#all of those things he said under the worms' influence were how he truly felt he just couldn't say them bc he didn't know how | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pinnithin-writes · 3 years

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more of a feeling

Mission to Zyxx fic, mild spoilers for season 5 if you're not caught up. This started as rambling about our bodies sabotaging us and turned into a conversation about our bodies taking care of us. 2117 words.

It was simple, really. It all came down to chemistry.

C-53 knew how emotions worked, of course; he’d even go so far as to call himself a veteran by now. Every frame he’d inhabited was a different experience, but the emotions he felt in those frames were a reassuring constant. He knew the programming for joy. He could trace the source code for anger. His cube felt it all the same, and no matter how many diagnostics he had to run in an unfamiliar body, his thoughts, his feelings, and his personality grounded him through the flux.

Until, that is, the failed clone of a scientist shoved him in a meat suit without his consent.

Emotions were different when he was piloting flesh. They governed his body more than he was used to. They still generated from C-53’s cube, but now that cube was hooked up to nerves and synapses, blood and organs, and those living, breathing parts responded accordingly. He was a miracle of a machine, truly – a code given life – but he couldn’t wax poetic about something like that when his pores leaked and his muscles tired and his stomach twisted in knots.

It was hard enough dealing with a body that resisted his will at every turn. It was worse still that every fleeting feeling affected him on the molecular level. He didn’t know how organics got anything done like this. Frustration made his head pound and his guts churn. Despair burned his eyes and locked his throat. Even pleasant feelings – affection, mirth – stole his breath, made his pulse race. It was distracting at best and debilitating at worst. Surely there was a way to bypass these effects.

Unable to connect his consciousness to high speed internet, he had to go about this the old fashioned way, which made it a slow process indeed. Thankfully, the USS Synergy owned a vast library, which he took advantage of to scan every file they had on hermanns, discovering himself.

He did most of his research at night. He told himself this was because he was less likely to be interrupted, but in truth he was embarrassed at his own inefficiency. Even in the old loader frame, downloading the data would have taken all of ten seconds. And though he knew his crewmates wouldn’t humiliate him, he still didn’t want to be seen like this. Having to move his eyes across a screen, absorb and process the words they scanned, and then file that information away in his slippery maze of a brain, line after line after line after line after line.

The hours of learning made him feel childish. C-53 was tired.

But he was getting somewhere. When exhaustion pulled at his eyelids and his thoughts went fuzzy in the late, still hours on Bargie, he knew it was adenosine flooding his neural pathways and inhibiting his functionality. No code existed to override adenosine. Caffeine, however, could counteract it for a short time (with the unfortunate side effect of upsetting his stomach and tasting like tar).

C-53 pored over chemistry texts and neuroscience studies, learning what made hermanns - and thus, hermanoids - do what they did. There were no comparable texts on tellurians in this galaxy, but the science, from what he could remember, was quite similar. It was all chemicals, and those chemicals told his brain to tell his body how to act.

It was exceptionally overcomplicated. There was always some other influencing factor to his body, a sensory input or a thought or even his DNA - Jeremy’s genetic memory - that scrambled a system that could theoretically be very streamlined.

An example: he could eat something that tasted good (peanut butter and chocolate), triggering a flood of dopamine that caused him to feel happy. But Jeremy was allergic to tree nuts, so his immune system attacks him for a perceived threat that doesn’t exist, so forcefully that he could die from it. It was as fascinating as it was annoying. Who knew organics could have glitches? Too bad he hadn’t figured out how to debug anaphylactic shock.

He didn’t know what he hoped to accomplish by doing all this research. In a way, studying why his body actively sabotaged him was a comfort, but the more he learned, the more faults he discovered. Evolution was a temperamental thing. He much preferred the elegance of engineering.

At present, it was a dark hour on Bargie, docked and slumbering with her crew on the Synergy. Half awake in the conversation pit, amidst a tangle of textbooks and portable screens, C-53 sat alone under the red glow of the security lights. Sprawled as he was, C-53 didn’t immediately notice Pleck wandering into the room until he said his name.

Blurry lines of text sharpened as he startled, then relaxed. “Hm? Oh, hey Pleck,” he said.

“C-53, it’s like, three in the morning,” Pleck responded. Bare footsteps signaled his approach, and then he dropped onto the couch next to C-53, a glass of water in one hand and an orange fruit in the other. He reached over and set the glass precariously on the cushion between them. “Y’know, tellurians usually sleep around this time,” he pointed out helpfully. “What are you doing out here?”

The info tablet C-53 held was inches away from his face. “I’m learning about my pineal gland,” he announced dully.

A hormone regulator located near the brain stem. Releases melatonin and influences one’s circadian rhythm. Well, it wasn’t doing a very good job right now, was it?

“Cool, is that something like - do tellurians have that too or just, y’know,” Pleck drew his feet up to sit cross-legged, “whatever you are?”

C-53 couldn’t help but smirk mirthlessly at that. “It’s found in most vertebrates, so yes, I would imagine both you and whatever I am have one.” He set the tablet aside to look at Pleck, but the screen made him night blind, and he could only see the afterimage of a splotchy red rectangle in the darkness. “Why are you awake?”

“Oh, I woke up thirsty,” Pleck explained easily. He fiddled with the peel on his fruit as he spoke. “And then I thought, well, while I’m up I might as well grab a snack, and then I saw you sitting there so,” he shrugged, “here I am.”

It was a better explanation than what C-53 had. And it was a far better explanation than Pleck would have given several months ago, when the Allwheat was still worming into his brain and keeping him up at odd hours. C-53 was thankful those days were behind them. As the afterimage of the tablet faded and Pleck became a collection of grays and blues beside him, he quietly mourned the loss of his night vision. And his regular vision.

“You ever had one of these, C-53?” Pleck asked. He finally got his fingernails under the skin and began peeling. “The Themm grow these instead of oranges. They’re kind of sour?”

“I haven’t,” C-53 answered. He hadn’t eaten an orange before, for that matter, but he wasn’t too interested in expanding his food horizons. Most things had an unpleasant texture to him.

“Do you want some?” Pleck went on, adding pieces of rind to the small pile in his lap. He slanted C-53 a glance. “Oranges are the most shareable fruit.”

“No, thank you.”

Pleck shrugged again before separating a slice of not-orange and popping it in his mouth. As he chewed in silence, C-53 picked up the glass between them and placed it safely on the coffee table. Piles of nearby notes were scrawled in his own clumsy hand, amateur diagrams and chemical formulas with lots of arrows and exclamation marks littering the margins. Writing it down helped the nonstick pan of his brain gain some traction, he found, but the coffee table was starting to look like Nermut’s conspiracy wall after so many hours of research.

His neck ached. His head pounded out a protest.

He’d been pushing his brain and body to its limits and had what to show for it? A newfound disgust with himself? A frustration he only knew more intimately? C-53 frowned and used one of his papers as a coaster.

Beside him, Pleck happily ate his fruit, unbothered. Being organic was easy for him; he was a native to his body and didn’t know anything else. C-53 pitied and envied him in equal measure.

“You’re going to bed soon, right C-53?” Pleck asked after making his way through half the orange. He reached to retrieve his glass from the table, but condensation stuck a note about the amygdala to the bottom. “Oh,” he remarked.

C-53 peeled it off for him. “I don’t like sleeping,” he explained, crumpling the note and tossing it on the table. “So I’m reading.”

Pleck took a sip of water and frowned. “You gotta sleep sometime.”

“I know,” he answered shortly. He’d read dozens of articles about the side effects of sleeplessness. Fatigue, irritability, memory issues, hallucinations if you waited long enough. He knew he’d crash eventually, he just wasn’t especially motivated to avoid it. “It feels bad,” he went on. “Waking up is disorienting.”

There was a thoughtful crease between Pleck’s brows; C-53 could barely see it under the security lights. Pleck took a moment to set his glass back down on the table before turning the remainder of the fruit over in his hands. “Is it because you don’t feel safe?” he asked without looking up.

“I’m… sorry?”

“It’s just - y’know, when I was having trouble sleeping-”

“Pleck, I’m not a lunatic,” C-53 interrupted. “I know I’m perfectly safe on Bargie. I just don’t like sleeping. I don’t need you to teach me how to be tellurian, okay?” He gestured at the pathetic mess of research before him, scrawled in an obvious lunatic’s hand. “I’m figuring it out.”

Pleck fed himself a section of orange and didn’t answer right away. On C-53’s other side, the info tablet’s screen auto timed out and went dark. They were bathed in red completely now, one of them frustrated and exhausted, the other watchful and concerned. C-53 removed his glasses and rubbed at his stinging eyes.

“Sorry,” he said after a time. “I’m just…”

“Tired?” Pleck offered.

C-53’s sigh went through his whole body. “Yes.”

A stubborn, senseless part of him didn’t want to overcome this. He didn’t want to be an example of perseverance, some epic struggle conquered by learning to live well. He wanted to kick and bite and throw a fit over this new frame. It wasn’t fair.

“C-53,” Pleck broke quietly into his thoughts. “You don’t have to, y’know, have the answer to everything all the time. Sometimes you have to just… do what your body is telling you to do, even if you don’t want to.” He offered an orange slice in C-53’s direction. “It’s trying to take care of you.”

“You say that like this flesh suit has a soul,” C-53 grumbled, but he took the fruit anyway, staring glumly as it lay in his stupid, sweaty palm.

“Well, sure it does.” Pleck smiled and prodded his shoulder with an index finger. “It’s you.”

C-53 fell silent. It was strange, learning things from Pleck. He was used to the roles being reversed, and it shifted something uncomfortably inside him every time it happened. Dutifully, he put the orange in his mouth, felt the tart flavor burst on his tongue, and chewed past the slimy sensation until he was able to swallow it. He was unable to hide a shudder.

Pleck watched him with one hopeful eye. “Not your favorite?” he guessed.

“It’s the texture,” C-53 explained, grimacing. But he held his hand out for another slice in spite of it.

Pleck grinned. “We can find something you like to eat instead of this,” he said, scooping the orange peels out of his lap and leaving them on the coffee table for later cleanup. “It doesn’t have to all be bad. Come on,” he rose from his seat and offered C-53 his hand. “Let’s check the kitchen for something better and then, y’know, maybe try and get some sleep?”

The please was unspoken, but C-53 could see it on Pleck’s freckled face. He was trying to take care of him, just like his clunky, unfamiliar body was. C-53 didn’t like his body very much, and wasn’t sure he ever would, but he liked Pleck enough to go along with him for now. He didn’t know what kind of chemical governed trust. He didn’t even let himself ask.

C-53 took Pleck’s hand, tried not to flinch from the zing it sent up his arm, and followed him out of the pit.

#mission to zyxx #mtz #pleck decksetter #c-53 #AI in a meat suit having an understandable problem with being Flesh #do you know how fuckin hard it was to walk this Jeremy line without letting it be rpf on accident #hhhhanyway #pleck/53 #(very minor)

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silence-burns · 3 years

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Please Hate Me //part 42

Fandom: Marvel

Summary: Based on: “Imagine having a love/hate relationship with Loki.” by @thefandomimagine Who would have thought that babysitting a god could be so much fun?

Genre: slow-burn, enemies to lovers, banter

"Dude, you live like this?"

Loki moved past where you stood frozen to the spot.

"Technically, not anymore.” He shrugged and walked into the sleeping chambers to the left.

The rooms Loki used to live in were bathed in the rays of the setting sun, coming through large windows and the balcony overlooking the golden city. Everything was grand and coated in riches, whether it be the plush cushions laid on the floor, or the masterfully woven rugs, so soft they felt like walking on clouds.

Stumbling further inside, you walked past a large sofa. You brushed the fabric with your hand, reveling in the silkiness. There were a few carved chairs and a small coffee table on the balcony. You wanted to sit out there and watch the view. Loki's rooms were located high up over the city, and allowed you to marvel over everything laid down below. You'd spend hours there, unable to tear your eyes away if only it was you who'd been born to all this wealth and grandeur.

Standing there, careful not to be noticed from far below, you wondered how different your life would have been then. How different would it have been to have all those rooms in a completely separate section of the palace all for yourself, and getting tired just from walking from one end to another. To have shelves so packed with books that they almost sagged, and so many places obviously created for reading them in mind. To have staff clean the impossibly high windows and the plush carpet, so delicate it felt like murder to dirty it up. Or to have a dressing room overflowing with jewels and clothing so fine it made you realise how many official meetings must've required their use.

Closing your eyes, you smelled the soft fragrance hanging in the air.

It would be a life of wearing too-stiff, formally pressed jackets and boots always shining as if new. A life in rooms too big and too empty, no matter how many things you packed them with. A life that would make you discover all the secret passages through the palace and outside of it. A life that would make you learn tricks and magic just to entertain yourself even in solitude. One that would make you enjoy visiting other worlds, and learning their history just for the fake sense of belonging somewhere.

You walked over to where Loki disappeared some time ago.

The bedroom was large and dressed in easy, pastel colors with a few darker patches of green. The enchanted bag you brought with you was laying next to the perfectly made bed. Only two familiar legs were sticking from where Loki dived underneath it.

You jumped onto the mattress and felt it bounce with wonderful softness. Rolling over the covers, you delighted in their flowery scent.

"I'm no longer mad about why no room in the Tower suited you," you said.

"I'm delighted to hear that."

Cuddling a pillow, you wormed your way to the other end of the bed, curious about Loki's whereabouts. For all the noises and curses coming from underneath the bed, it seemed as if he were struggling.

"You okay there?"

"Reaching into my spatial storage used to be easier when I was the size of an underfed pigeon. Can you get me out?"

Standing behind him, you caught Loki by the feet and dragged him out. The box he was clutching to his chest didn't look remarkable, but neither did his bottomless bag, so you refrained from judging it just yet.

You plopped onto the floor next to him, watching the magic open the locks. "It’s still there after all this time?"

"I hid it in a pocket dimension," Loki said proudly. "A similar one to what my bag uses. Now, behold…"

The box unclasped the last of the clips. There was a golden sheer to the surface of the box, shining through the curved, strange symbols along its edges.

Loki raised the lid, and took out… a stone.

"I'm not gonna lie, I expected something more dramatic," you said, weighing the stone in your hand. You could easily hide it in your palm. It had a nice texture, something between polished and rough, and was not as cold as a stone ought to be on its own.

"Not everything about me has to be dramatic."

You looked around, to the grand chandeliers hanging overhead. And to the minute details carved upon the furniture. And to the tiles laid in intricate, deliberate patterns that must've taken weeks to plan and execute.

"...yeah, right."

You gladly gave it back to him. There was something about the stone that just made you uneasy.

The box it was hidden in landed in the bag, just in case it was needed. Watching it disappear in the void gave you an idea that made a wicked smile blossom on your face.

"Hey, Loki…"

Holding his gaze, you slipped your jacket off your shoulders.

Loki froze.

"How much time do you think we have before anyone finds us here…?"

He watched your jacket drop to the floor.

"...a while, I'd wager," the words came out breathlessly.

Blood was thrumming in his veins as you crossed the short distance between you.

A shiver he couldn't quite control run down Loki's back as you leaned in.

"Make me a pocket dimension - in my pocket, actually."

Loki blinked. There were quite a lot of thoughts rushing through his head that made it difficult to focus on the jacket you held out to him with a hopeful expression.

You saw his confusion. "It honestly never occurred to me how useful it would be, but being here, in this place, seems like a perfect opportunity. You said your magic gets weird on the Edge, but here it's free of its influence."

"That's true," Loki admitted carefully, taking the piece of clothing, still warm with life. "May I inquire what you plan on keeping in here?"

"A sword."

"What."

"I want a sword. We've been sneaking around all these guards here, and they always have those really cool swords, and until today I wasn't even aware that I wanted a sword but I do. Really do. Please."

Loki chuckled. He'd agree even if you weren't making such huge, pleading eyes to him, but it was not something he'd ever admit.

"How do you feel about paying a little visit to the royal treasure of Asgard, then? I've heard a rumor about a few ancient swords laying there, gathering dust."

The sheer joy that sparkled in your eyes might've been enough to stop his heart completely, were it not for the bone-crushing hug you closed him in.

This was something he could definitely get used to, Loki thought, having his cheek kissed. Something definitely worth coming all the way back here, to this place of times long gone, despite the risk. Loki had no doubt that his life would become much more complicated were he to be discovered on palace grounds despite his exile. He could save you, probably, if he convinced everyone he had you under a spell, and had enough time to think of a good reason for that. A few guards wouldn't pose a problem, though - he only worried if they managed to set off the alarm before he knocked them out and-

A pointed cough interrupted his plans just as Loki was finishing the spell off.

Loki looked at you. You looked at him.

