled into the micro-confusion of ambiguous ages. Micro-feeding? Like mini muffins?

“Helen made a mistake hiring you. She’s stuck us with a perpetual teenager.”

“I’m as much a teenager as you are a uni student,” Michael said pointedly.

“I’m not an embodiment of the It Is What It Isn’t Is,” Mike said, oddly aggressively. “I’m just a normal Avatar.”

“Fear demon.”

“Melanie King isn’t always right and I don’t know why everyone thinks she is.” Big words from an honored Special Guest on her show. There were many in the fear demon community who would kill for the honor. It was a good thing she hated intruders in her Archives - otherwise they’d never leave. “But I’m no different from - that douche Peter Lukas or that stoner Elias Bouchard or that btich Annabelle, okay? I’m just a guy. Who eats trauma. Plenty of guys do that.”

“Very good denial of reality!” Michael approved. “Normally Helen tells me to go further into denying reality as a concept, though.”

“God, you hallway people are impossible to have a normal conversation with.” Mike huffed, clearly not as irritated as his words would imply. Michael also approved of the incongruity. “I’m assuming that you’re here for absolutely no reason and that you have no idea why or how you ended up at my uni.”

Michael shifted uncomfortably. “Actually, I am here for a reason.” At Mike’s extreme surprise, they hurriedly clarified, “Not with any goal, meaning, or intention in mind! But I just wanted to talk about something to someone who wasn’t technically another facet of my meaningless whole. Helen and I are as index and ring fingers on the same hand, but we don’t really get each other sometimes, you know?”

“Does that make you the pinky finger?”

“I actually had a hypothetical for you.” At Mike’s nod, Michael snagged a napkin from the stack on the sticky bar and began creasing it, somewhat anxiously. “Let’s say, hypothetically, you were a teenagerish nongendered sentient hallway intern who happens to eat trauma.”

“This isn’t much of a hypothetical,” Mike said flatly.

“I’m a hypothetical person. And I’m only a person hypothetically.” Michael started making little folds in the napkin, twisting it up into a strange origami. “So, let’s say, hypothetically, that this person - their name is Michael - enjoyed being them. It wasn’t always fun, and sometimes they kind of missed the world making sense, or at least not making sense in a familiar way. And sometimes Michael got tired of being a sentient hallway and wanted to finish secondary. And maybe even sometimes Michael grows sad that both their parents were eaten by their new boss, who is kind of a Tory! But that’s all fine. Michael’s probably happier like this than they ever were even when they did have parents.”

Mike Crew stared at them a little, slowly sipping his pint.

Michael hunched their shoulders, and folded up the napkin further and further. They had read somewhere that any piece of paper can only be folded seven times. They folded the napkin seven times, then eight, then nine, then ten. That was something nice about the way things were now, they supposed: no rules, absolute freedom. Only rules, no freedom. That was what Dr. Yung would call a paradox. “But maybe the worst part about this new job is that Michael doesn’t really like hurting people. Sometimes it’s fun to randomly make people very upset, and you always kind of end up doing it anyway, but after a while Michael feels kind of bad about it. Michael likes doing other things better, like making terrible roundabouts and rearranging the pages of books. Maybe they even like reading books. They like reading comic books backwards, from the last page to the first, so every panel is a surprise.”

“There’s lots of ways to be a fear demon,” Mike pointed out, almost gently. Maybe only because he could relate. “Look at me. I’m not feeding off anyone. Just myself.”

“But I like the way I do it,” Michael said, frustrated. “Helen keeps trying to get me to do it the way she does it, but the point is that we aren’t the same. What’s the point in having two of us if both our viewpoints are the same? We’re different in every way, but we’re the same being. I just want to be the Spiral the way I want. Not the way Helen wants.” Their voice lowered, almost unwilling to say what they were about to say. “Not the way the Spiral wants.”

Mike stared at them for a long time, slowly sipping his beer, and Michael focused their efforts on forcing this improbable napkin into something that could be beautiful. A lotus flower? A mobius strip? Or should they just let it happen as it happens, and see what form it decided to take?

Finally, Mike said, “You are the Spiral.”

“Then why am I always disagreeing with it?” Michael asked miserably.

“Why are you, Helen, and the Spiral always disagreeing?” Mike pointed out. “Maybe that’s the point. So much as anything’s a point. Isn’t it the most perfect paradox of all, to split yourself into portions that are always disagreeing and bickering? Maybe everything you’re feeling is on purpose. I mean, it’s kind of improbable that you’re feeling at all, right?”

“I retained a lot of humanity,” Michael said. “Maybe a bit too much, actually?”

“Right.” Mike nodded decisively. “Then that’s the appeal. A human mind will always strain against its confines. It will always want different, want the same, want the old and the new and the perpetual and the fleeting and the eternity and the moment. What’s more nonsensical than a human? What’s more contradictory than human nature?” A dark shadow passed over his face, just for a second. “The Spiral kidnaps us and turns us into it. One part of our minds is entrenched in its eternity, and another part is always screaming in agony. But predominantly we are the unholy mixture of human and Entity, oil forced into water. It’s so intrinsically horrifying and wrong that we just get used to it. We are both demon and human, and so we’re neither, and so we’re both. Isn’t it weird, Michael, that unlike so many other Avatars, none of us want to be here?”

“You’re a very philosophical person,” Michael said diplomatically.

“Thanks, I think too much about my lot in life.” Mike Crew sighed, slumping on his barstool and knocking back more of his pint. “I wish you and Helen would stop showing up in my life so often. When you aren’t around, I can almost pretend I’m a person.”

“That’s why we show up,” Michael felt obligated to point out.

“Yeah, I know,” Mike said glumly. “I always know. I can’t stop knowing.”

There was nothing Michael could say or do that fixed this, or that could make Mike feel better. They understood, just a little - that nostalgia for a kinder time. But maybe it was more that Mike never had those halcyon, innocent days. He had lived life since childhood in aching knowledge that his days were numbered. Maybe that’s why Mike was allowed to live life as a human even now: his human life was just as confusing and isolated as his afterlife, and that when fear stained every second of his life there was no point in ceasing it.

Maybe Michael couldn’t keep their human life because they had been happy. At the very least, they had been ignorant. That was one thing the Spiral could not abide: ignorance.

These days, Michael knew everything. They knew everything so, so much.

So, in lieu of comforting falsehoods, Michael offered Mike Crew a slightest sliver of truth. They passed Mike the little piece of origami that they had made, and let Mike cradle it in his large and smooth hands.

The origami had no shape. It wasn’t folded into anything. It was just a meaningless amalgamation of points, corners, and creased paper. It didn’t look like anything at all.

“See?” Michael pointed out. “It’s a bear.”

Mike Crew smiled weakly. “Looks like a sea goat to me.”

There was something beautiful in ambiguity. When something was nothing, it could be everything at once. That was rather Michael’s favorite thing about it.

“I think it’s a self-portrait,” Michael decided.

And that, at least, was as true as anything else.

***

Michael wandered their hallways.

On some level, they were pretty much perpetually doing that. Even as one facet of them talked with Michael in a campus pub, even as another helped Helen convince a high class pub into voting Brexit, even as they traumatized a physics professor, they wandered these hallways.

Make no mistake: everything in this story has/will/is happened/happening simultaneously.

Of course, on another level Michael was literally their hallways, and thus they were not so much wandering as existing. Pulsating, one could say. Even twisting, if one would be so bold.

There was a mirror, in the hallway. Not a funhouse mirror - although Michael did enjoy popping out from those and scaring Nikola - but just a mirror. Gilded around the edges, ornate with swirling curlicues. You could see yourself in it. You could see a lot of yourself in it. It wasn’t what you had always looked like, not really, but you just had the sense that this was what you really looked like. Maybe you had always looked like this, and everybody was just too polite to tell you. Were you really a brunette? This mirror had to be right. You had been a blonde all along. Nobody had told you. They were laughing at you. They were laughing -

But this was Michael, and Michael’s, and nothing in here could harm them. It was even comforting. They looked at themselves in the mirror, and saw themselves same as ever. Or not same as ever. They were still Michael, so far as Michael was Michael.

Shortish. Blondey. Raggedy hair. Curled as much as anything’s curled. Fun clothing that they really enjoyed. Tall shoes, because they liked feeling tall. Similar dimensions to the golden number. Non linear, but who’s counting? It was what they typically looked like.

But, just for a second, Michael even fooled themselves. They saw someone in the mirror that they were not, someone who they had never been, someone who they never will be. Someone different.

Michael, just like everyone else, couldn’t stop themselves from reaching out. Come back. Come back! Let me touch you, let me be you! Michael’s fingers brushed the shiny glass, and the world tilted sideways, and Michael fell into where the sidewalk ended.

They emerged, or maybe they had always been, inside a bedroom. It was a nice little suburban bedroom. It had a peaked ceiling and a window seat. The walls were a soft, navy blue. There was a young person, lying on the shag carpet, leafing through a book. Big headphones were over their ears, and they were bopping along to music. Disco.

Michael stood, an intruder into a familiar space, and watched the stranger. Their throat felt oddly tight, and their eyes felt strangely hot. The stranger was smiling faintly, flipping the pages of their book somewhat mindlessly. They were reading it for school. Flatland. It was just an assignment, but it was really fucking them up. It was making them think about all of these things that they didn’t normally, in new dimensions. It was really cool. All of their friends were just reading the Sparknotes, but they really wanted to talk about it with someone.

This, of course, had happened. It will happen in the future. It was happening now, as Michael watched the scene with an electric sadness. It would never happen, because the Spiral had never been here, and never would be, and always was.

A knock echoed on the door, several sharp raps. Michael didn’t notice, legs swinging to the music.

The knock on the door hit louder. “Michael!” A voice echoed from behind it. “Michael, are you ready to go?”

Michael reached up and slid off their headphones, without looking up from their book. “Coming!” They called back. “Be right there!”

The Spiral watched Michael, who hummed absentmindedly as the door knocked again. Dad was downstairs, making sure the gas was off and shutting off the lights. Mum was knocking, knocking, knocking, on a door that was and will always be wood.

“Have you packed yet?” Mum called.

“Sure I have!” Michael yelled back, glancing at the empty suitcase on the bed and the messy pile of clothes right next to it. They pushed themselves up, flipping the book shut and rising to their feet. “Be right out!”

“Hurry up,” Mum called, as the Spiral mouthed the words along with her. “We’re going to be late!”

The Bermudas aren’t going anywhere, Michael thought spitefully. They stuffed their clothes haphazardly in a suitcase, took far more care to pack their laptop and DS, and shoved Flatland in a side pocket of their backpack.

When Michael slung on his backpack, unfolded the handle from their suitcase, they were not even looking at the door they left through. They were entirely focused on managing the unruly suitcase, and walked straight through the crazed yellow door.

Of course, Michael walked out. Slightly stranger, a little better, a lot worse. Exactly the same. They were back in their hallways again, fresh from their little suburban bedroom and the child exiting one world and entering one quite different. Maybe one part of that child would always be in that bedroom, another part in these hallways, and another part always caught in that doorway and the transition.

Simultaneously, in all points in time, Mum knocked on that wood door, and Michael never let her inside. Simultaneously, at all points in time, Michael watched it all happen.

They hadn’t expected it to be so comforting. At all moments in time, in a little corner of their heart, Mum knocked on their door. If the Spiral lived in your soul and beat your heart, it was easy to find the beauty in it - the magnificence of eternity, and the joy in the moment. Mum was with them - literally, as he was pretty sure Helen was still digesting her. Maybe nothing was ever truly over - just over there.

Michael stuck their hands in their pockets, whistling a jaunty tune that highly resembled the Shepherd’s Tone. Their hallways pulsated comfortingly, and Michael carefully toed off their platform shoes and eyed down the infinite hallways. No rugs for a while.

Maybe Michael, Mike Crew, and Helen should get together more often. Just the three of them. They would drive each other batty. It would be a lot of fun.

Michael set off running down the hallway, and skidded on their socks down the hardwood floor, whooping in joy as they skidded endlessly towards eternity.

#my writing #the magnus archives #tma #the magnus archives fanfic #tma fanfic #michael the distortion #helen the distortion #michael #helen #michael shelley #helen richardson #mike crew #the distortion #the spiral #Michael views their life as an embodiment of terror and unreality as roughly equivelant to capitalism #Helen is kind of regretting hiring this kid but it's probably the only thing stopping them from eating her #Mike Crew really really really hates his fear cousins #i had to open a lot of wikipedia pages for this so you're welcome

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kiirokero · 3 years

Text

My Hope (JHS)

Pairing: Jung Hoseok x Reader

Genre: Angst, Lil bit of Fluff, Mutual Pining, (old?)Best Friends to lovers

Word Count: 2,870

Summary: You were only trying to forget the love you knew you could never have, but now you were trapped in a hell. You’ve had enough and you find yourself at the doorstep of the one who you truly loved, soaking wet and broken.