There was someone standing at the entrance to the room, poised in the final rays of sun breaking through the thin curtains. Someone with a love for dramatics.

"I see you brought a friend, dear."

The shiver ran down Loki's back, but for vastly different reasons this time. There were plans against the guards he could use to outsmart them. There were secret passages he might use to sneak through the palace grounds. There were excuses, lies, and half-truths that served him well enough in various instances.

But none to be used in this one.

"Hello, mother."

Loki was not entirely certain why his voice came out so quiet. He was not in a very favorable position, still kneeling on the floor with you and weaving a spell over your pocket. There was little denying to be done about the fact he was supposed to be worlds away, on the very edge of the known universe and not in his old bedroom. Even if he tried, he doubted it would work.

"It's been a while," he added firmly, with a tight-lipped smile only present for a moment.

Queen Frigga wore a smile of her own, tugged into the corners of her rose-colored lips. It spoke of things she knew and things she could see, regardless of how hidden they were meant to be. It was not malicious, though - far from it, if one knew how to interpret it.

She remained poised by the door, in a dress of soft pastel pink. There was little surprise on her face, despite how unusual it must've been to find her own exiled son back without any warning. She radiated calm, commandeered without a hint of doubt. Loki missed her warmth.

"Mother, there is someone I'd like to introduce to you," Loki helped you up. "This is my-"

"Oh, finally. If you waited any longer, I'd pay you a visit myself," Frigga cut him off lightly, embracing you gently. She smelled of roses and pine.

Loki caught your petrified gaze, but wasn't sure what to do either. Being hugged was a better alternative to having the guards called, though. You could take it.

"As delighted as I am to see you," Loki interrupted the moment carefully, "how did you know where to find us?"

"Palace has eyes everywhere," the queen shrugged, looking you up and down. "Thankfully, your father only has one."

Loki connected the dots.

"Heimdall it is then, after all. I knew that bastard would have a sudden change of heart just like that."

Frigga sighed. Her hands were gentle and soft on your face. "Welcome to the family, love."

"...um, thank you?"

Loki masked his laugh with a cough. It was truly a refreshing sight, to have you rendered speechless within moments. He'd cherish that sight for a long time.

"What about some tea?" the queen asked as if things were already settled. There was very little you would deny her, but Loki did anyway.

"Time is not on our side, mother. We were only able to sneak out for a few hours, but every moment we risk having our little trip discovered by the Edge. The tension there is… growing."

"Dear, that place was always full of trouble. Do you have a plan?"

She switched her focus in an instant, with a frown set between her brows.

"We do."

There was pride she was not afraid to show when she stroked Loki's cheek. "I can't wait to hear about your success, then."

Loki took a deep breath. "Well, there's a tiny problem we have to solve before we go back there. There's something we need from the royal treasure…"

Your eyes lit up.

Frigga smirked knowingly.

"I suppose with your current status, it might be difficult to get you anywhere close to it," she admitted, already thinking about a way in.

You nudged Loki in the ribs. "What about your bag?"

"What?"

"Get in the bag, and I'll get you through," you explained, sweating profusely under the queen's keen eyes. "No one knows me here."

"That's a stupid idea."

"I love it, though," Frigga clasped her hands. "Get in."

"But we don't even know if-"

"Loki."

"...yes, mother."

As much as you were proud of your idea, there was one thing that didn't occur to you. Once Loki was gone, the rooms became much more quiet.

Holding the queen's stare didn't seem like a good idea. Avoiding it didn't either, though.

The tension made your skin itch, prodding you to move, to do anything, and most likely something stupid. Thankfully, the woman was first to break it.

"Shall we go?" she asked, stepping towards the door with a gentle smile.

You didn't want to. You had no idea you'd feel this awkward, even when she was giving you no reason to. Taking the bag, you followed her near-silent steps.

"I'm afraid we'll have to put you in some less flashy clothes," Frigga mentioned off-hand, walking through a luminous hallway. "Your face might not be recognized, but you might still stand out like this."

Watching her flowing gown, you were inclined to agree. The palace was no place for jeans.

Your body was no place for the strange fashion of Asgard either, or at least according to your body itself. Walking in clothes cut to a different fashion was only saved by how soft their fabric felt against your skin. Still, you followed the queen to the treasury, faithfully staying a step behind as any proper servant would, or so she claimed.

There was no hesitation in her steps as she led you through hallways with high ceilings supported by thin, ornate columns. The stained glass of the widows refracted the sun into an artfully intricate mess of colors. The guards and members of palace staff passed you on your way, but they only bowed deeply to the queen, sharing very little of their attention with you.

"How do you like it?" Frigga asked casually when you were out of anyone's earshot.

"I mean, this whole place is… wow. Amazing. I wish I had more time to check everything out," you answered honestly, unsure of what the right thing was to say.

"Would you like to stay?"

It was an innocent question, or at least it would be under different circumstances. Here, in the middle of a palace, stranded on your own without Loki by your side, it was a question asked precisely because of those circumstances.

"I'm afraid my schedule is quite busy right now. I've got a war to stop and a murderer to find - you know, just a casual Tuesday evening."

"And what happens afterwards?"

She didn't seem angry, and yet there must've been a reason for her curiosity. You looked down to the bag you were still holding. "That doesn't depend solely on me."

Frigga didn't smile, but you couldn't feel any hostility from her. If anything, she seemed quite at peace.

The double set of high, elaborately carved doors at the end of the corridor were undoubtedly a work of art and also heavy pieces of metal, magic and gold. It took the guards a few moments of strained breathing and groans to open them for you, but any thoughts about their job vanished as you followed the queen inside.

Rows upon rows of shining crystals of all shapes and colors crowded one of the walls. Opposite it stood the mannequins in proud poses and heavy sets of armor. High as you could see, weapons of all sorts hanged from the hooks, capable of supporting a small army. Daggers and curved swords you could recognize, as well as the lances and halberds that made you wonder what kind of monsters had they been used against in the past.

The huge battle axes caught your eye, but there was no way for you to even lift the ones almost your own height. Beyond them, on the long tables, laid gauntlets and helmets both winged and horned or with steel fangs like a beast's, and further in - even capes made of what looked like scales or monster hide. This was a place of legends you'd never heard.

"See anything you like?"

Lost in your thoughts, the queen's pleasant voice startled you and brought you back to reality.

"Everything and I'm not even exaggerating. I could live in here."

Frigga walked by the neat rows of weaponry. "It's mostly family heirlooms and loot from all the great and shameful wars of the past. There are countless stories behind every one of them, but I don't think we came here for stories. What are you looking for?"

"A sword. Loki said we could get one from here."

"What kind of sword?"

"...a sharp one?"

"I take it you don't have much experience with them, then?" she chuckled.

"My world favors guns."

Frigga passed the first row and walked further into the treasury. The grandeur of large pieces changed into the showcase of precision and stealth as you looked at the countless thin blades, hooks and things you couldn't really name, let alone use. You considered letting Loki out of the bag, both to have him steer his mother back to the weapons you recognized, and to check on him. Making a spatial storage was a tricky thing, he had claimed after wondering if the air would still work normally inside of it.

Before you got the chance to do that, the queen stopped in front of a plain gray case and opened it.

"It's a shame so many of those have to spend centuries out of use," she blew the dust off a middle length sword with a slightly curved edge. "I hope this one will serve you well."

The blade was tinted with gray, as if melted with ash. It didn't shine, which could come in handy during sneaking around. The handle laid in your hand as if it was always meant for you.

"Once upon a time, it was called Windcleaver," Frigga looked at you with melancholy. "It'll never dull and never break."

"Thank you," you breathed out. Tearing your eyes off the blade felt impossible. "It's marvelous. I only hope I won't cut my fingers off before I learn how to properly use it. Are you sure I can take it?"

"What use does it have here?" the queen shrugged, gesturing to the immeasurable numbers in the treasury. "Besides, I've heard my son promised you one."

You carefully put the sword into your magically imbued pocket.

"Thank you, seriously," you said again. "For everything. We knew about the risk of coming here, so… thank you for not ratting us out? And, you know, giving me this cool sword. You're awesome. I'd vote for you."

Although voting for anyone was not a practice often used on Asgard, queen Frigga appreciated the implied meaning anyway.

"That's lovely to hear," she said as you left the treasury and headed wherever she wanted you to go. "Especially since, as far as I could see, you plan on staying with my son, correct?"

"I mean, I literally crossed the universe with him, twice, so I guess I do? Look, sorry if I'm not precisely who you'd prefer for your son, but I like him, and I'm not going to pretend I don't."

You left the palace grounds through what looked like one of the main gates. The road was a wide path with olive trees growing by the sides. There was an embarrassing amount of relief you felt noticing the Bifrost getting closer instead of the dungeons.

"Asgard is a beautiful place in many ways," Frigga broke the silence after a while. "People are happy and live in prosperity, especially on the palace grounds. But life, even here, is far from perfect. Things happen, and we can do little to control the damage they wreak upon us," she looked at you. In the dimming sun and the lanterns slowly coming back to life as you followed the road, the queen looked every bit the royal she was. "I'm glad that my son won't have to go through whatever happens alone anymore."

Speechless, you followed her over the bridge and to the round observatory at its very end. Frigga approached Heimdall, speaking in hushed voices, meanwhile you watched Loki crawl out of the bag. With a groan, he slumped to the floor, mostly unharmed, if only a little yellow on the face.

You patted his cheek, waiting for a reaction. "You good? How was it?"

"...I'm never doing that again."

"What if I pay you? I've got like—" you fished in your pocket. "Three dollars, a stick of gum, and a sword."

"You got a sword?" that seemed to raise his attention as he pushed himself on the elbows.

"Your mom found me one. She's really cool."

Loki looked over to the queen conversing quietly with Heimdall. She looked the same as the day he'd been exiled. "She is."

As Heimdall moved to ready the Bifrost, Frigga approached the two of you, embracing Loki tightly. You were aware of what happened in the past in general, but seeing the consequences of it from up so close put a weight on your chest. Switching worlds for the sake of a mission was a very different thing from being completely banned from your own home planet and leaving it for the final time knowing that you won't be able to see your family of any of your friends and places you grew up in ever again, and even you were slowly growing homesick already. Watching Loki say his final goodbye reminded you of how strong that feeling must be in him.

"Thank you for helping us." He stepped away. "We were lucky to be found by you."

"Actually…," you hated to step in the moment, "we kind of need to push on that luck a bit more. I really don't want to come off as ungrateful, but we really need a tiny, little visit to Earth too."

"Just for a minute. Maybe two," Loki solemnly swore, remembering your completely-not-sketchy plan.

"We just need to grab some-… thing," you added to the rising suspicion of Heimdall. "Stopping a war is not an easy thing, you know."

With a heavy sigh of the queen, a nauseating trip across the universe and back, a tiny case of abduction, Loki and you finally found yourselves back in the familiar mud of the Edge, its stars shining just as bright as when you left it. So much has happened since you were last in the obscure forest of gnarled trees, that it felt like weeks instead of hours. You could say that thankfully, nothing seemed to have changed during your absence, but that would be a lie.

The two of you stared at the Rift. It was still a seething wound in the fabric of the universe, and just as awfully wrong as you remembered, but also - significantly smaller.

"Do you think it's because of the Bifrost?" you voiced Loki's thoughts.

"The amount of energy released by the bridge shouldn't be enough to make such a change, but… I can't see how it can be anything else?"

"So we just ignore it and pretend we haven't been even close to it?"

"Yup."

"I like that plan."

"How about we walk a little away from this floating rip of void while we're at it? I think it would be the wisest if the boy didn't see it just yet. We don't have the time to explain everything to him," Loki gestured to the bag.

You followed him deeper into the woods, grateful to finally reach the part where life was growing back. It was a relief to leave the muddy, dusty circle of death and despair the Rift created around itself as it sucked all the energy from whatever dared to live nearby. Further away, the Edge showed off its true colors, with wild flowers blooming in tangled masses hanging overhead from the winding branches of trees that had no names. Butterflies with three sets of feathery wings crossed your path in a shimmering cloud.

"This should be far enough," Loki judged, finally putting the bag on the moss. "I still can't believe that Heimdall agreed to this."

"I can't believe your mother agreed to this."

"If you lived in the palace, you'd know first-hand what ideas she's capable of on her own…"

Loki knelt next to the bag and reached down into its depths to bring out a boy.

The boy was no ordinary thing, both by his clothing and his abilities you were greatly interested in. The bright blue-and-red costume hid very little of how deeply in shock he was over his sudden change of settings, world, and, apparently, plans for the evening.

He rubbed the yellow and green moss and stared at the feathery butterflies circling overhead.

"Have I- Have I just been abducted?" Peter voiced his confusion in a dangerously high voice.

"I'd say so, and since he's technically an alien," you pointed at Loki, "you've got the full pack."

"This is awesome!"

Peter springed to his feet and proceeded to jump around and touch every single thing around him, startling even more butterflies into hurried flight.

"I told you he'd love it here."

"I never doubted it. My only concern remains over his discretion, though," Loki smiled gently, looking at the boy freaking out over the flowers, moss, ground, trees and everything alive and currently running away from him.

"He'll do well. Hey, Peter," you said louder, "we kinda need your assistance."

He was at your side in a flash, with hands shaking and eyes wild. "Of course! I knew you'd come back for me, guys, thank you so much, I'll do whatever I have to!"

Explaining your half-made plan to the boy constantly jumping between hugging both of you and getting distracted by literally everything around him took you a moment. You only hoped he'd remember your words.

In the end, Loki took the runestone out of his pocket and handed it to Peter.

"Ten minutes ago I was eating a kebab on a rooftop and now I'm doing magic," the boy cheered. "This is great."

"Now, focus," Loki snapped his fingers, grabbing a churned, black stone he found in the corpse of the monstrous spider that attacked you.

Loki gently pressed the stones together and watched them start to glow.

"You'll have to follow the light and not be noticed," he said, pocketing the spider's remains again. "It should take you straight to the person who wanted us dead enough to cast the curse. Once you find them, you get back straight to us, do you understand? There's a castle behind you and our rooms are right there, over those roses blooming-"

"There's even a castle? I'm not leaving this place," Peter jumped on a nearby tree to see the palace better.

Loki sighed, appreciating the hand you rubbed his arm with.

"I'm having second thoughts if this actually is a good plan," he admitted, too quietly for the boy to hear.

"We don't really have a choice. You said it yourself, that we'll be closely guarded. After that fight yesterday, they won't let us just roam the palace freely. And we need to know who's working against us."

Loki nodded, painfully aware of all that. Still, it didn't sit well with him to have the boy involved in such danger. The Edge had always been a violent place, and with the recent events, that tendency only deepened.

"Be careful, boy," he said, once Peter was calm enough to listen. "I know we haven't explained this plan with you, but… We really need you."

Anyone who didn’t know Peter well would think that there were tears of joy running down his face as he put on his mask and disappeared among the trees heading to the palace. Anyone who knew him well would know it was true.

"Stop worrying," you nudged Loki. "Even if someone catches him, they won't hurt him. Besides, look at him go. He's got it. This is the perfect ground for someone with his abilities."

"I'm not worried," Loki scoffed and crossed his arms in a very unconvincing gesture. "I just can't wait to find out who's our enemy. And if the court will side with us."

"Heimdall would see it, right? He'd help us if things go very south very fast?"

"I'd like to think so, but the only thing he can do is to inform the guards and leave the decision to my fa-... the king. I'm not sure what he'll do. This whole mission was supposed to let Asgard avoid getting any further involvement with the Edge."

So encouraging.

"I see. So how about we sneak back into our rooms before Faroq and his guards notice we're gone? Or even better - find Peter in our place, already having found that nasty spellcaster."

Loki let his imagination run wild. "...let us go indeed."

It was a good not-exactly-a-plan. Sure, it was a hasty job, written almost entirely on the go and with little thought of alternatives, had the things not worked out. But since it had taken you both to the ends of the universe and back (even with a quick stop midway for a tiny little child abduction), you wouldn't be so ungrateful as to say your not-a-plan sucked.

A few minutes later, you were sadly forced to change your mind, as you were met with drawn out swords and even sharper stares aimed at you. The guards were posted right on the edge of the forest, where it turned into a little more tamed part of the gardens, and shedding any cover it might've granted you.

A woman in a blood red uniform stepped towards you with a scowl. "You're both under arrest. Do not move."

"That sounds a little harsh for breaking a house arrest," Loki calmly observed, moving to stand slightly between you and her.

Your hand slipped towards your pocket and a certain gift it held.

The guard spit on the ground. "Not enough for the murderers, though."

Loki and you froze. That was new.

"Could we get some more details about what that guy just said or...?"

The woman looked at you suspiciously. She did not lower her sword, nor did she order the other guards to stand down.

"Don't act like you haven't murdered them," she only barked out.