Warnings: Mentions of a domestic abusive relationship, verbal, emotional, light physical abuse (bruising), manipulation, gaslighting (kinda?), yelling, degradation (and not the smexy kind), light panicking, abusive isolation, just a lot of horrible shit.

Note: PLEASE don’t read if the warning topics are triggering for you.

Cold. That's all I could feel right now. My hands like icicles as the unforgiving frost of the city bit at the tips of my ears and nose. Was I really doing the right thing? My legs aching as I continued my journey to the only place I could turn to. He said he'd change. He always said that. Every time. Maybe this time will be different. How many times has it been? 5? 10? I've lost count, but I was stuck.

1... 2... 3... I counted my steps to keep my mind off of the situation that plagued it. It was his fault, right? It wasn't mine? Would he have acted like that if it was anybody else? He's always been jealous. Insecure. Reassurance a constant sound coming from my vocal cords, only because I didn’t want to do the alternative.

18... 19... 20... Am I walking too slow? I should be there by now. Am I lost? Will I succumb to the cold in an alleyway all by myself? My feet like the stone statues that stood in the middle of the city. Their empty stares the only thing to keep me company. The patter of rain the only music filling my ears. Lonely. I was always so lonely. Even when the arms of the person I falsely gave my heart to were wrapped around my ever dying body.

50... 51... 52... What happened to me? I used to be so happy. My smile a genuine painting on my face rather than a mask constantly in my hand. I used to have friends, family; I used to have him...A piece of me was taken away with every hateful word spat at me. I was no better than the cold stone men. The fire in my soul reduced to a pathetic ember. My glowing skin diminished into scratchy leather. My will to keep going now nothing more than a scrap of paper. Burnt. Torn. Crumpled.

87... 88... 89... I had to do it. I couldn't take it anymore. My life had been ripped away from me. He trapped me in a hellscape with false promises of love. Lured me in with a chance to forget. To forget about him. Happiness... I wanted it back. I want my friends back. I wanted my family back. My hobbies, my freedom, him.

I wanted Hoseok back.

"Who was that?" My boyfriend, Hajoon, snapped as I closed the door. "The new neighbor..." I faltered. Hajoon just scoffed and stood up. Walking towards me as my heart rate spiked. Not again. "Oh really? And what did he want?" He taunted, annoyance written all over his face. "H-he just wanted to introduce himself..." I stuttered. "Why are you stuttering? I swear you'd never survive without me. You're so pathetic." He huffed as he harshly grabbed my chin, making me look at him. "Don't talk to him again, got it?" I nodded and he let go. "You love me and you'd never leave me. Right Y/N?" He questioned. "Right... I'd never leave you..."

"Hobi! How's the tour going!" I exclaimed, happy to get a call from my best friend. "Y/N! It's going well! It's been a blast performing and meeting Army's." He chirped. Hajoon was out, meaning that I could talk to Hoseok without worry. Hajoon never liked Hoseok. Whenever I would mention my beloved best friend, he would get angry. He would yell and me tell me I shouldn't talk to him. I didn't listen though, Hoseok has been with me through everything. I could never drop him. Never. "Why haven't you been visiting more, Y/N? We miss you!" Hoseok asked, a hint of sadness laced in his voice. "Ah, I would but... Hajoon doesn't like when I go out without him..." I hesitated. "Y/n... Hajoon doesn't own you. You can do things without his approval. You're an adult, okay?" Hoseok stated. "I know, but..." I froze as I heard the door open.

"I-I gotta go, I'll talk to you when I can..." I panicked, hanging up the phone before Hoseok could say anything. "Y/n? Who are you talking to?" Hajoon called out. "M-my mom!" I called back, tears stinging my eyes but I refused to let them fall. "She just wanted to check up on me..." I quickly deleted my call history, leaving a call from my mom earlier today at the top. I knew that if Hajoon didn't believe me, he'd look at my call history. The last time I lied about who I was talking to, he yelled at me for hours. Hajoon walked into our shared bedroom staring coldly at me. "What did you guys talk about?" He asked. "She was just asking how my life is... telling me how they are..." I mumbled. "What did you say?" He commanded me to tell him. "I- I said I was fine..." Hajoon nodded, satisfied, and laid down on the bed, beckoning me into his arms.

I complied, curling up next to him, my head in his chest. He knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew how he was treating me was wrong. He feared getting caught. Scared I'd run away. Slipping from his grasp. He was insecure. He needed someone to control in order to feel that he had power. Why did it have to be me? "I love you." He mumbled. I hesitated, not wanting to say those sacred words, but my mind when back to what happened every time I didn't say it back. 'I give you everything, yet you're so ungrateful?' 'You just take and take, don't you?' 'You'd have nothing without me!' 'You need me.'

"I- I love you too..."

"Where the hell we're you?!" I winced at the sound of my yelling boyfriend. "I was out with friends... I told you last night that they wanted to go see a movie with me..." I mumbled. Fear and anxiety already coursing through my body. "And I thought I told you that I didn't want you to go?!" He screamed. Hoseok's words ran through my mind 'You're an adult'. That's the only reason I could pick myself up and go out. "I..." I stumbled out, "I'm an adult... I can make my own decisions..." The room was silent. I looked up to see Hajoon looking at me with an unreadable expression.

"Oh, really?" He said in a monotone manner, scaring me even more. He wasn't yelling anymore, but I could tell he was mad, he was really mad. He started stepping towards me, causing me to back up, hitting my back against the empty living room wall. "Really?" He said again, this time in a more spiteful tone. He harshly grabbed my wrist, squeezing it tight. I cried out at the sudden pain. "You're an adult? You don't act like it. You're like a child leeching off of me, ungratefully taking everything from me, yet you want to say you're an adult?!" My eyes were watering and my heart rammed against my ribcage, I could hear the sound in my ears. "You made me quit my job... So I wouldn't have my own money..." I whispered. But he heard it, and he squeezed my wrist even tighter. "I do this because I love you." He stated. But I've had it, I've had enough. "No! No, you don't! You don't love me! This isn't love!"

I struggled in his grip, managing to get free as I bolted for the door. I had to get out of there. I burst the door open and ran down the street. Ignoring the yells that came from behind me. I just kept running and running. Rain roughly hitting my face, mixing with the salty tears slipping from my eyes.