"As much as you don't believe us, we have no idea what you-"

"Bodies have been found a few hours ago," she cut Loki off. "A few families, living on the other side of the river. Their lives have already fed the nearby Rifts. Are you happy now?"

Far from it, you wanted to tell her and all the guards nervously waiting for the orders. If need be, they'd cut you down without a hint of regret - you could see it on their faces, in the stern looks and tense shoulders. It wasn't a question of what was the truth behind the murders. The only thing that mattered now was how well you had just been framed.

#please hate me #loki x reader #loki x you #loki laufeyson x reader #loki laufeyson x you #loki #loki imagine #loki laufeyson #loki laufeyson imagine #loki marvel #loki mcu #loki series #loki fanfiction #i love loki

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cross-d-a · 3 years

Text

fic tag game

aaahhh @vishcount thank you for tagging me!!! These are so fun and I adored reading about your fic journey~! ೖ(⑅σ̑ᴗσ̑)ೖ ❤

OH as a note!! For the ppl I tag at the end I don’t expect you to read all of this bc it’s A Lot!!! but I figured you might want to do this game yourself? haha :)

Name: cross-d-a shortened version of my first ever username. unfortunately stuck with it now haha but i’m fond of it :p wish it was cuter tho!!

Posting the rest of this under the cut so it doesn’t eat up people’s dashes!!

(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Fandoms:

oKAY YIKES there are....honestly too many too name. I’ve got a short and obsessive attention span so it’s either all or nothing with me usually. When I can stay in a fandom for a long period of time it’s a miracle. I’ll name the bigger ones that I’ve all written fic for! Even if I’ve never posted them haha

Right now I’m very firmly into Daomu Biji (dmbj). It feels like it’s both got a crap ton of content and yet barely anything at all haha. Maybe because the English fandom is so small. But at least there are a bunch of dramas and books!!! I really, really, really adore dmbj so much!! And a large part of that is the fandom!!! It's been a really cool and unique experience! Everyone in it is truly so kind and wonderful, and I’ve made some really incredible friends because of it (looking at you vish!! ❤). I’ve got a bunch of wips, but I’ve only posted two fics for dmbj!

Before this I was very into Guardian and mdzs. MDZS was my first foray into cdramas and Guardian’s Zhu Yilong really suckered me into watching more haha I also have fics for both these fandoms!

My very first fandoms were Fullmetal Alchemist, D. Gray-Man and Naruto. My very old ffnet account has fics for these and I’ve got a bunch of newer wips on my tablet. Then Star Trek, Twilight, BBC Merlin, Sherlock, Death Note, Harry Potter, How to Train Your Dragon, Battlestar Galactica, Avatar the Last Airbender and Marvel were a few of my main ones in high school. Plus a bunch of anime (like Fruits Basket! and Kuroshitsuji and Natsume Yuujinchou).

Then college hit and I renewed my childhood love of Tolkien (mainly lotr and the Hobbit), and Star Wars. I also found Teen Wolf! Then after college it was Stranger Things.

I find myself in a cycle of mild fondness and complete obsession with these fandoms haha I go back to Star Wars at least once a year!! Then I’m in the gffa hole for a few months. Marvel also reoccurs, depending on how interested I am in new content! Star Trek I always always always go back to. TOS is my comfort show and it will never fade from my heart ❤

But for now I’m stuck in cdrama hell and I love it

Tropes:

Time travel, found family, whump+hurt/comfort, fairytale-like elements, resurrective immortality (thanks to a “Nine Lives” Hobbit fic), CROSSOVERS

I’m a slut for all these things so they often worm their way into my plots haha

I also just- love weird premises. I think that’s the anime influencing me haha

Fic I spent most time on:

My series he leaves sand and stardust in my wake (main fic is hurricane on the edge of oblivion), I have...spent five years on now. I have done so much research for this fic it’s insane.

The premise is force ghost!Obi-Wan getting shunted back into his tiny 10 year old self. I incorporate a shit ton of legends and I try to stay as canon as possible. I basically want this au to feel like it’s 1000% plausible while still getting all my gay shit. It’s chock full of whump, redemption, found family, minor characters turning into major characters, and I’ve got slavery uprising on the mind, too. It’s just- everything I could ever want to explore in the Star Wars universe basically.

It’s my first big project. I started doodling and scribbling ideas in the margins of my notebook in my Scottish History class. I adore it so so so much. But, because of my hyperfixation and fleeting intense obsession with things it makes it- really difficult to consistently update. I leave it for months at a time and I am constantly guilt-ridden about it. Because it’s my baby and I have a lot of wonderful readers. I fear I’ll never be able to finish it. Especially since I’ve written so much and I’m still only in the beginning of it. ( ; A ; )

Also, I’ve spent so much time with Xanatos, Feemor and Bruck that they just feel like mine now. I can’t read any fics that involve them, it’s too strange. Which is a damn shame because I love them so much haha OH ALSO!! I think it’s the first really big fic to include those three?? So I’m very proud about that haha (I’ve had so many ppl comment about how they actually Give A Shit about these three and are Invested bc of me haha)

Favorite fic(s) you’ve written:

hurricane on the edge of oblivion (with nowhere to go) (Star Wars)

My long-term passion project. My love-letter to Star Wars, I suppose. Reading it now I feel like a lot of it is clunky or long-winded, but I think it really shows the foundation of my writing today :) Main characters are Obi-Wan, Xanatos Du Crion, Qui-Gon Jinn, Bruck Chun and Feemor. Eventually we’ll get to Maul, Savage, Feral, Shmi Skywalker, (more!) Ahsoka, Anakin and a shit ton of clones ❤

things we hunger for (Guardian)

My Ye Zun self-indulgent fic. It’s a time travel amnesia Weilanzun! Honestly has some of my fav writing I’ve ever done. It’s so soft and really indulges in the hurt/comfort. It gives Ye Zun the friends and family I think he deserves. Also, he gets to grow into a (mostly!) functional person and I adore him.

the beast that slumbers within your soul (mdzs)

Jiang Cheng centric fic!! I feel like all my favourite fics I’ve written are love letters haha. This is one def my love letter to Jiang Cheng. This fic possessed me for two whole days. I wrote 16k in almost one sitting. I went to sleep at 6 in the morning bc I couldn’t stop writing. And when I drifted off I kept thinking of new ideas so I’d whip out my phone and write down lines and notes. I- have never ever ever felt that way about anything. It was- insane. It felt insane. It was so amazing. I’m still riding the memory of that high.

Basically Jiang Cheng actually finds Baoshan Sanren and it turns out she’s a fox demon and Jiang Cheng is descended from wolves. It’s- okay I said the fic above this had my favourite writing?? That was a lie. This has my favourite writing I’ve ever done. It’s unfinished bc I am in dmbj hell but I am still excited about the next chapter which features Wei Wuxian’s pov!!

the whispers of spirits (dmbj)

My current passion project. In a way it kinda feels similar to hurricane? Bc multiple povs, incorporating different aspects of canon (we’ll get there!! I promise!), shit ton of research, etc. etc. I really really really love it for so many reasons. I’m basically taking all the things I was unsatisfied with in Reboot and Sha Hai and running with it. Found family and whump galore! It’s also a love letter to the women of dmbj who really deserve so so so much better.

Honourable mention to:

One Day (you’ll have given more of yourself than is meant to be taken) (Marvel)

This fic also kinda possessed me. I just- couldn’t get rid of the idea of a trans!Thor. And I mean a mtf Thor! It’s just? So many people look at Thor and go “that’s a Real Man.” Full stop. They never think there could be anything more, and it really really really bothered me. So I wrote out my feelings. I’m not trans. I don’t have that experience at all. I’ve had issues and confusion about my gender but nothing like this. I just wanted to do justice to this idea of Thor in my head. And I still feel a bit nervous having posted it. But I've gotten so many comments from people who really connected with what I’ve written? So I’m very very thankful I wrote it and it has a very special place in my heart. It’s a very cathartic fic.

Fic I spent least time on:

Probably we rise (Star Wars) and I think it shows haha. I wrote it in response to Dave Filoni posting a drawing of Ahsoka and Gandalf telling her “People thought I was dead, too, and look how that turned out...” So I incorporated Ahsoka (and Din and Grogu and Ezra!!!) into the ending of Rise of Skywalker, kinda explaining how I think they could all still be alive. :)

Longest fic:

hurricane is my longest fic (159k) but I’m kinda worried whispers will eclipse that.....

Shortest fic:

Of my posted ones it’s The Five Moments it Took Tony and Scott to Admit They Were Best Friends (and the first time they ever did), currently clocks at 1.6k. It’s unfinished tho so maybe that doesn’t count.... otherwise it’s we rise which is completed and 2k.

Most hits/kudos/comments/bookmarks:

hurricane overall has the most of all these. Though I don’t think hits counts as much bc it’s multi-chapter. If you discount multi-chapter stuff, most hits goes to my obikin smutfic Homecoming, bc people are horny af haha

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on:

If I had energy I’d like to rewrite the beginning of hurricane bc it feels so so wordy. I’d want to expand on One Day bc I really would like to write a whole series with trans!Thor. And like- I’d really like the focus to finish any of my WIPs.

Share a bit of a WIP: I really wanna share my Guardian/dmbj crossover that I started back in August. Bc I adore the idea of wu xie&shen wei&ye zun triplets! Plus time travel!!! I dunno if I’ll ever finish it tho ( ; A ; ) It just feels like a lot to deal with right now.

This scene takes place during the Mountain Awl arc. Guardian crew and desperado fam run across each other at the village! Wu Xie has recently found out that he’s adopted and he’s searching for answers in the area Sanshu originally found amnesiac!toddler!Wu Xie in :) Gonna pull two snippets bc I’m v excited and this might be the only time anyone else sees this fic haha:

“Oh?” Pangzi focuses on Yunlan now, lips twisting. “You think I’ve ‘got the wrong guy,’ huh?” He laughs, but it’s not a nice sound. “That’s rich! Are you that cocky or are you just stupid?”

Bristling, Yunlan drops his hands and scowls. “Excuse me?”

“Sir,” Shen Wei tries. “I think—”

Pangzi’s eyes snap back to Shen Wei, sharp and blazing. “How dare you fucking steal his face!”

What?

Automatically, Zhao Yunlan turns to Shen Wei, but the professor looks just as shell-shocked as Zhao Yunlan feels which- is seriously something. Since everything about Shen Wei is so carefully controlled, kept to the minimum. Except for those delightful little smiles that bloom across his lovely face, or the startled little bursts of laughter that fall from his lips. Or even when anger and frustration spark across his features, cracking his calm veneer open enough that he can see a glimmer of what lies beneath, the fire in those eyes. Zhao Yunlan delights in those moments, makes a game of making Shen Wei’s control slip.

He tells himself it’s nothing more than a game. Nothing more than trying to find out what makes Shen Wei tick.

Zhao Yunlan’s always been very bad at lying to himself. Or very good. Depending on who you’re asking.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yunlan splutters.

But before anyone can say anything else, a very familiar voice calls:

“Pangzi? What’s wrong?”

Yunlan can feel Shen Wei stiffen, and Yunlan himself is pulled to that voice like a planet in orbit, like the inevitable plummet to the ground.

Another shadow wavers in the doorway before it steps out onto the dirt. Light illuminates shaggy hair, limning it gold, sharply casting everything else in shadow. But as the figure nears, the contrast softens until Yunlan can see the newcomer’s face properly and- and—

“Wu Xie!” Pangzi growls. “We’ve got ourselves an impostor!”

The man wearing Shen Wei’s face steps up to them, brows furrowed and mouth pulled down into a sharp frown. He glances between them, eyes landing on Shen Wei. His scowl deepens. He opens his mouth, but then—

“Wu Xie?” Shen Wei breathes, all trembly and lost and hopeless.

Heart in his throat, Yunlan turns to Shen Wei again. Turns and flinches at that stricken look upon Shen Wei’s pale pinched face.

“A-Xie?” Shen Wei chokes. “Didi?”

and

Pangzi snorts. “Professor?”

“I-it’s true!”

Startled Yunlan swings his attention over to Jiajia who clenches her backpack to her chest, face screwed up in admirable determination. “P-professor Shen took me and Xiao Quan on a field trip to investigate an archeological site around here!”

“Oh?” Wu Xie drawls all slow and amused. “Well, what a coincidence. We’re archeologists, too.”

“With guns?” Yunlan bites out.

Wu Xie raises a brow, grin full of teeth. “Well, you can never be too prepared.”

“Right,” Yunlan drawls right back. “Are you a professor, too, then? You come here with your students?”

Wu Xie outright grins. “You could say that, I suppose.”

Out of the corner of his eye, one of the men rolls his eyes. He’s the one with sharp features, glasses and looped earbuds. Does he think it’s appropriate to listen to music at a time like this? Yunlan admires the man’s gall.

aahhhh vish thanks so much again for tagging me!! This was so fun to relive my fic memories!! I’m gonna tag @alwaysaslutforshakespeare @jockvillagersonly @tehfanglyfish @lichelleme @undyingsunshine @humanlighthouse @thewindsofsong I’m curious about your guys’ writing and fandom journey!! As always, no pressure to actually complete this!! I just thought it was fun ❤

Wow if you read all of this I am very humbled and impressed, thank you!!

╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

#cross talks #my fic #fanfiction #uhhh what else do i tag this as i dunno #about me #cross posts #wip fic

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takadasaiko · 4 years

Text

In Defense of Howard Stark

The Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn’t have a shortage of layered, fascinating characters. It’s always easy to hyper focused on the ones we love most, and that’s the excuse I roll with for why it’s taken me so long to find my fascination with Howard Stark. Up until the last few months I looked at him through the lense of who he was to other characters. He was Tony’s father, Steve’s friend, and co-founder of SHIELD with Peggy Carter. He filled roles, but I didn’t look closer for a long time. I didn’t have any reason to.

Then came the Great MCU Rewatch that happened post-Endgame. It wasn’t until I had Dominic Cooper’s Howard stacked back-to-back with John Slattery’s Howard that I started to dig into him. We meet a young man in Captain America: The First Avenger, the Peggy Carter short, and two seasons of the Agent Carter series on ABC. He’s brilliant and goofy, rarely serious unless he’s discussing his work. It’s a stark contrast with the older Howard we meet through John Slattery’s version. Either there was a catastrophic miscommunication between the writers, the directors, and the actors on who Howard Stark was supposed to be, or something caused that shift. The moment I settled on the latter, Howard went from a supporting character whose only use was to help round out others around him to a truly interesting, layered and even broken man. I became fascinated with piecing together that journey. I needed to know what took this man

to a man that his own son described as cold and distant.

I had been using Howard to help deepen my understanding of others, and in the same way, taking a look at those that he keeps close to him and how he treats them helps to shed light on who he is.

Who Howard Surrounds Himself With

Howard wasn’t raised with the same economic and social privilege that he was able to provide to his son in later years. In S1 of Agent Carter he tells Peggy that he was raised on the Lower East Side to a father that sold fruit and a mother that was a seamstress in a factory, going on to tell her how he’d learned to lie to break through the ceiling society had placed for someone like him.

Yet as of S2 of Agent Carter Howard was in high demand at a club that wouldn’t have let him within a hundred feet of if he hadn’t made the fortune that he did with Stark Industries. With that background matched with the contacts he would have made after Stark Industries took off, I think it’s safe to say that Howard knew people from every walk of life.

There were the less savory types:

Joe Manfredi and Howard grew up together and the mobster had no trouble reaching out to Howard years later for help when his kinda crazy girlfriend Whitney Frost went over the edge and into territory even he was uncomfortable with.

And while we may not know how he met Obadiah Stane, the other man wormed his way so deeply into Howard’s life and career that he was poised to manipulate his son after his death.

We don’t know a lot about those other than the fact that Howard wasn’t opposed to shady characters.

There’s something interesting in the more positive friendships that he keeps though.

Edwin Jarvis is a fascinating character. Howard’s butler is that and more. We see him stick with Howard through thick and thin. Through countless girlfriends that he was the bearer of bad news to

through disagreements, and he was with the Stark family long enough that Tony was influenced by him enough that he based his AI system off of him. Jarvis himself tells Peggy the story of how he met and came to work for Howard Stark in S1 of Agent Carter, shedding light on yet another layer of the complicated man:

Jarvis met his wife Ana during the war. She was Hungarian. Moreover, she was Hungarian-Jew in the middle of Europe overrun by nazis. Jarvis fell hard, but the general that he worked for wouldn’t help, even though he could have done so easily. So Jarvis forged his signature. He was found out and would have been tried for treason, but Howard - who had had business dealings with the general - stepped in and used his influence to save not only Edwin, but Ana as well.