I looked down at my bruising wrist, the sight not new to me. The bruise was like a bracelet to me now. An accessory I would wear to remind me I made him mad, and he went too far. I curled my knees against my chest, cold and wet, shivering in front of my best friend's door. I took my phone out of my pocket. 9 pm. When I got home it was 7, was I really running for that long?

Hoseok's place was a 30-minute drive from mine, but walking/running was a different story. The twists and turns of the city streets adding on extra time to my commute. I didn't want to call him. It was Sunday night. Every Sunday night, Hoseok would go to BigHit's dance studio and practice more by himself, starting at 6 and ending at 8. Then the long drive back home. That was his Sunday routine. I didn't want to bother him. His dancing was important to him, and he loved it. I didn't want to ruin his night by interrupting him. I didn't want to be a bother.

Irrational fears ran through my head, torturing me. Did I have any right to be here? Would he be mad at me? Why would he be mad at me? Please don't be mad at me. I can't handle it. I can't handle the yelling, the screaming. I can't handle the hate, the fake love. I couldn't handle being trapped. A dying bird in a rusty cage. I wanted freedom, craved it. Tonight, I finally got it. Now I just needed the warm, comforting arms and the smooth voice of my best friend to tell me everything is going to be okay.

"Y-Y/n?" I looked up at the sound of my name and saw a worried-looking Hoseok, still dressed in workout clothes and a duffle bag in hand. As soon as I saw his face, tears spilled out of my eyes, "Hobi?" I hiccuped. He wasted no time rushing to me, kneeling in front of me, holding me close. "Y/n, you're soaking wet! What happened?" I couldn't answer him as I choked out tears. Hoseok could tell I was too hysterical to give him an answer, so he picked me up and walked inside his apartment.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. I need you to calm down, Y/n. Can you do that for me?" Hoseok comforted me as brought me to the bathroom and sat me on the side of the tub. I nodded my head and Hoseok ran me through a breathing exercise. It didn’t calm me down entirely, but at least I could speak now. Hoseok kneeled in front of me and held one of my hands as the other one worked on wiping my tears away. "I'm sorry..." I whispered. "No, Y/n, I don't what to hear any of that. You have nothing to be sorry for." Hoseok stated, "But, what happened?"

"Hajoon... Hajoon happened." I said, his name like tar in my mouth. Hoseok's face contorted in disgust. "I knew it..." He whispered to himself. I could see the mental battle he was having in his head plastered on his face. It read guilt and regret. He stood up and walked out of the bathroom. He soon returned with a black hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, handing them to me. "Go ahead and change, I don't want my sunshine to get sick." My heart skipped a beat at the old nickname he always used for me.

Sunshine. He's been calling me that since forever. But when I got in a relationship with Hajoon, he stopped out of respect, since sunshine sounded so loving to Hajoon. I forgot just how much I missed it. Hajoon was never that loving to me, Hoseok treated me better than him from the start. Loving Hoseok scared me. He had a dream. He was a star and I was a nobody compared to him. I was scared I wasn't good enough for him. So when the puppy love between me and Hajoon started, I took it as an opportunity to keep me from impeding Hoseok and his dream. But it backfired, it backfired so badly.

I stepped out of the bathroom, walking to the living room that seemed like a distant memory now. I remembered when I would practically spend days straight at Hoseok's house, even if he had work, it was my second home until Hajoon ripped that away from me. He told me that it was unfaithful to spend so much time at Hoseok’s, and not wanting to hurt his feelings, I listened to him. I was so stupid. Hoseok walked out the kitchen, dressed in lounge clothes, leftover takeout in hand as he motioned for me to sit down. I complied silently. We said nothing to each other, but we didn't have to. We didn't need to fill the silence with conversation just yet. We just needed each other.

Hoseok set the food down on the table in front of us and sat down, grabbing pieces of food with a pair of chopsticks and feeding me. The loving gesture almost made me sob. After he deemed I was fed well, he wrapped his arms securely around me, holding me tight. Afraid that if he were to let go, someone would take me away from him again. "You can talk when you're ready." He whispered to me, petting my hair lovingly. I did just that. I talked and talked. Going on and on about how Hajoon would treat me, how he would yell and scream, how he would lash out than apologize afterward, promising to change. I told him how he didn't like me hanging out with my friends or visiting family. If I went out, he had to go with me. If I was on the phone, he had to know who was on the other side. If he told me he loved me, I had to say it back, or things wouldn't be pretty. "How long has this been going on?" Hoseok asked. "A couple months after we got together... It started out small, but then it spiraled. Before I knew it, I was trapped in a loveless relationship, too scared to run." I shivered as I sunk into Hoseok's arms even more.

"I'm so sorry, I should've been there," Hoseok whispered.

"It's okay Hobi, just... hold me."

"Why didn't you call me? You shouldn't have walked all the way over here."

"I knew you were practicing."

"Y/n," He breathed, "I'd drop anything for you."

"I know how important your job is to you Hobi..."

"You're more important."

Silence engulfed us again, Hoseok gently rocking me back and forth. Loving Hoseok was scary, but I wouldn't hold myself back anymore. I wouldn't dance around the issue. I couldn't deny what my heart wanted and what it wanted all along. Last time I did, Hajoon reduced me to a scrap of myself.

Hajoon would hug me, but they weren’t like Hoseok’s. Hajoon would hold me, but it wasn’t like Hoseok. Hajoon said he loved me, but he wasn’t Hoseok. He was never Hoseok. He could never be Hoseok.

"I didn't love him." I sniffled. "I never did. He wasn't the person I wanted, Hobi."

"Who did you want...?" Hoseok hesitated.

"I wanted my hope..." I choked out, tears threatening to fall again.

Hoseok held me tighter. A stray tear fell on the top of my head, telling me he needed to hear that. That single tear told me so much. He regretted not being there for me through this. He felt like it was his fault. If only he knew, things would be different. If only he told me he loved me, this would've never happened.

"Why didn't you come to me sooner?" Hoseok croaked out, sniffling.

"I was just scared of what he would to do me..." I winced.

"Did he hurt you?" Hoseok asked.

I stayed silent. He pulled away to look me in the eye, his own tears glistening under the light.

"Sunshine. Did he hurt you?" He pressed.

I couldn't resist him whenever he called me that, so I just silently nodded.

"Where?"