There was no indication that Howard expected anything in return, but Jarvis remained loyal and steady.

And then there’s Peggy.

I could go on for days about Howard and Peggy’s friendship. I love it dearly, and feel that we need more friendships like it on television.

He flirts with her, he teases her, but in the end he respects no one quite like he does Margaret Carter.

Howard is a self-admitted liar. He felt that he had to become one in order to break free from the ceiling that society put over him in his youth. He doesn’t trust easily and, even when he does, he still hides behind a quirky, playboy mask meant to obscure anything of any real depth under frivolous layers. To get to the level of success he found himself in at such a young age he had to build up an imperviousness to others’ opinions of him. He flaunts in most cases, but, for better or worse, he does care about how Peggy views him.

She’s the one he turns to to clear his name at the beginning of the first season of Agent Carter and the only one that can talk him out of the mire of his own deepest regrets at the end of the same season.

The funny thing is that, for all his determination that he doesn’t really care how people see him, Howard seems to keep people closest to him that will keep him in check. Jarvis and Peggy, especially. They don’t pull punches and they call him on his shit.

If it’s a conscious choice or even a subconscious one, Howard surrounds himself with people that will hold him accountable. I’d put good money on the fact that Maria did too.

The Way He Treats Others

One of our earlier introductions to Howard is in Iron Man 2 where Tony tells Fury that his father had been cold and distant. He never told Tony that he liked him, much less that he loved him.

Fury indicated that he knew a very different man, and through Dominic’s Howard we (the audience) meet a very different man as well, which leads me to think that Howard struggles with expressing real, honest feelings rather than actually having them. It makes sense, given his explanation at two different points in the first season of Agent Carter that, to break through the barriers society had tried to force on him, he’d learned to hide behind lies and an indifference to what others thought about him. We see that that often leads him to come across as shallow and arrogant. He doesn’t, and seems not to even know how to express those truer feelings except in very rare circumstances, but we see glimpses in the way he treats people.

Edwin and Ana Jarvis are a fantastic example, as mentioned earlier. Here were people that he didn’t really know, people that he owed nothing to, yet he went out of his way to protect them. He used a favour that he could have hoarded away for more selfish purposes and gave it to them to save their lives. In return he was given loyalty, but there was no expectation on that.

Howard holds true to his playboy persona as well as, if not perhaps better than his son would in later years, but despite the flirtation (which he always manages to work into their conversations), Howard shows time and again the respect that he holds for Peggy Carter. While she’s fighting for her colleagues’ respect in the post-war SSR, she’s the one Howard reaches out to to clear his name. She’s the one that he trusts to protect him when his life is on the line. And when she needs help, it’s hers for the taking. A flight that the Army won’t take because it’s too dangerous? All Peggy had to do was ask. Twice when she needed a place to stay, he offered his own home(s) to her, and in S2 he dove straight in to help her on her case without any hesitation.

In S2 of the Agent Carter series we meet Jason Wilkes, a brilliant scientist who works for a company that becomes the center of the season’s investigation. The rarity of being a black man in his position is used against him when his company sets him up as a scapegoat. Not only is Howard eager to help him, work with him to clear his name, and reinstate his corporeal form (long story, but if you haven’t seen the Agent Carter series I highly recommend it!), but he sets him up in Stark Industries after all is said and done to help him run the Malibu labs on a new pet project.

For all of his faults and complications, Howard has a trend of helping to support and even protect those that the society of his time is set against. A Jewish woman and her fiancé facing the nazis, a brilliant female agent fighting enemies as well as men around her that have faith in her failure, and a talented black scientist whose company has used and thrown away when convenient. We see the kindness in his actions, in the respect that he gives others that society would prefer not to be bothered with.

So how did he miss the mark so badly with his own son? He gave him things, opened doors for Tony that he’d had to force open himself, but (at least according to Tony) he missed expressing any sort of affection for him. Personally, in light of the other relationships that we actually get to see as they’re taking place, I’m inclined to think that he didn’t know how to express his love in a way that an already struggling child could understand. He tinkered on cars with him and he built an organization that would keep the world (and his family) safe. Perhaps to Howard, more importantly, he kept his distance, thus allowing his son the chance to grow into his own man. Someone not quite like him.

The thing is, even if it went against everything he wanted, there was no getting around that. Just as I imagine that Howard inherited a few more traits from his own father than he would have ever admitted to, Tony inherited some from him. Both the good and the bad.

Howard’s Personality Traits

Marvel is a parallel haven. In many ways the universe that they’ve created feels like one long, fantastical TV show with 3+ hour episodes. One of the perks of that is the multiple nods they’ve made and parallels they’ve drawn. It’s through those parallels that I found between Howard and Tony that sunk me deeper and deeper into exploring Howard’s personality. Robert said it best:

(gif made by and borrowed from @erikisright)

Much in the same way that we meet Tony in Iron Man 1, the Howard of Captain America: The First Avenger and the Agent Carter short and series secures himself behind a mask of indifference to public opinion. He has a good time and doesn’t give a damn who knows it. When focused on work, he’s focused

but as soon as the war’s over he’s living the life of the playboy millionaire. He spends his time gallivanting around as much as inventing. He flaunts it. His money, his success. It’s the mask he hides behind to protect himself from the world, and the one that he feels like he has to hide behind. Afterall…

There’s no question that Howard has his fair share of less-than-desirable traits, but as we’ve discussed, he has some good ones as well. One that I found surprising, personally, is that he takes responsibility. Maybe not in his personal life (sorry, Jarvis, but it’s on you to handle Howard’s breakups apparently), but in his work. If he feels that he’s fallen short, he owns it, repeatedly to the point of putting his own life in danger.

In the first season finale for Agent Carter, after spending eight episodes on the run to clear his name, he waltzes himself into the SSR to give the full story and offer himself up as bait. It’s his fault, he tells them, despite not designing the invention stolen to cause harm, it’s still his, and he’ll own up to his responsibility there, both at the time and the damage it had caused during the war. In S2, after an invention fails, he offers himself up to go in and switch it on manually (putting himself at exceptional risk) because he ‘designed it poorly’. He doesn’t get the chance to do it, but he’s ready and willing to.

On the flip side (and also a trait that took me by surprise) he gives credit where it’s due.

Despite having to lie and possibly claw his way to the top, he’s consistently willing to both offer a hand to those that he can as well as make sure that he’s acknowledging their contribution, despite the fact that he believes that many successful scientists steal other people’s work for themselves.

Tony must have come by his tendencies to fixate by way of his father. Much like his son, Howard shows time and time again that he leans into his obsessive personality. It ranges from a hyper-focus on work to coffee to a good time by any means he can find it, and even to the guilt that we see him holding onto in those few private, honest moments we catch a glimpse of.

We see it in the way that he held onto the guilt over what happened to the Russian soldiers at Finow when his Midnight Oil was misused and ended up killing hundreds of Allied soldiers. He did everything he could to set the situation as right as it could be set - he faced down the general that had stolen the oil only to get his ass handed to him, forced the general to step down, ended a seven-figure contract with the Army, and created a vault to better protect designs and inventions that could hurt innocent people - yet we see how it still weighs on him years later.

I think it’s the guilt at never being able to find Steve that eventually shifts him from Dominic’s Howard to John’s. That lively, goofy man is broken year after year by the failure of not being able to find or save a man that he holds up on a pedestal. He fixates on it to the point that his own son feels that he cared more about Captain America than him. Really, there’s so much in this theory that I’ve had battering around my head for the last couple of months or so that it deserves its own post. I’ll put it on the writing docket.

All in all, Howard Stark is an easy character to overlook or to flatten out with partial information. The Agent Carter series does wonders to add depth to him by giving us time to get to know him. Time that we don’t get through newsreels and the off story that Tony tells.

Part of an interesting character is their layers, both the good and the bad. Much like Tony, I feel that the more I learn about Howard Stark, the more I come to realize that he was a man trying his best. Sure, maybe his best didn’t match up in a lot of ways, but I think there’s something to be said for each generation of Starks doing just a little bit better than the one that came before them in whatever way that they can.

#Howard Stark #MCU characters #character analysis #character breakdown #Tony Stark #Peggy Carter #Edwin Jarvis #Ana Jarvis #marvel's agent carter #captain America: the first avenger

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

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Dust, Volume 6, Number 11

HAAi

As it was with September, so it is with October. After what felt like the dam breaking on all those albums optimistically held back by the pandemic, October continued to rain down releases and there was no shortage of them to cover. As ever, if diversity’s your thing, we have it: From pimp-rap to free jazz, death-metal to AM gold, jungle to Azerbaijani guitar jams, we got it all for you to peruse. Contributions this go ‘round come care of Ray Garraty, Ian Mathers, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Justin Cober-Lake, Patrick Masterson and MIchael Rosenstein.

AllBlack — No Shame 3 (Play Runners Association/Empire)

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Just when we thought that pimp-rap was going out of business, AllBlack blessed us with No Shame 3. It is a lot of what it claims: playfulness with no shame, ignorant beefs, endless balling during California nights and showing off in earnest. AllBlack alludes to the fact that even though he’s getting that rap check, he’s far from quitting the pimp game: “Made 40K in eight days, that was just off pimpin'.” But behind this happy façade is something darker that’s looming on: “As I got older, I ain't scared, I guess I'm cool with death / You speak the truth and they gon' knock you down like Malcolm X.” While admitting that rap is a cutthroat game, AllBlack is only one of the few artists of a younger generation who is ready to pay respects in his songs to the OGs — the godfathers of pimp-rap, to Willie D, Dru Down and Too $hort. The standout track here is “Pizza Rolls,” where DaBoii and Cash Kidd drop in to deliver the funniest lines.

Ray Garraty

Bardo Pond — Adrop/Circuit VIII (Three Lobed Recordings)

Adrop / Circuit VIII by Bardo Pond

There are plenty of reasons to do small, limited runs of certain releases, in music as in other artistic fields, ranging from the brutally practical/logistical to the aesthetic, but when the material released in that fashion is good enough, it can be a relief to see it given further life (and not just digitally). This year saw the mighty Three Lobed Recordings (who we featured in an anniversary Listed here) has seen fit to reissue on vinyl two Bardo Pond LP-length pieces that were originally issued in limited run series back in 2006 and 2008. They were in good (and varied) company then, but resonate together in a pretty special way, whether it’s the tripartite Adrop wandering from gnarled, crepuscular grind to violin-powered epiphany or back down to delicate nocturnal acoustics. The longer Circuit VIII doesn’t have as distinct phases but still builds to an all-time Bardo Pond-style crescendo, featuring Isabel Sollenberger’s only vocals of the duo. Even with a band and label this consistently on point, these particular recordings are worth the wider dissemination, whether considered as archival releases or just a hell of a double album.

Ian Mathers

John Butcher & Rhodri Davies — Japanese Duets (Weight of Wax)

Japanese Duets by John Butcher & Rhodri Davies

There’s a bittersweetness about Japanese Duets that’s as pungent as the puckered, perfectly placed reports that English saxophonist John Butcher sometimes punches out of his horns. This is the third in an ongoing series of download-only releases that Butcher, idled by COVID-19, has culled from his archive, The Memory of Live Music, and the unbearable lightness of its format, only accentuates the sense of lost opportunities and experiences. One of the things that a touring musician gains in exchange for their embrace of uncertainty is the chance to go to some unlikely place and undergo something extraordinary. The four-page PDF that comes with this download reproduces photos from Butcher and Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies’ 2004 tour of Japan, which took in swanky museums and shoebox-sized jazz cafes; each image looks like a moment worth living. But if all you can do is hear the evidence, that’s not exactly settling. This improvising duo was audibly on a roll, pushing reeds and strings to sound quite unlike their usual selves, and challenging each other to move beyond logic to the rightness of jointly made and imagined moments. Thanks, guys, for sharing the memories.

Bill Meyer

Ceremonial Bloodbath — The Tides of Blood (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

The Tides of Blood by Ceremonial Bloodbath

Yikes — talk about truth in advertising. Canadian death-metal band Ceremonial Bloodbath delivers the goods promised by their moniker and this new LP’s title. It’s a repellent record created by dudes that play in a bunch of other death-metal bands based in British Columbia: Grave Infestation, Encoffinate (not Encoffination), Nightfucker and numerous others that tunnel even further under the broader public’s attention. Give these guys credit for their single-mindedness: None of those bands is likely to make you feel any happier about the human condition. Neither will listening to The Tides of Blood, but it’s a better record than any that those other acts have released. The songs are low-tech, dissonant and about as subtle as a bulldozer’s blade knocking through your front door. In other words, the record is largely in line with what we’ve come to expect from the death-metal recently dug up by Sentient Ruin Laboratories, and for a certain kind of listener, that’s a good thing. Check out “The Throat of Belial,” which comes on hard and fast, then downshifts into second gear and unleashes a tangled, coruscating sort-of-guitar-solo. The mechanical chug reasserts itself, then speeds up again, unleashing steam and the smell of something… organic. The song has a ruthless momentum, as does the rest of the record. Pretty good Halloween music if you want to scare all the trick-or-treaters off your lawn.

Jonathan Shaw

Cut Worms – Nobody Lives Here Anymore (Jagjaguwar)

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Max Clarke evokes a wistful nostalgia for an America that existed perhaps only in the mind, the warm campfire glow of an era personified by The Everly Brothers’ harmonies, the twanging guitars of country rock and 1970s singer songwriters. On his new album as Cut Worms, Clarke literally doubles down on his musical project. Nobody Lives Here Anymore comes in at 17 songs that, while individually fine enough, meld into one another and gradually fade from the memory as the album unwinds. Clarke never quite transcends his influences and is not a strong enough lyricist to engage at this length. The effect is similar to that of The Traveling Wilburys where the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts. That said, Clarke is engaging company with a voice that splits the difference between the aforementioned siblings, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. He has an ear for a melody and skillfully recreates an AM radio sound that trips the memory for anyone who grew up with this music either as inescapable background of their lives or soundtrack for their teen dreams and heartaches.

Andrew Forell

Dead End America — Crush the Machine (Southern Lord)

Crush the Machine by Dead End America

This new EP by Dead End America (DEA — see what they did there?) comprises four short, piledriving hardcore songs, all directly addressed to the current occupant of the Oval Office. “Bullet for 45 (Straight From a .45)” neatly captures the EP’s essential sentiments, and also suggests the general level of restraint exercised by the whole enterprise. Hint: Restraint and nuance are not Dead End America’s strong suits. That’s not surprising, given the folks involved. The band and record were conceived by Steve “Thee Hippy Slayer” Hanford, late of Poison Idea, and of this world. It’s pretty wonderful that this is some of the last music Hanford produced — pissed off and irreverent to the very end. Additional contributors include Nick “Rex Everything” Oliveri (the Dwarves), Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod), Blaine Cook (the Fartz) and Tony Avila (World of Lies). Sort of remarkable that a record including players from all those legendarily vile, venomous bands doesn’t just spontaneously self-combust; maybe it helps that they focus their collective rage on such a deserving target. RIP Steve Hanford. The wrong people are dying.

Jonathan Shaw

Chloe Alison Escott — Stars Under Contract (Chapter Music)

Stars Under Contract by Chloe Alison Escott

Chloe Alison Escott is the frontwoman of Tasmanian post-punk duo The Native Cats, and her pre-transition solo album, The Long O, released on Bedroom Suck back in 2014, received justified plaudits upon its release. (It remains a low-key favorite of mine.) New solo piano-and-vocals album Stars Under Contract was all recorded in one day by Evelyn Ida Morris (Pikelet), which lends these performances an on-the-fly liveliness. For the most part, it’s rollicking fun, with some wryly funny lyrics that betray Escott’s sideline in standup comedy. This performative confidence comes through in early highlight “There’s Money in the Basement,” which has the jaunty barroom bounce of “Benny and the Jets.” Later, Escott reaches for the heavens on single “Back Behind the Eyes Again,” with a truly heartbreaking piano progression. Though the 16 tracks are wisely interspersed with short instrumentals such as “What Are You Reaching For,” “Evening, Sunshine” and “Playfair,” 43 minutes is a lot of piano-and-vocals songs to get through in a single sitting. On closing track “Permanent Thief,” there’s a tantalizing flash of drum machine and bass, which could be a nod there’s another Native Cats album on the way soon.