I showed him my wrist. The purple splotches wrapping around it reminding me of the invisible handcuffs Hajoon had me in for so long. "He's disgusting..." He scoffed, gently taking my wrist in his hands, examining the deep bruises. I unconsciously flinched, earning a look of sadness from Hoseok, more tears falling from his face. "Was this the first time?" I shook my head, causing Hoseok to take a deep breath. "Tomorrow, we'll go get your things and bring them here. I'll deal with him." I looked up at the man in front of me. Instead of his somber look, his face showed a mad one. Hoseok was always scary when mad. The aura that radiated off of him was a threatening one. "I don't want to go back there, Hobi..." I mumbled. Hoseok slowly put a hand on my cheek and stroked my cheekbone with his thumb. His moves were slow and gentle, not wanting to scare me. "Don't worry, he won't be there when we go."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"He'll be rotting in a cell."

"...Jail?"

"He committed a crime, Y/n," He stated.

"...Thank you Hobi. I missed you..."

"I missed you too, sunshine. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you..."

"I love you..." I squeezed him tighter.

"I love you too, sunshine."

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tanstaaflaos · 4 years

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A rant from Trump supporters

The following is a cut and paste from someone I know on Facebook. In short, they don’t particularly like Trump but like liberals and progressive ideas even less. They justify their vote for Trump as giving a finger to liberals and the media, rather than supporting Trump. In short, a very selfish and short-sighted mentality that is unfortunately prevalent in today’s world. These folks will continue to vote against their own interests if it means they can “win” while sticking it to the liberals. Here’s the rant:

🛑 STOP! 🛑 EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS ⬇️ If you are a liberal who can’t stand Trump, and cannot possibly fathom why anyone would ever vote for him, let me fill you in. It’s not that we love Donald Trump so much. It’s that we can’t stand you. And we will do whatever it takes — even if that means electing a rude, obnoxious, unpredictable, narcissist (your words not ours) to the office of President of the United States — because the thing we find more dangerous to this nation than Donald Trump is YOU. How is that possible you might ask? Well, you have done everything in your power to destroy our country. From tearing down the police, to tearing down our history, to tearing down our borders. From systematically destroying our schools and brainwashing our kids into believing socialism is the answer to anything (despite being an unmitigated failure everywhere), while demonizing religion and faith, and glorifying abortion, violence, and thug culture. From calling us racists every time we expect everyone of any skin color to follow our laws equally, to telling us that our “tolerance” of lifestyles we don’t agree with isn’t nearly enough — no we must “celebrate” any lifestyle choice or gender option (forget science) you throw our direction or you think it’s fine to calls us homophobic or some other degrading slur you decide is okay to call us — ironically all while lecturing us on hate speech. While you gaslight us about 52 genders, polyamory, grown men in dresses sharing public locker rooms with little girls, and normalize the sexualization of young children, you simultaneously ridicule us for having the audacity to wish someone a “Merry Christmas” or hang a flag on the 4th of July, stand for the national anthem, or (horror of horrors) don a MAGA hat in public. So much for your “tolerance.” (See why we think you are just hypocrites??) We’re also not interested in the fact that you think you can unilaterally decide that 250 years of the right-to-bear-arms against a tyrannical or ineffective government should be abolished because you can’t get the violence in the cities you manage under control. That free-speech should be tossed out the window, and that those who disagree with your opinions are fair game for public harassment or doxing. That spoiled children with nose-rings and tats who still live off their parent’s dime should be allowed to destroy cities and peoples livelihoods without repercussions. That chaos, and lawlessness, and disrespect for authority should be the norm. This is your agenda. And you wonder why we find you more dangerous than Donald Trump? Your narrative is a constant drone of oppressor/oppressed race-baiting intended to divide the country in as many ways as you possibly can. You love to sell “victim-hood” to people of color every chance you get because it’s such an easy sell, compared to actually teaching people to stand on their own two feet and take personal responsibility for their own lives and their own communities and their own futures. But you won’t do that, you will never do that, because then you will lose control over people of color. They might actually start thinking for themselves, God forbid! This is why we will vote for Donald Trump. Not because he is the most charming character on the block. Not because he is the most polite politician to have ever graced the oval office. Not because he is the most palatable choice, or because we love his moral character or because the man never lies, but because we are sick to death of you and all of the destructive crap you are doing to this once beautiful and relatively safe country. Your ineffective and completely dysfunctional liberal “leadership”(?) has literally destroyed our most beautiful cities, our public education system, and done it’s damndest to rip faith out of people’s lives. However bad Donald Trump may be, and he is far from perfect, every day we look at you and feel that no matter what Donald Trump says or does there is no possible way he could be any worse for our country than you people are. We are sick to death of your stupid, destructive, ignorant, and intolerant behavior and beliefs — parading as “wokeness.” We are beyond sick of your hypocrisy and B.S. We are fed up with your disrespectful divisiveness and constant unrelenting harping and whining and complaining (while you live in the most privileged nation in the world), while making literally zero contributions of anything positive to our society. Your entire focus is on ripping things down, never ever building anything up. Think about that as there is something fundamentally very wrong in the psychology of people who choose destruction as their primary modus operandi. When Donald J Trump is reelected, don’t blame us, look in the mirror and blame yourselves. Because you are the ones that are responsible for the rise of Donald Trump. You are the ones who have created this "monster" that you so despise, by your very actions. By your refusal to respect your fellow Americans, and the things that are important to us. You have made fun of the “fly-over states,” the people who “cling to their guns and religion,” the middle class factory workers and coal miners and underprivileged rural populations that you dismissively call “yahoos” and “deplorables.” You have mocked our faith and our religion. You have mocked our values and our patriotism. You have trampled our flag and insulted our veterans and treated our first responders with contempt and hatred. You have made environmentalism your religion, while trashing every city you have taken responsibility for. You scream from the rooftops about “global warming” and a “green new deal” while allowing tens of thousands of homeless people to cover your streets in literal sh!t and garbage and needles and plastic waste without doing a single thing to help them or solve the environmental crisis your failed social policies are creating. But we’re supposed to put YOU in charge of the environment while gutting our entire economy to institute this plan when you can’t even clean up a single city?? You complain — endlessly — yet have failed to solve a single social problem anywhere. In fact, all you have done is create more of them. We’ve had enough. We are tired of quietly sitting by and being the “silent” majority. So don’t be surprised when the day comes when we finally respond. And trust me it’s coming, sooner than you might think. And also trust me when I say it won’t be pretty. Get ready. When Donald Trump is reelected it will be because you and your “comrades” have chosen to trash the police, harass law-abiding citizens, and go on rampages destroying public property that we have all paid for and you have zero respect for. When Donald Trump is reelected it will be because we are sick of your complete and utter nonsense and destruction. How does it feel to know that half of this country finds you FAR more despicable than Donald J. Trump, the man you consider to be the anti-Christ? Let that sink in. We consider you to be more despicable, more dangerous, more stupid, and more narcissistic than Donald Trump. Maybe allow yourself a few seconds of self-reflection to let that sink in. This election isn’t about Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden. This is about Donald Trump vs YOU. So if on the morning of November 4 (or more likely January 19, by the time the Supreme Court will weigh in on the mail-in ballot fiasco that we are headed towards), and Donald J. Trump is reelected? The only people you have to blame is the left-wing media drones and yourselves. You did this. Yep you. I copied and shared this and if you give a shit about your country then you should too.