Tim Clarke

Eiko Ishibashi — Mugen no Juunin - Immortal - Original Soundtrack (King)

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If you sit up nights fretting about how Eiko Ishibashi and her partner, Jim O’Rourke, pay the bills, this music may be your melatonin for your worried mind. Immortal is the soundtrack for Blade of the Immortal, an anime adaption of a popular manga that’s been picked up by Amazon Prime. Ishibashi composed and played the music with contributions from Tetuzi Akiyama, joe Talia, Atsuko Hatano, and O’Rourke, who also mixed the music. Ishibashi’s music echoes the affect-stirring melodies of her song-oriented material and the careful sound placement of her recent electro-acoustic work for Black Truffle; when the swirl of keyboard tones looms over her piano on “Animal,” there’s no mistaking it for anyone else’s work. But this is still made for a mass market, with unabashed classical music lifts and big, booming electronic percussion that would make a multiplex’s walls throb if you gave it a chance. There’s no physical release or Bandcamp option, so if you want to check this out, Apple Music and iTunes are your options.

Bill Meyer

Ela Minus — Acts of Rebellion (Domino)

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Colombian musician Gabriela Jimeno’s debut album as Ela Minus is a collection of original tracks that merge songcraft and club sounds into an assured mix of electronica on which she plays all the instruments and sings in both Spanish and English. After spending her teenage years drumming for hardcore band Ratón Pérez, Jimeno studied jazz drums as well as the design and construction of synthesizers, and she eschews the use of computers to create her music. She brings a DIY spirit to her work combined with meticulous production style that gives acts of rebellion the experimental edge of early 1980s independent synthpop. The highlight "Megapunk” is musically close in spirit to Cabaret Voltaire, its defiant lyrics — “There’s No Way Out But to Fight” — tying freedom of expression to wider human progress. A textured and nuanced album, Ela Minus joins an ever-growing group of South American producers to tune into.

Andrew Forell

Erik Friedlander — Sentinel (Skipstone)

Sentinel by Erik Friedlander

Cellist Erik Friedlander seems to pop up in the oddest places, playing now with the Mountain Goats, then with Dave Douglas, and finding a little time for film scoring on the side. It's reasonable that for new album Sentinel, he'd connect with a couple of other artists — guitarist Ava Mendoza and percussionist Diego Espinosa — equally comfortable with finding unexpected sounds in a variety of styles. The group, given their background, sounds their best when they're blending genres. “Flash” starts off as new jazz, turns into rock for a moment, then some strange cello lead pushes it into alien territory. At the edges of the trio's work, heavy rock often feels about to break out, but the group refrains from ever indulging that impulse. “Feeling You” even provides some light, pretty pop, allowing the band to show its full breadth.

Friedlander's compositions provide the basis for the album, but Sentinel never feels like just his album. The band, assembled for what sounds like a hurried set of takes, found their partnership quickly, turning the pieces into fluid performances. “Bristle Cone” lets all three members shine and functions like a microcosm of the disc as a whole: As soon as you think it's a guitar album, you start paying attention to the percussive elements; as soon as you remember it's experimental cello work, you're back to guitar rock. The trio's engagement with the music and with each other comes through, the playful innovation guiding each piece into a multifaceted whole.

Justin Cober-Lake

HAAi — Put Your Head Above the Parakeets EP (Mute)

Put Your Head Above The Parakeets by HAAi

Though it was Teneil Throssell’s mixes that initially made her name as HAAi (and remain strong even amid the pandemic, her latest for XLR8R another beauty), her own productions are a wonder unto themselves that demand repeat listens even as they come a trickling single or carefully cultivated EP at a time. The Karratha, Australia native, Coconut Beats hostess and Rinse and Worldwide FM veteran’s latest is the delightfully titled Keep Your Head Above the Parakeets EP, pure headphones music meant for sunrises, sunsets, walks in deep snow, rain-swept moors, you name it. Her talent is in balancing airy synth melodies with ever-shifting percussion influenced primarily by jungle, breaks and (ultimately) house; when people talk about psychedelic dance music, this is something like what I always hope to hear. Another unmissable missive.

Patrick Masterson

Hübsch, Martel, Zoubek — Ize (Insub)

Ize by HÜBSCH, MARTEL, ZOUBEK

Decades have passed since Derek Bailey wrote his book, Improvisation. At that time, it was already clear that the intentionally non-idiomatic music he pioneered and practiced was a subset of the more universal matter of improvising as a necessary aspect of playing music. It was also becoming clear that non-idiomatic improvisation’s aspirations and proscriptions amounted to a new but quite identifiable idiom, and this Swiss trio is okay with that. If you told Carl Ludwig Hübsch (tuba, objects),Pierre-Yves Martel (viola da gamba harmonica, pitch pipes) and Philip Zoubek (piano, synthesizer) that the music on Ize sounds a bit like the British ensemble AMM’s, they’d likely nod and thank you for noticing. They’re not trying to make a new kind of music, they’re trying to be good at a kind of music that they love, and on those terms, they succeed. Aside from the occasional Feldman-esque piano phrase, they mostly trade in layers of tone and texture, operating in complementary parallel to one another, taking the listener through states of meditative stillness and slow-motion vertigo.

Bill Meyer

J Majik — Your Sound - Photek & Digital V.I.P 12” (Infrared)

J Majik - Your Sound - Photek & Digital V.I.P by J Majik / Photek / Digital

Released on the same day as the “This Sound” single that allegedly was refashioned from “unfinished jungle project from the vaults,” “Your Sound” was further proof that UK drum n’ bass vet Jamie Spratling bka J Majik still has plenty of material from the golden era to get out into the world. The original is a certified mid-’90s Metalheadz classic, but Photek and Digital’s reworking on the a-side “originally only destined for the dubplate boxes of the ultra-elite” has been floating in the ether for years as an alternative; its light Amen sequences and booming bass will have you yearning for every closed club you can’t attend. J Majik’s remix of his own tune on the flip was originally the b-side to a 1997 Goldie VIP edit, so having a more readily available remaster here does it a world of good. One for the headz, obviously.

Patrick Masterson

KTL — VII (Editions Mego)

VII by KTL

Most of KTL’s recordings have been seeded by theater and film soundtrack commissions. But when Stephen O’Malley (Sunn 0))), Khanate) and Peter Rehberg (Pita, Fenn O’Berg) found themselves in Berlin this past March with more time on their hands than they expected, they booked themselves into Mouse On Mars’ MOM Paraverse Studio sans portfolio and set to work. The first track, “The Director,” seems to acknowledge the situation by introducing the Shephard-Risset glissando, a repeated scale that sounds like it is endlessly ascending or descending. The titular figure never arrives, but while you’re waiting, fat looped electronics impart the experience of going somewhere while leaving you exactly where you’re at. The director isn’t the only value missing from this equation; O’Malley’s default sonic signature, a massive metallic wall of sound, has been softened to a close-shaving buzz that rattles and circles around within Rehberg’s synthetic/sonic biodome. That’s right, while you’ve been baking bread and putting on that COVID-15, KTL has actually lost weight!

Bill Meyer

Lisa Cay Miller/Vicky Mettler/Raphaël Foisy-Couture — Grind Halts (Notice Recordings)

Grind Halts by Lisa Cay Miller/Vicky Mettler/Raphaël Foisy-Couture

Montreal-based guitarist Vicky Mettler, bassist Raphaël Foisy-Couture and Vancouver-based pianist Lisa Cay Miller are all new names to me. For their trio collaboration on Notice Recordings, the three work their way through a set of eight free improvisations that range from one and a half minutes to eight minutes long. The combination of piano, guitar and upright bass is striking from the start: Miller slips seamlessly between the keyboard and inside-string preparations, mostly eschewing readily identifiable sonorities of her instrument. Mettler’s resonant, brittle electric guitar is the perfect foil to Miller’s piano and one often has a hard time teasing apart where inside piano strings end and guitar strings begin. Add to that Foisy-Couture’s dark low-end bass, which he attacks with groaning scrapes, shuddering arco and assorted string treatments. The three engage in active improvisations, plying their respective instruments into a collective whole while steering clear of garrulous interaction. The fourth piece, “Lower” is as close to trio exchanges as things get, opening up the ensemble sound to allow shredded guitar textures, resounding piano chords and scabrous bass abrasions to accrue into pulsating timbral layers. A piece like “As It Spins” is more about process, adding in the rumble and clatter of assorted percussive detritus, used on their own and to activate the strings of the instruments, which jangle with resultant shimmering overtones. The pieces often segue one into the other, creating an enveloping sound-space throughout. Based on this one, I look forward to hearing more from each of the participants.

Michael Rosenstein

Mint Field — Sentimiento Mundial (Felte)

Sentimiento Mundial by Mint Field

Mexico City-based duo Estrella del Sol Sánchez (voice, guitar) and Sebastian Neyra (bass) enlist drummer Callum Brown to expand the range of their dreamily psychedelic shoegaze on Mint Field’s second album Sentimiento Mundial. Sánchez has the breathy cadence of Rachel Goswell and moves easily between an almost folky introspection in her guitar playing to squalling walls of sound underpinned by Brown’s often motorik drums on tracks like “Contingenicia” and “No te caigas.” The bulk of the album is more reflective, Sánchez’ Spanish vocals close to your ear as she concentrates on atmosphere and dynamics. The result is a dreamscape that lulls, then hits with febrile bursts of restless dread, an impressive collection that fans of 4AD in particular should recognize and embrace.

Andrew Forell

Takuji Naka/Tim Olive — Minouragatake (Notice Recordings)

Minouragatake by Takuji Naka/Tim Olive

Minouragatake (a mountain outside of Kyoto, Japan) is the fourth recording by Takuji Naka and Tim Olive, a duo that has played together for close to a decade now, melding together music of slowly evolving rich timbral abstraction. Each are consummate collaborators and for this session, they make their way across the seven untitled tracks with steadfast focus to the nuanced details of their respective sound sources. Naka utilizes “long loops of sagging/distressed cassette tape winding into and out of similarly distressed portable tape players, with real-time analog processing.” Olive uses his regular array of magnetic pickups and low-tech analog electronics, drawing out volatile hums and changeable striations that coalesce with his partner’s slowly devolving layers of sound. These pieces are imbued with unflappable deliberation, each sound integrated into the cohesive, gradually unfolding improvisations. Each of the pieces sound as if one is tuning in mid-stream and end with a sense that they could continue on indefinitely. Rather than adhering to any formal developmental arcs, the two patiently sit within unfurling sonic worlds as layers ebb and flow. Naka’s degraded tapes lend an aura of catching wafts from some distant celestial emission which Olive subtly shades and colors with hisses, whispered mutable fuzzed gradations and aural grit. Snatches of scumbled lyricism morph into static-laden swirls; washes of flaked and tattered textures disperse into shuddering thrums. Naka doesn’t record much so it’s good to hear another project from him. Olive has been on a particular roll as of late and this one is a laudable addition to his discography.

Michael Rosenstein

Okuden Quartet — Every Dog Has Its Day But It Doesn’t Matter Because Fat Cat Is Getting Fatter (ESP-Disk)

Every Dog Has Its Day But It Doesn't Matter Because Fat Cat Is Getting Fatter by Okuden Quartet: Mat Walerian/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/ Hamid Drake

Put aside the bleakness of this double album’s title because this music embodies the idea that things can get better. Not that there was anything wrong with Polish woodwinds player Mat Walerian’s previous recordings, which have all involved some combination of the musicians on this one. But Walerian has never sounded so strong on his various instruments (alto saxophone, bass and soprano clarinets, flute); so clear on how to get the most out of Matthew Shipp, William Parker and Hamid Drake; or so engaged with jazz, and not just the free jazz that he’s made with these gentlemen to date. By turns subdued, impassioned and bathed in all the shades of the blues, Walerian no longer sounds like a guy who has great taste in sidemen who happen to have played with some of the greats of our time, but a guy who sounds like he belongs in their company. Each lengthy track (they range from 11 to 18 minutes long) imparts a narrative feel without dispelling the mystery that makes you want to hear them again. Here’s hoping that when things start moving again, this band finds a way to move around the world and move us in person.

Bill Meyer

Om — It’s About Time (Intakt)

It’s About Time by OM - Urs Leimgruber, Christy Doran, Bobby Burri, Fredy Studer

To a fan, It’s About Time might sum up the feeling upon learning that the Swiss quartet Om finally recorded a new studio album 40 years after its predecessor, Cerberus (ECM). It also captures the existential question facing a quartet of improvisers, some of whose paths have often crossed during that time, but some of whom have taken very different roads. On the one hand, drummer Fredy Studer and guitarist Christy Doran play in a Jim Hendrix cover band with Jamaladeen Tacuma; on the other, soprano saxophonist Urs Leimgruber works mainly in freely improvised settings with the likes of Alvin Curran and Joelle Leandre these days. Burri seems to be the guy who has maintained connections with everybody. How to make sense of such a history without denying anyone’s musical identity? During their first go-around, between 1972 and 1982, Om was played polyrhythmic electric jazz. During the mostly low-profile gigs they’ve played since reconvening in 2008, they’ve had time to forge an updated vocabulary that is less groove-oriented but takes full advantage of the timbral resources on hand. While it’s evident that time has passed, it’s by no means a waste of time.

Bill Meyer

Rüstəm Quliyev — Azerbaijani Gitara (Bongo Joe)

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Azerbaijani music, by and large, hasn't broken through to the American mainstream. That might not change, but the new anthology release of Rüstəm Quliyev's work, titled Azerbaijani Gitara, at least makes a case against our insularity. Quliyev's work, even for an insider, would be hard to pin down given that the overriding goal seems to be the synthesis of as many styles of music as possible. Western ears will be most comfortable with the psych-rock influences here. Quliyev also reworks Bollywood, folk, Middle Eastern dance and more on his electric guitar. Taken from recordings from 1999-2004, this nine-song collection sounds more coherent than that idea might suggest, but no less frantic. Quliyev plays with a persistent energy, his kinetic approach matched my his chops, often with a tone reminiscent of Carlos Santana (if we reach a little). On songs like “İran Təranələri,” he allows the piece to develop patiently, but these cuts rely on movement and virtuosity. Quliyev had a challenging life cut short by lung cancer, but his music finds itself unleashed through apparent joy.

Justin Cober-Lake

ShooterGang Kony — Still Kony 2 (Empire)

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A fortnight shy of his 22nd birthday (this coming Wednesday, mark your calendars and send best wishes), Sacramento rapper ShooterGang Kony has dropped his second full-length project of the year in Still Kony 2, a skit-free set of songs with a Biggie homage as the cover that explores further his emotional depths while still retaining the bouncy Bay Area nature of his livelier side. There’s stuff like “Red Ice” and “Fasholy Good,” of course, but there’s also the stretch of sobering songs later in the tracklist, including “Overdose,” “Flaggin” and the particularly affecting “Do or Die.” No matter the type of beat, though, Kony feels completely at ease with his cadence and wholly in control of his verses despite occasionally verging on a Detroit-like dismissal of the beat. Even if you can’t see the geekin’, you can certainly feel it.

Patrick Masterson

Suuns — Fiction EP (Joyful Noise)

FICTION EP by SUUNS

For better or worse, Suuns’ new Fiction EP is pretty much the sound of 2020 encapsulated, not in the sense of distilling current musical trends, but rather in succinctly conveying the disorientating feeling of living through a year that has been such a traumatic mess. Across these six tracks, the Montreal-based band creates a fuzzy, feedback-streaked, claustrophobic racket that just about coalesces into song forms around breakneck rhythm tracks. “Fiction” and “Pray” will meet the expectations of anyone expecting Suuns to continue sounding like fellow noise-rockers Clinic, but elsewhere there’s surprising variation to the band’s sound palette. Opener “Look” emerges out of the darkness like a warped apparition, concluding with a chant of what sounds like “Sheep, sheep, sheep.” They enlist the help of Jerusalem In My Heart for droning instrumental “Breathe,” and Amber Webber lends ghostly vocals to “Death.” At the EP’s end, the Mothers of Invention’s wailing blues-rock classic “Trouble Every Day” is barely recognizable, foregrounding Zappa’s lyrics and chewing them up into a garbled rush of splenetic invective. Though short, there’s something satisfyingly ghastly and cathartic about this EP that really cuts through.

Tim Clarke

Women — Rarities 2007-2010 (Flemish Eye/Jagjaguwar)

Rarities 2007 - 2010 by Women

Some outlets rode much harder for Women than others when the band was still a dysfunctioning unit (RIP Cokemachineglow, namely), but there’s little doubt left a decade on that what the Calgary quartet had going was a volatile yet beautiful indie-rock ideal that hasn’t been duplicated in Viet Cong/Preoccupations or Cindy Lee since. These rarities, affixed to a deluxe decennial reissue of Public Strain due out in November, could all have made the final tracklistings of either of their full-lengths. The music veers between sunny ‘60s singalongs and dark guitar dissonance; I find myself thinking of The Walkmen’s first LP on “Bullfight” (a free release from 2011 in the aftermath of the band’s collapse the year before) and of The Chameleons on “Group Transport,” which is considerably more Janus-faced with its juxtaposed harmonies, for example. It took me much longer than it should have to come around on Women, but in case you’re still on the fence or also just never got around to them in the first place, perhaps this small coda will sway you in their favor once and for all.

Patrick Masterson

Yo La Tengo — Sleepless Night EP (Matador)

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In July, Yo La Tengo released the abstract, droning instrumental EP We Have Amnesia Sometimes, harking back to the sound of their excellent soundtrack album The Sounds of the Sounds of Science (2002). This new Sleepless Night EP brings together five covers and one original, first released in conjunction with an L.A. exhibition by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara, who helped the band pick the songs. Sleepless Night opens with “Blues Stay Away” by The Delmore Brothers and “Wasn’t Born to Follow” by The Byrds, both fairly straight renditions of the blues and country-rock originals. The real keeper in this collection comes next in the form of Ronnie Lane’s “Roll On Babe,” beautifully sung by Georgia, which hypnotizes with its languid sway. Their cover of Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” also has Georgia take the lead over beatless organ, bass and guitar. “Bleeding” is the sole original, a shimmering atmospheric piece with ghostly vocals from Ira, which dissolves in a pool of pitchshifted reverb. Finally, “Smile a Little Smile for Me” strips out the rhythm section from the Flying Machine original and slows the tempo, Ira’s measured vocal performance lending the song an affectingly forlorn slant. Though the material here offers few surprises, it’s a reassuring release from a justifiably loved band at a time when we could all use a little more reassurance.

Tim Clarke

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eat0crow · 5 years

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Cataclysm

Miraculer left me hungry for world building so here, have at it. How I reason out cataclysm’s effects.

Side note, this has mentions of torture. nothing is explicit just sorta vaguely mentioned but I’m going to warn you anyway.

____

“So,” Adrien says, flopping onto his bed and burying his face into the pillows. “That’s what a cataclysm feels like.”

It’s been a few hours since they had defeated the Akuma. Since Ladybug had cast her magical cure and reversed all the damage. He’s been healed for a while now and can say with confidence that the mark no longer hurts. No, he doesn’t hurt anymore. He aches.

An ache like nothing he’s ever felt in his life, different from fatigue or strain. It cuts down to his very soul. An ache he feels so deeply he isn’t sure just where it starts and where it ends.

“Yeah no. Not so much,” Plagg says, he’s followed Adrien’s example and thrown himself down onto a pillow. Close but far enough not to touch.

“What.” Adrien’s voice comes out muffled.

“I wouldn’t really know, Tikki would,” Plagg sighs, he never likes to have this talk with his kittens. “But kid, Cataclysm has the power to destroy a miraculous. When used on a person, seriously used on a person, not just the watered-down version that Hawkmoth’s Akumas can produce things go much much differently.”

“You mean it’s worse.” Adrien can’t really understand how it could be. Even with the power of Ladybug’s miraculous cure he still feels the phantom sensations of the magic snaking its way through his body. He still has the black tendrils localized at the point of contact and branching out, reaching and reaching toward his heart.

“Despite how it may seem the butterfly does have limits.” And God, if Plagg isn’t thankful for that. “One of those limits just so happens to be the fact that it can’t truly duplicate the power of another miraculous. The magic just isn’t there.”

Adrien lifts his head and looks up, meeting Plagg’s eye. “What would happen than if I used cataclysm on a person.”

“It depends kid.” It did Plagg’s seen it used so many different ways on the body. Every time he thinks he’s found the limit, every time he thinks that this has to be it, he’ll get a kitten that surprises him.

It’s never a nice surprise.

“On what?”

“A lot. On intent. On target. On focus. There’s any number of things that affect how cataclysm reacts to a human body. The corruption, that’s not it. Trust me.”

Adrien drags himself up into a sitting position. This is serious, the sort of conversation that requires every ounce of your attention. “So you have to really mean it then, for Cataclysm to kill someone. You have to really want that person dead.”

“You have to mean it. I just have to be careless. The dinosaurs really were an accident, you know.” That’s the greatest difference between the two of them. Chat Noir is destruction concentrated and focused on a single thing. Plagg, he’s destruction in its purest form given shape.

“Why would Ladybug’s kwami know what your power feels like?” Adrien asks.

“Look, kid,” Plagg sighs, trying to think of how to phrase this delicately. He’s not a teacher or at least not a good one. Tikki has firmly held that role for all the millennia he’s known her.

“Plagg why would Tikki know what it feels like for her holder to be cataclysmed if it hasn’t happened before.” It’s the logical conclusion to come to, the only one that makes sense.

That doesn’t mean Plagg is particularly thrilled to explore it.

He will. Because he opened this can of worms. He just won’t be happy about it.

“Do you remember what I told you when you first opened the box.” Plagg has been giving the same speech for the last four centuries. Particularly once he realized just how clueless those who opened his box were.

Would it be too much to ask the guardians to…I don’t know attach a note.

The answer was apparently yes. It was too much to expect them to inform the chosen exactly what they were chosen for.

“You said that my job was to protect the Ladybug,” Adrien says, that’s the thing Plagg has always stressed. No matter how lax the kwami behaves he has always stressed that Chat Noir’s job above all else was to protect the Ladybug.

“Yes well, not all my kittens have taken that to heart.”

Plagg thinks he’s gotten better over the centuries at pushing this. The look of genuine confusion that crosses Adrien’s face makes him wonder if he’s gotten a bit too good at it.

It’s certainly bred some less than ideal habits into his kitten.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that my cats have killed just as many Ladybugs as they’ve protected.”

“The Ladybug and Black Cat are two halves of a whole, they can’t be awakened without each other.” Plagg shakes his head and takes a deep breath, “Out of all of us, my miraculous has been misused the most and because of that Ladybugs have found themselves facing Black Cats across the battlefield more times than I would like.”

The color drains from Adrien’s face, he feels sick. “You mean cataclysm has killed a Ladybug before.”

“Cataclysm has been used to do much more than to just kill a Ladybug.” Plagg crosses his fingers and hopes that this won’t upset his kitten too much.

There is a long bloody history between miraculous.

The Ladybug and Black Cats especially.

“Does ladybug know about this? Is this why she’s so against revealing ourselves, she’s scared of me,” Adrien says, he hopes not.

He’s not entirely sure how he can bring himself to face her come the next battle.

“You have to understand kid…what some of my past holders have done…I’m destruction in its purest form and destruction is a temptation that’s hard to ignore.” Plagg wishes he could lie.

He can’t though, not about this.

“So she is then, she’s scared of me.” It would make sense. It would explain so much about the distance she keeps between them.

Understanding does little to ease the knots that form in Adrien’s stomach.

“No no, she’s not.” Plagg’s out of his depth. He’s not a comforting presence, he knows. But his kitten looks so crushed…he can try. “She trusts you with her life, anyone with eyes can see that.”

“Then why is she so against knowing who I am?” Adrien’s voice has gotten thicker. He doesn’t want to cry over this. He doesn’t…it just hurts.

It hurts to think that after everything they’ve been through she would fear him. That’s the absolute last thing he would ever want from her.

“That’s Tikki’s influence. She’s lost so many bugs in some of the most gruesome ways imaginable.” Plagg shakes his head the memories of all the Ladybugs he’s helped to kill are always just there, under the surface but there.

“I would never.” Adrien’s voice is quiet barely above a whisper.

“I know you wouldn’t. Ladybug knows you wouldn’t. And I’m sure even Tikki knows. But we’ve been around humanity for a long time and old habits die hard.”

“Have things, have things really gotten that bad.”

“You know cataclysm relies on intent right. Well, not all my cats have wanted to kill with it. Some..some just wanted to use it to hurt.” Some of his holders had made death seem like a kindness.

“So cataclysm can be used…,” Adrien gulps and trails off reluctant to say the word.

“To torture yes. It can and has been used for torture more than once.”

“Oh God.” Adrien hunches forward and buries his face into his knees. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to want to hurt someone that badly. To hate someone so strong that death would be a mercy.

He can’t even muster those feelings against Hawkmoth.

“Kid! Kid listen to me,” Plagg says, coming to rest on top of Adrien’s knees. “It hasn’t just been used against Ladybugs, it’s been used against some of the worst people to ever come into existence.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” Adrien chokes out.

“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t but kid times have changed a lot over the last couple of centuries. Death on the battlefield, it wasn’t nearly as big of an issue as it is now.”

“But still how could…how could any black cat want to hurt their ladybug.” There’s just the smallest bit of wonder in Adrien’s voice. He can’t help it. He just can’t imagine ever turning against his partner.

“To be fair, while it hasn’t happened nearly as often it’s still happened. Not all Ladybugs have been saints. Tikki has been misused as well, arguably with even larger consequences than when I have been,” Plagg says.

“What’s it do. When it’s used on someone?”

Plagg doesn’t want to tell Adrien, really he doesn’t, but he’s started this conversation and he has to see it through. “Like I said it depends. The more malice the stronger the cataclysm…it depends on what you want. Do you want to kill them? Do you want to make them suffer? Where do you want to effect? All that changes things.”

“What does it do Plagg.” Adrien’s voice is sharp.

“It turns them to dust. Eats away at them till there’s nothing left. Like I said it varies. When used to torture I’ve seen it rot down to the bone. I’ve seen it sever limbs and peel away skin. Once…once I even saw it erase someone out of existence.” That had been a particularly memorable use.

A cataclysm so strong that it was as if they had never existed, the very memory destroyed alongside the body.

“I don’t-I would never,” Adrien says, even though deep down, he terrified that he could.

“No, you wouldn’t. Kitten, I know you wouldn’t. You’re a good Black cat. One of the best.” Plagg comes to hover up to Adrien’s face. “You have to really mean it to use cataclysm like this. It’s not something you can do by accident, you have to want to hurt someone, want to make someone suffer down to the very core of your soul. That’s actually one reason the guardians started choosing children younger and younger to wield the miraculous. Kids just don’t have the malice that adults grow into. You don’t have that in you.”

“You’re sure?” Adrien wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt.

“Positive.” and really Plagg is.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculers #miraculer #plagg #chat noir #world building #adrien agreste #crow writes

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tormundjonthings · 5 years

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GOT Politics Thoughts! (I know, I’m not original)

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the last couple seasons again after reading the finale script last week, specifically about how Game of Thrones handled politics in it’s last few seasons. A lot has been written about how the characters or relationships or fantasy elements were bungled, but I’m interested in how they muddled the political end too. And not just the in universe politics, like conflicts between houses or the challenges of moving/feeding armies. Although...that also pretty much vanishes, outside of that stray line of Sansa’s from s8 about feeding Dany’s armies (which is mainly there so Dany can get in a sick line about how cool dragons are.)

No, I’m more interested in how the larger political questions / parallels to politics in the real world vanish or become so confused that any message is lost entirely.

Lets venture back a few seasons, say to like season 5, and look at some of the big political topics being addressed. (This got SUPER long, so more under the cut)

Political Question One: What are borders?

The storyline at the Wall was always one of the most interesting parts of the show to me, mostly because of the nature of the conflict between the Nights Watch and the Free Folk. The the Wall was always a foil to the pettier political games happening elsewhere in the series. That whole Mormont quote “when the dead rise, do you think it matters who sits on the Iron Throne?” Like they’ve got a big, giant existential disaster to deal with, makes all the squabbling between houses look pretty damn silly!

Yet they also participate in some of this political squabbling, which is very interesting to me! They spend several SEVERAL seasons dealing primarily not with the existential threat at hand, but trying to fight off people who largely just want to escape to safety.

The reason Jon Snow is one of my favorite characters in the series is that he’s one of the very few people who looks at an underlying bit of “common political wisdom” in Westeros, something that’s been unchanged for thousands of years regardless of who sits on the Iron Throne, and says, “Hey, this is both very wrong and very dumb.”

He meets the Wildlings, notes that they follow the same religion as the North, speak the same language, have a lot of the same customs, and most importantly notes that they’re just people trying to live their lives in safety.

Some of them raid and kill, yes. But lets be honest...plenty plenty plenty of people born and bred in the Seven Kingdoms do that too.

The division between people of the Seven Kingdoms is entirely arbitrary. Other people in the series have noted this (Benjen, Tyrion) but Jon actually tries to do something about it. He says they’re all the same, that the Free Folk are part of the realms of men, and manages to get many of them south of the Wall.

This is incredibly controversial; he’s broken a huge political taboo here. The northern Lords hate “Wildling invaders.” Many members of the Nights Watch don’t care much about the White Walkers and see the Free Folk as their primary enemy. This is so controversial that Jon is murdered for it.

Now, if you live in almost any part of the world right now, you’ll note that this has many, many parallels to real life events. Especially if you see White Walkers as Climate Change. People trying to escape to safety from disasters and the complete immorality of holding up largely arbitrary borders in the face of existential threats to humanity is already an enormous political issue, and likely to be more so in the years to come. This is a good thing, maybe an essential thing, to explore and talk about through fiction right now.

So how is it handled after Jon is resurrected? Well...it kind of isn’t really. Some of the northern Lords are pissed about it when Jon asks for support during the Battle of the Bastards, but Robb’s old mess-ups are generally more the issue there. Apparently all the Nights Watch members who were uncool with it get hung for treason and...no one else in the manned castles says anything. There are some pissed off northern Lords again who mention Wildling invaders once they’re back in Winterfell but its pretty much skated over and they still all crown Jon king like immediately. The focus on borders and arbitrary divisions, how harmful and damaging they can be, which was a big part of the Wall plotline for several seasons, is pretty much just dropped.

Political Question Two: What is a Revolutionary?

So this is pretty much the whole question surrounding Dany’s plotline. I do think, especially in her earlier seasons, that Dany genuinely felt sympathy for enslaved people in Slavers Bay and wanted to free them. Like, if Jon is one person who looks at the underlying nature of this world and sees injustice, the other person who does so is Dany (at least initially.) I do truly think she saw parallels to her own terrifying situation when Viserys sold her to Drogo, and she wanted to help.

The problem is, despite her dragons and her military power, she is absolutely the wrong type of person to lead a revolution.

This is actually a quote from my sister, we were talking and she said “Dany is the kind of person who believes in a better world, but can’t see that she’s not the one who can bring that world into being.”

Dany was raised by an insanely scary brother who constantly went off about his rightful claim to the throne and their noble family history. The only adults in her life were the kind of Targaryen loyalists who wanted to see the precious heirs safe, or else the kind of people who thought they could get something out of Viserys and repeated his own bullshit back to him.

This has all clearly sunk into Dany; despite the fact that she started the incredibly huge political project of ending slavery, something that will require years YEARS of work, she still constantly wants to go off to Westeros and rule because she believes it’s her right. She’s also got a huge self myth about herself as a queen, and what that means, versus an interest in being a leader.

I’m not a politician, I’m a queen.

She likes to command, demand, pull the whole fire and blood thing. This all comes from her upbringing, from her understanding of who the Targaryens were and what they conquered/deserved.

Her status as someone from an old Westerosi house also means that she has a tendency to trust the rich and well named, especially rich people from Westeros, waaaaay more than she should. Trusting Tyrion, for example, is a huge huge error. Especially, again, given that she’s attempting the truly revolutionary project of ending fucking slavery. Tyrion is part of an old rich house, part of an old rich system. He is from a culture that does not have slavery, but he is still from a culture with a HIGHLY stratified class system. Fundamentally, he’s got more in common with the slavers than the slaves. Which is why he listens to the slavers, why he comes up with the oh so reasonable compromise of phasing slavery out over several years, and why he gives the slavers HUMAN BEINGS as presents to seal the deal.

One of the most interesting scenes in the entire series for me is the bit directly after Tyrion makes this deal, when we see Missandei and Grey Worm’s reaction to it. They are horrified.

Because the ones with a real read on this situation, the ones Dany should let have more input, are absolutely Missandei and Grey Worm. They are the two people the former slaves look to most when they have questions. They are seen as leaders by Dany’s base in the city, the formerly enslaved peoples. They are the ones who have suffered under the hands of this system, who know that it is not wise to make “reasonable compromises” with the kind of people willing to own human beings. The kind of person willing to buy and sell people will always try to take advantage, there is nothing to which they won’t sink. You don’t use them, they use you.

Yet Missandei and Grey Worm’s power is largely often ceremonial. Dany makes a lot of her real big choices listening to people like Jorah, like Tyrion. People from old Westerosi houses. Because she’s been raised to value that kind of power.

Dany’s whole plotline; her freeing slaves quickly without a plan, then letting the slavers into her ear, letting them take back some control, and ultimately leaving the situation in a whole mess to gain more personal power, is a great example of why top-down revolutions, revolutions where a wealthy savior wants to free/help the less fortunate, do not generally work out.

For a revolution to stick, for it’s ideas to stick, it needs to be led by those from below, people who are fully invested, people who understand the monstrosities of the system. People like Missandei and Grey Worm.