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funkylittletrauma · 6 years

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Psychological Abuse: A rundown.

You’re Not Crazy, But Emotional Abuse Can Make You Think You Are

Psychological abuse (also referred to as psychological violence, emotional abuse, or mental abuse) is a form of abuse, characterized by a person subjecting, or exposing, another person to behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder. It is often associated with situations of power imbalance in abusive relationships including bullying, gaslighting and abuse in the workplace.

Read bellow as it is quite lenghty: !!!! - Open pictures in new tab for full lenght.

As of 1996, there were "no consensus views about the definition of emotional abuse." As such, clinicians and researchers have offered sometimes divergent definitions of emotional abuse. "Emotional abuse is any kind of abuse that is emotional rather than physical in nature. It can include anything from verbal abuse and constant criticism to more subtle tactics, such as intimidation, manipulation, and refusal to ever be pleased. Emotional abuse can take many forms.

Three general patterns of abusive behavior include aggressing, denying, and minimizing"; and continues to add; "Withholding is another form of denying. Withholding includes refusing to listen, refusing to communicate, and emotionally withdrawing as punishment." Even though there is no established definition of emotional abuse, emotional abuse can possess a definition beyond verbal and psychological abuse.

Blaming, shaming, and name calling are a few identifiers of verbal abuse which can affect a victim emotionally. The victim's self-worth and emotional well being are altered and even diminished by the verbal abuse, and the result is an emotionally abused victim.

The U.S. Department of Justice defines emotionally abusive traits as including causing fear by: intimidation, threatening physical harm to self, partner, children, or partner's family or friends, destruction of pets and property, forcing isolation from family, friends, or school or work. Subtler emotionally abusive tactics include insults, putdowns, arbitrary and unpredictable inconsistency, and gaslighting (e.g. the denial that previous abusive incidents occurred). Modern technology has led to new forms of abuse, by text messaging and online cyber-bullying.

In 1996, Health Canada argued that emotional abuse is "based on power and control", and defines emotional abuse as including rejecting, degrading, terrorizing, isolating, corrupting/exploiting and "denying emotional responsiveness" as characteristic of emotional abuse.

Intimate relationships

Domestic abuse—defined as chronic mistreatment in marriage, families, dating and other intimate relationships—can include emotionally abusive behavior. Psychological abuse does not always lead to physical abuse, but physical abuse in domestic relationships is nearly always preceded and accompanied by psychological abuse. Murphy and O'Leary report that psychological aggression is the most reliable predictor of later physical aggression.

In their review of data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (a longitudinal birth cohort study) Moffitt et al. report that while men exhibit more aggression overall, sex is not a reliable predictor of interpersonal aggression, including psychological aggression. The study found that no matter what gender a person is, aggressive people share a cluster of traits, including high rates of suspicion and jealousy; sudden and drastic mood swings; poor self-control; and higher than average rates of approval of violence and aggression.

Abusers may aim to avoid household chores or exercise total control of family finances. Abusers can be very manipulative, often recruiting friends, law officers and court officials, and even the victim's family to their side, while shifting blame to the victim.

Emotional abuse could have a long-lasting physical, mental and social effect on an individual so it is important to speak to someone about it as well as find specialist help and support as soon as possible.

Controlling partners may:

Demand to know your whereabouts at all times

Consistently subject you to a lot of humiliation and ridicule

Belittle you

Try to control who you talk to, how you dress, what you do and how you feel about yourself.

Threaten to physically harm you if you try to exit the relationship.

Manipulate and control your feelings

Go into a “fit of rage” when you spend time with somebody they don’t approve of.

Short-Term Effects of Emotional Abuse

Anxiety

Guilt or Shame

Passivity

Repeated Crying

Eye Contact Avoidance

Feelings of Helplessness and Hopelessness

Feelings of “Walking on Eggshells”

Self-Doubt

Low Self-Esteem and Self-Confidence

Long-Term Effects of Emotional Abuse

Withdrawal

Depression

Low self-worth, self-confidence and self-esteem

Emotional unpredictability

Irregular sleep patterns and sleep disorders

Undiagnosed physical distress

Suicidal thoughts

Total dependence on the abuser

Inability to trust

Inability to complete tasks and achieve success

Feelings of being trapped and isolated

Alcohol and/or drug abuse

Most victims of psychological abuse within intimate relationships often experience changes to their psyche and actions. This varies throughout the various types and lengths of emotional abuse. Long-term emotional abuse has long term debilitating effects on a person's sense of self and integrity. Often, research shows that emotional abuse is a precursor to physical abuse when three particular forms of emotional abuse are present in the relationship: threats, restriction of the abused party and damage to the victim's property.

Psychological abuse is often not recognized by survivors of domestic violence as abuse. A study of college students by Goldsmith and Freyd report that many who have experienced emotional abuse do not characterize the mistreatment as abusive. Additionally, Goldsmith and Freyd show that these people also tend to exhibit higher than average rates of alexithymia (difficulty identifying and processing their own emotions). This is often the case when referring to victims of abuse within intimate relationships, as non-recognition of the actions as abuse may be a coping or defense mechanism in order to either seek to master, minimize or tolerate stress or conflict.

Emotional abuse is a crime, and a victim does have places to go to seek safety from an abuser. At their core, all forms of abuse are behaviors the abuser uses to control, coerce, and maintain the power they've acquired over their victim through fear and intimidation.

The victim of emotional abuse has been groomed by the abuser to accept the abuse as "normal." They learn to accept this treatment as "what they deserve." The abuser starts out many times as a charismatic and even kind person and gains the victim's trust. Once they have that, they can start manipulating and controlling them.

You start thinking: maybe I am wrong. Maybe I do not remember the situation accurately. Like they keep telling you. You can start to feel crazy and feel that you can't trust yourself, your memories, or your judgments. But you are not crazy. This is their way of keeping control over you. Learning about emotional abuse can help you get on the path to recovery.

Forms of Emotional Abuse

Threats

Threats come in many forms. Often, the abuser will use threats to play mind games with you, manipulate you, or control what actions you take. They may threaten physical violence to scare you into listening to them and doing what they want. They may threaten to call the police and tell them that you are the one being abusive.

They may coerce you into staying in a relationship by convincing you that you will be ruining their life by leaving. They may make threats they don't intend to carry through with to get you to comply, such as threatening to leave you. Or they may make you feel guilty for their actions by threatening to hurt themselves. Regularly using threats as a way to manipulate someone is not healthy in a relationship.

Constant Criticism

Criticism is not always abusive, particular when it's constructive. However, when the critical words turn into put-downs, that's not productive but rather abusive. When someone is constantly putting you down or questioning your decisions, there's a malicious motive behind their behavior.

This chronic shaming wears down the victim's self-esteem and confidence and makes them doubt themselves and their self-worth. Criticism can also be disguised as jokes. This makes the victim question whether they are truly being demeaned or not. When a joke is designed to point out your flaws (real or perceived) to make you feel bad, it is criticism, and not a constructive one.

Not all teasing is abuse, sometimes it can be playful, but there's a way to tell the difference. If the joke is about something that doesn't bother you or the other person, it is truly a joke. For example, if a friend or family member teases you about being short, but you feel good about your height and you know they're playful, this is a friendly joke.

If they pretend about you being lazy and have seriously criticized you about this before, knowing that it evokes a reaction from you, then they are pushing your buttons. Eventually, you may become more susceptible to other forms of emotional abuse because of being so worn down by criticism.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting is probably the most "crazy-making" of the forms of emotional abuse. It is a denial of your experiences and your perception of reality. When someone tells you enough times that something you remember didn't happen or that they didn't say a thing you're sure they did, or that you said a thing you're sure you didn't, you begin to believe that your memory is unreliable. And then you begin to depend on that very person to tell you what happened. That is a dangerous place to be in. After experiencing gaslighting, you need to re-learn to trust yourself. The first step is recognizing that this is happening to you.

With gaslighting, information is twisted to favor the abuser. Often, but not always, it is done in a premeditated manner. We have all seen small children twist a story after the fact to get out of discipline, but gaslighting is not the same thing. It is not done to get the abuser out of trouble, but to gain further control over the victim. They may accuse you of being the instigator in a situation when they poked you to get a reaction.

The purpose of gaslighting is to make you start acting like you are out of control. Another sign that you are the victim of gaslighting is if every time you try to talk about your experiences, the other person makes the conversation about them, as though they are the victim of your behaviors, despite you being the one who brought up a grievance. A truly caring partner, friend, or family member will listen to you with compassion and want to help if you feel there is a problem in the relationship.

You should also keep in mind that is stressed, angry, or upset, will cause you to have trouble with your memory of the situation, and this is normal. It does not mean you are crazy if you cannot remember the exact words you or the other person said during an argument. So don't let someone use the results of stress against you.

Disregarding Your Opinions

Also called opposing and blocking, the result of constantly having your opinions shot down or being told to shut up or that your thoughts don't matter is that you stop standing up for yourself. You stop vocalizing your opinions. Ultimately no connection can exist without open communication.

Again, this form of abuse can be quite subtle. It can be as simple as the abuser telling you that you are boring when you start talking about something you are enthusiastic about. But when that assertion is repeated to you over and over, you may begin to feel like your thoughts don't have any worth.

Rejection

A relationship involves rejection when one person makes the other feel unwanted. This can be seen in emotionally abusive parent-child relationships. When the child is called names, demeaned, belittled, or left by themselves for long periods of time, it can cause extreme mental harm.

This also occurs in intimate relationships in which the abuser continues to stay but repeatedly calls the victim names and makes character insults to show that they have no respect for them. In any relationship, the result is that the victim feels like no one else would want them either.

Isolation

The abuser makes sure that the victim is kept apart from friends or other family members; this is another form of emotional abuse. A child or partner may not be allowed to interact with friends. An elderly parent may be denied visits. Without healthy relationships, the victim becomes more and more dependent upon the abuser to fulfill their needs. This is unhealthy and destructive to their lives.

Partners or parents may keep the victim from getting a job, meaning they don't form relationships with peers and they have no financial independence. Ultimately, making them believe that losing the abuser would mean losing everything, even if the victim sees that the relationship is not good.

Victim Blaming

Victim blaming is a severe form of emotional abuse. Blaming the victim comes after other forms of abuse, whether physical, sexual, or emotional. The abuser will tell you that things that happened are your fault. They claim they would not have acted the way they did or said the things they said if you would have just behaved appropriately and listened to them. They will tell you that you always cause issues, or you always start arguments.

Unfortunately, abuse typically happens in private so you may have no one to validate your experiences or help you understand that you are not to blame for their actions.

Hear this now "You are not responsible for what your abuser does. Making your own decisions is not a cause for abuse.”

If you feel like something is not right about the way you are being treated, you should trust your instincts. Seek help by finding someone you can trust to talk to. If you decide to confront your abuser about their behaviors, only continue the conversation as long as each of you can remain calm, and have an escape plan prepared before the discussion. You may want to hold the conversation in a public place.

The Emotional Abuse Cycle

Abusive relationships often work in cycles, especially if the victim has a choice about whether to stay. The first stage is the honeymoon period. Many emotional abusers come across as extremely charming to their potential victims, and to others around them. This can make it even more difficult for a victim to get help because everyone you know may think the abuser is such a nice person that they could never do or say such things.

Coercive Behavior Patterns

Emotional abusers often have distinct personality and behavior patterns. Once you've been exposed to these traits, you may be able to recognize them in future relationships before abuse begins. They are often self-centered individuals who lack empathy. They may feel like they have no control over their own lives and have a strong desire for asserting control where they can, including in their relationships with others. You can watch for the following signs to determine whether a person is a risk for coercive behaviors. Knowing these patterns can help you avoid entering an abusive relationship in the future.

The person seems insecure or uncomfortable around others.