That whole scene where Dany talks to Tyrion about breaking the wheel is also super interesting to me. Because...they are both part of the wheel. And as long as Dany’s goal is still to rule, and Tyrion’s goal is to help her, they aren’t going to break that thing. That wheel won’t break until monastic power, until rule by a few families, ends, and that’s not really Dany’s goal. Because she wants to rule. And her family is part of the wheel.

Again...all of these poltical questions are important. We live under a system where the few, the very rich, rule us. This power is often inherited (because money is often inherited.) Some of them say they want to help...but ultimately nothing really changes.

And there’s a pretty recent example in world history of slavery ending, but politicians failing to root the perpetrators of that system out of power. Letting those people stay in power, letting them use influence and take advantage, led to slavery essentially returning in a different form (hello 13th amendment of the US Constitution!) So it’s an important thing to explore through fiction.

I kind of thought all this was going to come to a head, especially with Missandei and Grey Worm. Dany clearly trusts them with some power, but she lets Westerosi advisors like Tyrion make more and more of her decisions. The whole plotline with Missendei and Grey Worm is them moving past their trauma and becoming more self-actualized people. I thought they’d start to challenge Dany. I thought maybe they’d take issue with Dany’s desire for power at any cost, especially use of the Dothraki, who famously take and sell slaves. I thought they’d take issue with Dany wanting to leave for Westeros at all, with leaving the slaves of Mereen in such a desperate, hopeless situation. I thought maybe the show would highlight how becoming more folded into the powers that be in Westeros and ignoring the downtrodden people she met in Essos led to her downfall. It certainly seemed to be heading that way.

But then...Missandei and Grey Worm were relegated fully to the background. They don’t differ with Dany on anything at all in the last half of the series. Issues were raised with how Dany was approaching power, but most of these were centered around her individually being a bad person, having the “Targaryen madness,” not with her being part of a system that sees rule by a few powerful families as just and right. It’s just all a problem of one person being insane and power hungry! Not a problem of systems!

And then a member of another house on the wheel takes control at the end, but he’s from the Good House...so it’s framed as a win!

Political Question Three: What happens when the rich ignore the poor / What happens when religious movements redirect class consciousness?

This is one I really really wanted the series to get more into. The smallfolk are often talked about and seen in the background as the true victims in the wars that tear through Westeros. They suffer and starve and die because of things they had absolutely no say in, so a few people they’ll never meet can have a little power. And this tension between the poor and the rich was building throughout the series; the smallfolk were getting pissed the fuck off. That riot in King’s Landing where the poor literally tear the septon to pieces still gives me chills.

And we finally, finally started to see this start to come to a head with the Sparrows. I think it’s really interesting that they chose to use a religious movement. Religious grifters often do swoop in during moments of desperation and steal the energy / direct people away from class consciousness to build their own power. And the poor are so desperate for something anything different that it becomes easy for these grifters to thrive.

And the High Sparrow is this kind of religious grifter to his bones. It’s very interesting to me that when we finally learn his backstory, he wasn’t truly poor. He was a merchant, and one doing pretty okay. If Westeros had an emerging middle class, he was part of it. He wasn’t the lowest of the low in Flea Bottom; Gendry for example was likely worse off. But the Sparrow presents himself as of the poor, part of the poor, truly one of the people, and because of this he is able to build a shitton of power very quickly from smallfolk who are fed up with all the bullshit and want to see something anything done about it.

And I was very interested in this! Again, this is a good political problem to discuss; religious movements and charismatic grifters build power all the time by telling people that really they’re unhappy because of “these sinners or outsiders” and not because of the larger systemic issues. A LOT OF THAT has been happening lately.

Like this was the moment that the political scheming of people like Cersei and her absolute lack of interest in helping the people she’d supposedly ruling should have come home to roost. I was interested to see what would happen; how that tension would be resolved, IF that tension could be resolved.

And then...Cersei just blows up the Sept of Baelor and apparently every single member of the reactionary religious movement was inside of it because it’s never really brought up again.

There are no riots, no anger from the smallfolk at her destroying both the major religious figures AND the major religious site for a large chunk of Westeros. People still gladly flock to Cersei when Dany shows up with dragons, even though they KNOW Cersei is very willing to blow people up. It’s just..all dropped. Cersei spends the next several seasons drinking wine and wearing spiky dresses.

Granted, there were a few big political issues that D&D still tried to discuss through the end but uhh...I don’t think they did very well. For example -

They Tried! #1 - White Walkers = Climate Change and the Uselessness of the System as Usual in the Face of Existential Threats

So I do think D&D were kind of going for this a little bit, and it was certainly discussed a lot in all the blogs and meta posts leading up to season 8. And there was a lot of talk, especially in season 7, about how silly the petty political differences between Cersei and Dany were in the face of such a threat.

But the fact that the White Walkers were destroyed relatively easily all things considered, without fundamentally changing the existing power dynamic, without being forced to resolve the differences between Dany and Cersei...kind of ruins this whole parallel. Jon’s been saying throughout the whole series that they needed to fully unite to defeat the threat but uhh...they didn’t unite with Cersei and they still won so I guess it was all good!

Don’t worry guys, we don’t need to fundamentally approach politics differently to deal with climate change, lets just go to Antartica and stab the carbon emissions monster in the heart!

And the fact that ultimately the main battle of the series, the finale of the series, was focused on the various ruling houses opposing each other...kind of ends up saying that the most important thing really is the petty politics after all.

Well that’s a bad message!

They Tried! #2 - Dany the Imperialist

Now of all the political messages D&D were trying to get across in the series, I am absolutely 100% certain this one was intentional. They were trying to draw parallels between Dany and modern imperial regimes, specifically the US.

It’s all over that last script, explicitly. The dragons have frequently been portrayed as weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, and in the script here there is an explicit connection between the destruction of King’s Landing and Hiroshima, an atrocity committed by the US. In the finale script, they also use the phrase “they burned the village in order to save it” which is a famous quote from a US general regarding the destruction of a Vietnamese village by American troops during the Vietnam War.

And Tyrion’s whole speech about Dany destroying evil men looking great from afar but horrible when you’re on the ground / closer to the reality of it has clear US parallels. The US often uses humanitarian justifications for war (taking out dictators, spreading democracy, etc) and does not much care about the atrocities the actual human beings who live in those countries face when their countries are torn apart by war (Afghanistan and Iraq are prime examples of this.)

They are very very clearly trying to make this parallel. To make a political point about how imperialism is bad. But Jesus Christ, it’s so muddled.

For one, it’s uhhh not great that the perpetrators of these atrocities are largely non-white and the victims are members of a culture that closely parallels western Europe. Given that the way the last several hundred years have played out...it’s usually been the other way around. This shows a lack of care in D&D’s part in truly wrestling with this topic, a lack of interest in really dealing with real world politics and history. Just no interest exploring how imperialism and white supremacy, how the idea that “we come from a ‘superior culture’ so clearly we know what’s best and can go around the world doing as we please” are INCREDIBLY linked.

For two...it’s mostly just Dany that’s the problem. Jon doesn’t want to destroy King’s Landing, Varys doesn’t, Tyrion doesn’t. Grey Worm does, but he’s barely a character at this point in the story. They all give her like, a million outs. Especially the bells. And those bells ring, the battle is won, but Dany decides to go on her murder rampage anyway.

The problem isn’t a system, it’s one person who has “the madness!” It’s one person being a psychotic dictator, and all the problems are solved when that person gets stabbed.

Which is absolutely not how it works in real life. We didn’t just go to war in Afghanistan in Iraq because George Bush was a bad person. If we had, we would have been out when Obama got into office. The US went to war in those countries because of a giant system of war and profit, a system that benefits many many people, that has been built over the past several generations. The US went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and stayed there, because weapons contractors wanted to be there so they could make money. Because oil companies and heavy mineral companies wanted the resources those countries had. Because the military itself has a huge amount influence over the government, and to justify their massive budget and continued influence they need to have things to do. The Afghanistan War continues loooong after the death of Osama Bin Laden because of a whole web of CEOs and lobbyists and generals and politicians, all of whom benefit from it. The problem is not one person. It’s a fundamental flaw in how the system is set up. How it rewards those who can buy influence.

And it’s so so clear to me that D&D do not understand this. Like...even a little. They don’t think in terms of systems, just good people and bad people. That’s why the end of the series, which is still a fucking monarchy, is framed positively. Because it’s not the system of power that’s the problem, it’s just that bad people were in charge! But now the good people are in charge, so it’s all good!

They like talking about the tragedy of war, like referencing historical atrocities in scripts, like talking about how deep it all is. They love to talk about how they wanted to create a fantasy series grounded not in magic, but political reality. But they have no understanding of political reality beyond the most basic basic shit. Like war is bad dontcha know! Yeah, no shit!

So these two messed up the characters, they messed up the fantasy, but they also messed up the part they claimed to care about most, the politics. Because they’re dumbshits.

Jesus this got long. If you read all this, thank you for listening to the ramblings I wrote while I should be working.

#got #got season 8 #game of thrones #anti game of thrones #anti d&d #holy shit why did i write so much #this is entirely just for me #no one else can be expected to read this

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pulitzerpanther · 6 years

Note

Miss Grant...why did you become a reporter?

This question and Cat Grant’s answer were taken from the monthly-quarterly ‘Nine Lives Left’ column featuring CEO Cat Grant and editor of ‘The Trib’ Lucas ‘Snapper’ Carr. The column features questions towards both regarding journalism, ethics in the news industry, and–from Cat–fashion advice for the wilting middle-age ‘walking bearclaw’ editor taking said questions.

While originally edited in format and featured in the article, the below blurb was taken from the podcast posted on CatCo-.Co with the title of the same name.

So, Cat, everyone always wonders–I know, I know, we get asked this often–and I know we’ve discussed it over the years.

“Oh, of course, I love repetitive questions. If I hear it enough, it’s like the dulcet, soothing tones of Donald Trump.”

Why did you become a reporter?

“Hmm, yes, well–I’m sure you expect a wholly different answer, given the fact that I technically started in gossip.

Is there more to Cat Grant than high heels?

“If there wasn’t, you wouldn’t work here. Fine. A similar answer was in my excellently-written memoir, Cat Got Your Tongue released in 2002, but, in order to take you on a journey of me, Snapper, we’d either have to get you a fashion sense, or gussy up a handy little time machine and skip that awful hair-teasing, leopard print phase of the 90′s to go back to the book-worm days of my youth and, namely, the news as an influence–or lack thereof–of my formative years.

Below is the excerpt written by Cat Grant for the ‘editorial’ column, read and featured on both podcast and Trib header.

My father was a particularly knowledgeable man–a great man who had this air of regal mystique about him, or so it might seem to a young girl who had a habit of tiptoeing around the corners of an old, two-bedroom apartment in the bustling playground of Metropolis, before skyscrapers built like towering trees in the ground would become a far more commonplace playroom than my father’s study. But when I was a little girl, I enjoyed that air of ‘fine things’ that he seemed to carry–suits and cigars; mystical brief cases with work-related things in them. It’s all very fantastical to play make-believe with, if you’re ambitious, and while my age is a carefully-kept secret (soon to be given away by this article like an old CIA agent in a bar) there was a time when I did enjoy that long-forgotten art of playing.

As I tell my son, creativity is important–creating a rocket ship out of a box is the fundamental mind-set that will, one day, create a company out of thin air. It should never be repressed in a child, and I often found myself tempted by the utter adulthood of my father’s study like a creativity landmine.

The door was always locked save for Sunday mornings, his coffee creating a fine brown ring along whatever ever-present newspaper had found its way to mahogany that morning–the business and politics sections the first read and neatly folded to the side. Saturday morning cartoons were not something my radical mother appreciated in the mornings, but both of them could be seen feverishly discussing current events over the sounds of a crackling, small television in the corner. Only on Sundays, of course, they were feverishly discussing far less important things every where else at much louder–far more grating–volumes everywhen else.

It wasn’t uncommon to hear the soothing sounds of Walter Cronkite (prior to Dan Rather and Connie Chung’s overruling domain in my mother’s household) in my youth and this particular day, there was one singular, titular program on the television.

Fortunately–as is an American right–the magnitude of war was lost on me at such a young age, and I had the benefit of merely being fascinated by war like it was some distant, fantastical teleproduction. Like H.G Wells was narrating events, materialized with sensationalism and haunting faux-realism–like I was always one step removed from its horror, because I was.I wasn’t aware of this at the time–what little girl would be?–but Nixon and Johnson ordered the bombing of the Eastern Cambodian line in order to usurp the then-communist Vietnamese strongholds. I wasn’t aware of the impact this would have, ultimately, on the American population–peace signs and drugs and love not war notwithstanding–but also on the Cambodian people.

For four years, with as many visits as an estranged aunt appearing solely for family functions that no one particularly wanted to invite her to, but she just obnoxiously showed up anyways–similar to Joan Crawford, the later years, at a party or Joan Rivers at your wedding (three times)–only to make one small, forgettable appearance, I learned of my first taste of media’s role in education the masses–

By learning that media was not educating the masses.

From the time I was nine to the time I was thirteen, the Khmer Rouge regime, under the daunting, fanatical leadership of Pol Kot, committed the systematic genocide and elimination of approximately three million Cambodian people under the name of Democratic enstatement in the country. I heard the word Kampuchea (the government created by this regime after the slaughter) feverishly whispered around my father’s coffee mug like a dirty word–like that salacious affair my mother heard about the neighbor having with his nanny–and never understood the impact of it. It wasn’t discussed in my school and, save for a quickly-buried news report every week or two, it was lost, like some lack-luster movie hitting the box office, watched by a hundred thousand people never to be heard of again.

It was a transient sensationalist story. I didn’t understand the gravity of what occurred until college and the magnitude of such a death toll never truly touched Western newspapers save for blurbs. Not even in 1999, when Nate Thayer and Nic Dunlop interviewed a member of the regime’s command still awaiting trial. The story was picked up, ran once, and everyone’s fickle minds forgot about it come Monday, while the weight of the death toll was still being felt by the country to this day.

It was a systematic oppression of the people–a slaughter of a race and religion–and in my twenties, when someone mentioned it, as historical fact, an event that cost the lives of millions, I furrowed my brows like it was a word I couldn’t quite remember on the tip of my tongue.

Lost.

In the 90′s, I was far more educated and politically forward–I was nicknamed Hanoi Cat by a few particularly close friends (one of whom is on the ballot for president this year and should think wisely about the things that a girl might remember to blackmail her with)–and it wasn’t uncommon for me to be enraged by the cruel, cruel state of the world.

Oh, I taped myself to trees in political outcry, usually hungover and in fabulous heels on a budget, before my palette for social change and fashion had both fully refined. I screamed at rallies and bemoaned the effect of war on the world while sleeping in my thin dormitory mattress that I thought toughed my spine into steel. I was war-torn and affected by the weight of the world’s decisions, unlike my unassuming friends and colleagues.

I’ve since grappled and come to terms with the fact that complacency within a world is a fallacy: ignorance of people assuming the blame doesn’t lie on their shoulders; ignorance of people assuming the blame solely does. Change is not as simple as strapping yourself to a tree and screaming about indignancies.

I’ve also since made it a point to buy better mattresses. A girl needs her beauty sleep to change the world, after all.

The Rwandan massacre was far more documented, at the time, than the Cambodian massacre was in the 70′s. But To some of you, who are about to swiftly make my own point about a disassociation of connection and responsibility for me, you might have furrowed your brows and wrinkled your nose at this very paper.

I’m sure it’s a fabulous look on you.

Perhaps you saw the movie with Don Cheadle in the early thousands–Hotel Rwanda–where the gripping dramaticism of it all might have dampened the weight of the events with Hollywood flare–provided a sense of detachment that comes with all things sensationalized. After all, how do we, as a society, come to terms with the deaths of a million people? Another genocide and, though the emergence of electronic media made it far more televised, this one became just as forgotten.

For a minor history lesson–don’t worry, I’m sure many of you have that hot for teacher fetish–let’s recap the events of the Rwandan conflict in a short, small, haunting blurb that does nothing of justice to the weight or impact of what occurred: in 1994, due to the loss of a political leader, over one hundred days, an approximate million Rwandans were killed by militias and the military under order of the interim Rwandan government.

The coverage of the event was minimal, at best, and the focus of most media outlets–save for a steadfast Perry White who I will credit with having a great focus on human rights, even if the Planet is a subpar paper in every way to ours thanks to one Lois Lane’s lackluster writing–was more on evacuating government officials than on the genocide.