They are paranoid about people's motivations, constantly looking for insults or hidden agendas where there aren't any.

Overreact about simple situations or seems edgy or uptight.

Has overbearing parents or has family members that have taken care of everything for them, past an appropriate age to do so.

Expresses road rage and thinks other drivers are "morons."

Brags or boasts

Overly needy, constantly requiring emotional support.

Unreasonable resentment of past partners and blaming failed relationships on the other person, constantly bring up their continued anger or grievances over the former partner.

Plays the sad puppy, looking for your pity, and bemoaning how poorly they have been treated in the past.

Acts pushy in conversations, by not letting others having an opinion, always getting in the last word, and arguing over petty issues that don't seem worth arguing about.

Pressures you to do things you don't want to.

Makes decisions for you, without consulting you.

Invades your privacy, always being nosey about where you are, what you're doing, or who you're with.

Behaves possessively over you.

Lies about small things that it would be easy, to tell the truth about.

Disregards boundaries you have set.

You've heard accounts of other angry, violent, or abusive episodes from other people who know them.

Emotional Blackmail

Emotional blackmail and FOG (Fear, obligation or guilt), terms coined by psychotherapist Susan Forward, are about controlling people in relationships and the theory that fear, obligation and guilt ("FOG") are the transactional dynamics at play between the controller and the person being controlled.

Understanding these dynamics is useful to anyone trying to extricate from the controlling behavior of another person, and deal with their own compulsions to do things that are uncomfortable, undesirable, burdensome, or self-sacrificing for others.

The first documented use of "emotional blackmail" appeared in 1947 in the Journal of the National Association of Deans of Women in the article "Emotional Blackmail Climate". The term was used to describe one type of problematic classroom control model often used by teachers.

Emotional blackmailers use fear, obligation and guilt in their relationships, ensuring that others feel afraid to cross them, obligated to give them their way and swamped by guilt if they resist.

Knowing that someone close to them wants love, approval or confirmation of identity and self-esteem, blackmailers may threaten to withhold them (e.g., withhold love) or take them away altogether, making the second person feel they must earn them by agreement

FREEING YOURSELF:

The lack of logic is another reason that emotional abuse can make you feel like you are crazy. The arguments will go on in circles because the abuser will not acknowledge your rational arguments. Your knowledge that a reasonable person does not communicate in this way does not change that they are not going to cooperate. So how do you stop this?

The arguments will go on in circles because the abuser will not acknowledge your rational arguments.

The first thing you need to do to protect your mental health is to stop trying to reason with the abuser. All this will result in is frustration and anger for you, and they won't respond to it. They are operating on emotion rather than reason. And if you allow yourself to get angry, the situation will only escalate, and the abuser will have gained power over you because you too will have lost your ability to reason well. Simply stop the habit of trying to explain yourself and your actions.

The next step is to disengage from the abuse as much as possible. Make yourself boring to the abuser. Don't play into the abuse and if you need to walk away and leave the situation do that If you don't react to the manipulation and don't react to being played with, they get less satisfaction from mistreating you. If they spot the change and try to up the abuse, circle back to the first step and remember not to argue logic or lose your temper. They will try to goad you into an argument, perhaps calling you "icy," "stony," "emotionless," or a "robot." You know this is not true and that you are protecting yourself from their abuse.

While you are implementing these changes in your patterns, remember to take care of yourself. Start thinking about you. This can be difficult for those who have been trained to put the abuser first and always think about what would make them happy or keep them from exploding. Instead, seek out ways to improve your mental health and happiness.

You should also start learning to set personal boundaries. Stating your boundaries out loud shows the abuser that you are aware of what they are doing. It begins to break their hold over you. And it is an extremely important lesson to learn for your future friendships and relationships.

Seeking Help

The effects of emotional abuse can affect all areas of one’s life. The trauma suffered at the hands of an emotional abuser can follow an individual, even after they’ve left the situation.

It’s important to seek help from specialist support organisations.

Counseling, therapy and support groups can help individuals process their experiences with a view to dealing with or managing the effects associated with emotional abuse.

If you are in an abusive relationship and requires an urgent response or needs in-depth support please contact the National Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247, the Men’s Advice Helpline on 0808 801 0327 or The National LGBT Helpline (Broken Rainbow) on 0300 999 5428.

You could also find support organizations using our ONLINE DIRECTORY

If you require telephone counseling in the following areas:

Domestic/Emotional Abuse

Coping with traumatic events

Self Esteem

Anxiety

Coping/Adjusting with change

General personal development

Forgive yourself, patiently.

By recognizing and accepting personal responsibility for what was contributed to create an abusive environment, liberty is found.

Forgiveness is difficult, and while it is easy to rationalize and think of justification, the true feeling of forgiveness can be elusive. In my experience, the hardest person to forgive is one's own self.

For allowing somebody else to treat us poorly, for trusting and enabling demeaning behavior, and for letting them use and lead us astray.

This normally happens because of trust, innocence, and intimacy. And to retain that sensitivity requires remaining open. While a person may become guarded against the outside world and other people, it only harms the self to shut down sensitivities.

Better to appreciate your heart and keep the sacred truth of who you are than to shut down completely. Patience is required because a little bit heals at a time.

When we are fortunate a large shift can happen. But the fullness of heart and spirit returns in time. Similar to sculpting, different pieces of differing sizes fall at different times, until what remains is the statue. The pain falls away, and the self is revealed.

Remember to love

This takes time, patience and gentleness with oneself that others may not give. The understanding we seek from others can only be communicated to them only after first having seen and recognized the understanding of oneself.

The breaking free of abusive patterns means to see with truth what was done to allow for such behavior, that enabled it for continuing.

To remain free is to remember the love, talent and dignity of the individual soul, the personal spirit that you are.

Sources and further reading:

https://domesticviolenceuk.org/effects-emotional-abuse/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_abuse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_blackmail

https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/abuse/youre-not-crazy-but-emotional-abuse-can-make-you-think-you-are/

https://au.reachout.com/urgent-help

https://domesticviolenceuk.org/find-support-near-you/

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-26165/5-lingering-effects-of-emotional-abuse-and-how-to-heal-them.html

https://www.aaojournal.org/article/S1529-1839(07)00569-6/fulltext

https://www.curejoy.com/content/effects-of-emotional-abuse/#mingled-feeling-of-confusion-and-denial

https://liveboldandbloom.com/02/relationships/signs-of-emotional-abuse