Questionably as appalling as the genocide–in a moral way that, to a journalist, rivals the death of a people–was the treatment of the genocide after the fact. The Rwandan Patriotic Front followed the interahamwe and the Hutu-dominated military into Zaire (what is now called The Democratic Republic of the Congo) and pillaged–that’s slaughtered and raped for those unfamiliar with coy terminology–their way across the eastern part of the Congo. Two years later, Zaire was once again invaded and a puppet government was installed. When that government crumbled, the government once again ransacked the country like some sadistic Santa Claus stumbling in through your fireplace to devour all of your cookies. With a hint of a Krumpus flair.

These actions caused a total death-count of around five-million congolese people.

None of these actions were adequately covered in the news.

So what does all of this have to do with me being a journalist? Oh, I have a point–trust me, I always have a point. Maybe I’m still a writer, through and through and it might be lost in the superfluous overzealousness of my ideas, but there’s always a point.

I became a reporter for one simple reason: to find truth.

Were there news stories surrounding these events? Of course. Coverage might have been ill-focused during the time–far more for the Rwandan genocide than the Cambodian, though that could be attributed to the times and the lack of such a fine political conscience that Americans carry with them, today–but it was covered. But these moments are forgotten.

Lost in history.

A girl with knit eyebrows, forgetting the effect of war and conflict in a country so far away from my own.

Not only were these events transient in the media–not only did I watch them fade underneath the fickle eye of the current press with no lasting coverage or true understanding of the events that took place–I watched the media effectively suppress information.

Stories need to be told and information cannot be suppressed. What do both the Cambodian massacre and the Rwandan genocide have in common? The same thing any government needs in order to systematically commit atrocities against the Geneva Convention–the same thing anyone needs to commit a crime against humanity, big or small: silence.

Cooperated silence.

These governments silenced the media within their countries. They controlled the information flow so tightly that there was only one story that was ever told and a lasting embargo was placed worldwide over these events to not endanger the lives of any officials left in the war zone.

No one was talking about it.

The moment a government starts oppressing speech–the moment the government takes away a people’s voice is the same moment they ultimately take away their humanity.

Their tie to the world is cut.

How would you feel? In the land of the Great, if we were slowly starting to be distorted–cut off from news, from information flow. If stories of truth turned to ‘stories that the government told us’ which, ultimately, lead to global news of stories of what the government said, since there’s no other form of information available…would you feel safe? Would you feel safe being involved in a ‘He Said’ ‘He said’ with Big Brother?

Oh, I can hear the rackling shackles of Republicans even while I’m writing this, but it’s not political–it’s human.

What would have happened if one voice in a sea of millions fought for their right to be heard–fought for their right to exist? Is it likely that millions of people might be alive, due to one voice? Oftentimes, political stressors are overwhelming–we’re led to believe that we’re cogs in a system, barreling out of control.

No. Oh, no–no. Fake. News.

I’m one woman and I have, a will continue to make a difference, and so can you.

That is why it is so important that we have not only a global conscience–but a global presence in the world–humanity is not just a contained problem that happens on the other side of the globe. It is not just a number on a scale of millions dead. It is a problem that could someday affect us and already should simply from the ethical position of allowing it to happen, in the first place.

I don’t say all of this to endlessly guilt you. I believe there’s nothing wrong with taking joy in the finer things in life–in indulging in the good things, instead of just entrenching yourself in the bad–and, like I’d earlier informed you, I do have a nice mattress. I’m not a pauper constantly toiling away underneath the stress of the hedonism of humanity.

But I do stay informed–I think it is my duty to stay informed, just as I think it’s yours–and, furthermore, it’s my duty to inform you. To tell you the truth with integrity and steadfast objectivity.

It is my job to ensure that you cannot be blinded by the ‘fake news’ of the world.

Perhaps I don’t tie myself to trees anymore, and my heels are far more upclass, but there’s still a fire of injustice within me. I think there is for anyone who’s masochistic enough to persue the truth of the world because, oh, it can be cruel. And it can be abhorrent. And human nature can be so bone-crushingly haunting that it aches–it leaves a hole within you where humanity used to be–but there’s a brightness to it, as well.

There will always be people who fight, if you give them a cause–there will always be hope to survive; to push past; to assist those who have been faced with atrocities–and that’s why I became a journalist. To give them a voice. To give them a light.

To give them a choice to fight.

I became a reporter to give a voice to places that no longer have a voice–to make these stories have a lasting impact of relevance and to question not only my own complacency with silence, but to challenge the world’s. It is far easier to ignore the atrocities of the world. It’s far easier to pretend that war is non-existent and that we hold no part in it, if it’s not on our soil we don’t have to handle the short and long-term effects as someone in the country might.

But humans haven’t survived because we’ve had it easy–we’ve survived by building communities. Fostering innovation and pushing together, ultimately, as a society.

Any cruelty the world faces, I will do my best to ensure that people don’t furrow their brows in forget a few years later–instead, we can all rise up against them, history that steel in our spine molded by information, not a rusty old college dormitory bed, and proudly proclaim:

Not again.

This article was published and hosted by CatCo Worldwide Media; edit et al: Lucas Carr; feat: Cat Grant; CatCo WW M - 2015.

#about cat #questions #tw: long post #tw: genocide #tw: news #tw: fake news #//I have a lot of feelings about burgeoning 80's 90's cat grant the reporter #//the woman who went to Kahndaq and helped found a media empire in order to showcase the global atrocities and goodness of the world #//thank you so much for this question I'm so sorry it took me so long to answer

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drlaurynlax · 6 years

Text

What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body

Years Living With Processed Foods

How long have you been living with processed foods?

“Please help me go, please help me go” —a breath prayer I often said aloud for years while sitting in the Loo (i.e. on the toilet)—in the pit of discomfort!

I often just WANTED (and needed) to “go,” but, many times, I not able to “go” for days.

Constipation is Real

Stuck—often times how I felt in my own skin. Stuck in my gut. Constipated. And like my body was at war, in my own skin.

At age 26, even though I ate “healthy” (on paper), something was not right.

Greens? Check.

Sweet potatoes? Check.

Salmon? Check.

Almonds? Check.

Eggs? Check.

Broccoli? Check.

Coconut Butter and Coconut Oil? Check.

I was doing ALL the “right things,” so why did it have to hurt so much?

Answer: Healthy “being” goes far beyond diet alone.

At least once you’ve been enlightened…

Exhibit A: Day 1 Nutrition School (You & I Are NOT Alone)

“Stand up and introduce yourself. What got you interested in studying nutrition?” the teacher said.

One by one, my class of about 40 other aspiring nutrition therapy practitioners had to stand up and give their “elevator speech” as to why we were all sitting upright in the classroom, pen and paper in hand, eager, anxious and beaming with BIG vision, to learn how to save the world one food myth at a time.

As we went around the room sharing our stories, one by one, we also began to realize that…we were not alone.

Many of my fellow classmates were survivors of the processed-food, antibiotic, vaccine, sedentary lifestyle and chronic disease generation, and somehow, had all lived to tell about it.

“My son was diagnosed with Autism, and the doctors told me there was nothing we could do about it except lots of therapies and behavior plans. So I did some research myself, and began to find stories about the brain-gut connection—how food can influence how we think and help kids with Autism. As a family, we started the GAPS diet, and my son, who was non-verbal, said his first words,” Charlotte said.

“I was a vegetarian and vegan for over 15 years, and on the cusp of my 30th birthday, I got sick—really sick,” Lynan said. “My skin was pale, my hair started falling out, my nails were brittle, I was tired all the time, lost my period, and began experiencing bloating around meals all the time. Something wasn’t right. I thought it was something to do with my hormones, or maybe mono, or anemia, so I went to a doctor a friend recommended and he said nothing was wrong with me.

I just needed to eat meat again, telling me, “You know you are doing the same thing to your body that inhumane chicken and beef farms do to their animals—feeding them lots of grains and processed foods, restricting them from all the nutrients their bodies need to thrive. Your body needs balance,” …I was so desperate for anything to feel better, so I gave it a try, and within a matter of months, all my health problems went away. I got my period and energy back, the bloating subsided and I felt better than I had in those 15 years,” Lynan said.

“I got terminal brain cancer. The doctors gave me 2, maybe 3 months, to live, and told me it had spread through every bone in my body and that there was nothing I could do,” Bob said, adding, “But then I looked on the nutrition label of the tube-feeding formula the healthcare company sent me, only to see the worlds ‘Nestle’ and ‘high fructose corn syrup’ on the ‘medicine’ meant to help me get the extra nutrients I needed, and I thought, ‘There’s got to be another way.’ So I decided to start juicing my own food and smoothies for my feeding tube, and just ate real food. Months later, I was completely cancer free and years later, I have a son they never told me I could have and I lived to tell about it. I want to help people,” Bob said.

Mic drop.

Nope. None of us were alone.

What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body

We all have a story. Often times, multiple stories. That shape us for the better or the worse. Your stories are written via your life experiences, and chances are, when it comes to your health, you’ve had multiple experiences that have set the stage for where your body (and health markers) are today.

Even if you “eat healthy” and “do all the right things” today, your past experiences paved way for the way you feel (or don’t feel) now.

I’m a Survivor

Hi, I am Lauryn and I am a survivor of the processed food, “take a Tylenol or Tums” (for everything), antibiotic, “drink juice as your water,” frozen broccoli (with cheese sauce), Lean-Cuisines-and-Quest-Bars are convenient (and healthy) generation.

For the first 26 years of my life, my body didn’t see a real food—really.

Sure, I ate Fiber One cereal, not Cookie Crisp, for breakfast. Packed 99% lean turkey on whole wheat bread with pretzels (not chips) for lunch (with the special occasion Pizza Lunchable). Noshed on apple slices (with Peter Pan peanut butter), or string cheese and whole grain Wheat Thins between meals, and I ate a low-fat dinner, including a protein, starch and veggie with a glass of milk most nights for dinner…but even though I was eating “healthy,” (according to Standard American Diet criteria), my body did not see a real food.

Fast forward to my teens and college years, when I began to make my own food choices for myself, I looked to magazines, social media, and Google for advice on what to eat (and not eat), following hundreds of food rule under the sun. If it was deemed “healthy,” or “clean” by Shape or Cosmo, it was “a-ok “with me including: protein bars and protein powders, frozen dinners, raw veggies, tons of nuts and almond butter, egg white omelets, and no carbs, no meats or no fats (depending on the popular trend at the time).

Eating disorder treatment is a whole other can of worms complicating the story. Over the accumulated three years of my life spent in inpatient treatment centers and hospitals, along with the 15 years of meal plans with prescriptions to eat McDonald’s Egg McMuffins and Dairy Queen Blizzard’s, I equally did not see (or eat) a real food—at least not much of it.

The universal theme? My body—namely my gut—didn’t know how to deal with the influx of foods that were difficult to digest. The result? A host of inflammation and imbalances.

Even though, at age 26 I found “real food,” was well beyond my eating disorder and discovered the art of “stressing less,” I had ALOT of “damage” to heal and make up for from the previous 26 years of my life.

In short: How you feel today (or how you will feel tomorrow, or 10-50 years from now) is a result of the choices you made years ago.

Survey Says

I spent the entire 26th year of life, studying nutrition and forming the foundations of my current functional medicine, nutrition and therapy business.

The next year, I found myself in two rigorous functional medicine trainings and sinking my teeth (and brain) into anything that explained more about WHY I felt the way I felt (i.e. constipated and bloated ALL the time), trying to understand WHY it seemed like no doctors could help me just feel good in my own skin. Instead of believing “bloating and constipation are just a part of life,” I dedicated my studies and used my body as my own experiment to find out if healing was truly possible.

The following images from a few of my lab tests are just a glimpse of what 26 years of processed foods, lifestyle and gut stress does to your body.

Osteoporosis:

Cause: Malnutrition, lack of essential fatty acids, inability to absorb nutrients (“leaky gut”) and bacterial overgrowth

SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth)

Cause: High grain consumption, low stomach acid, stress, overtraining, artificial sweeteners, low fat diets, FODMAP foods, antibiotics, processed and packaged foods

High Cortisol (i.e. stress hormone)

Cause: “Leaky gut,” overtraining (or sedentary lifestyle), lack of quality sleep, lack of water, burning a candle at both ends (trying to do it all), gut-inflammatory foods and food intolerances, high caffeine or sugar/artificial sweetener consumption, NOT going with your gut (and being true to yourself), LED light/screen exposure

The Bottom Line

Knowledge is power, and healing IS possible—(even with 26 years+ of processed foods and other health stressors under your belt).

The secret?

It goes far beyond “clean eating”….

How to Heal Your Gut

It’s easier than you think. It involves 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Identify the Underlying Root Cause(s) of your Gut Issues

(note: even if you don’t have bloating or IBS or constipation, skin issues, allergies, thyroid/hormone imbalances and “slow metabolism” issues ALSO are often rooted in your gut) often made out to be more complicated than it is. Common “root causes” of gut issues include:

Environmental toxic burden

SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth)

Parasites, fungal or bacterial infection

Dysbiosis (imbalanced gut bacteria)

Food intolerances

Intestinal permeability

Chronic infections (Lyme, Ebstein Barr)

Bonus:

To figure out your root causes, the fastest route to seeing a clearer picture of everything going on is testing (not guessing) your health woes. Work with a functional medicine practitioner who can help you decide what (if any) testing may be helpful including:

Stool testing

Comprehensive blood chemistry testing (not just a CBC)

SIBO breath testing

Organic acids testing

DUTCH hormone/cortisol testing

IgG, IgA, IgE food intolerance/allergy testing

Heavy metals/essential nutrients testing

Step 2: Get Back to the Basics

You cannot supplement or eat your way out of a stressful lifestyle. The “unsexy” simple health basics are game-changers for calming stress AND gut healing including:

Eating a nutrient-dense, whole-foods ancestral diet (proteins, carbs and fats included)

Drinking half your bodyweight in ounces of water daily

Taking a quality probiotic, prebiotics and eating fermented and prebiotic foods daily

Sleeping 7-9 hours per night

Resetting your circadian rhythm (limiting screen exposure/artificial light at night; eating at normal times; getting fresh air)

Daily movement/exercise (but not TOO much)

Step 3: Heal (Don’t Manage) Your Symptoms

Healing your gut is not just about taking probiotics and drinking kombucha. Once you identify your ROOT causes of your gut imbalances, you must take action steps to HEAL your gut (not just manage gut health or suppress symptoms).

This step will be unique to you and is best first accomplished with the guidance of a skilled practitioner. Request a complimentary 10-minute consult with Dr. Lauryn’s clinic today to start your own healing journey.

The post What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body appeared first on Meet Dr. Lauryn.

Source/Repost=> https://drlauryn.com/gut-health/what-26-years-of-processed-foods-does-to-your-body/ ** Dr. Lauryn Lax __Nutrition. Therapy. Functional Medicine ** https://drlauryn.com/

#Holistic #Nutrition #Therapy #Recovery #Functional #Medicine #Dr. Lauryn Lax #Dr.Lauryn

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half-bakedboy · 3 years

Text

everything that i want (but didn't think i'd find)

Chapter Six

Rated: Teen Warnings: None Summary: Combat medic, Izzy, worked side by side with her pilot brother, Alec, to ensure the safety of the country and the most important people in their lives; their family.

Alec was starting a family with Magnus—a man Izzy never imagined her brother ending up with—and when the opportunity for them to get married on short notice during Izzy and Alec's summer block leave, Izzy couldn't have been happier for them. Izzy and Alec would make their way home to celebrate the momentous occasion and Izzy could leave everything behind without a second thought like she had when she was eighteen.

Falling in love with Magnus' sister, Clary, was never part of her plan and that threw her off kilter.

To say things were perfect was both an exaggeration and an understatement.

It was an exaggeration because things had never worked out for Izzy before. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to blast either her or Clary out of the happiness bubble they had been in the last few days.

It was an understatement because every single moment Izzy spent with Clary was everything she could have wished it to be.

After the waterfall trip, they spent even more time getting to know each other under the guise of prepping for their brothers’ wedding. They were helping Alec and Magnus out as much as possible which really meant sneaking behind Maryse’s back to make sure the two of them could have the wedding they had dreamed of and not the wedding Izzy’s mother wanted for them.

In that time, Izzy fell even more for the feisty and talented redhead that wormed her way into Izzy’s life. It was impossible for her to stop once she had let her guard down. Every second spent with Clary had her heart flipping and her stomach filled with butterflies she never expected to feel. She hadn’t let herself truly feel so much for another person in years but with Clary, it felt… easy. Like there was no universe in which the two of them didn’t connect the way they had since they met. Everything was so wonderful that Izzy had forgotten why she had kept people at arm’s length in the first place.

That was until Maryse showed up on her doorstep one afternoon a few days before the wedding. Izzy panicked, eyes darting around to where she had the boys’ newly fixed suits and the golden and blue accents decorating every inch of the living room. She backed away from the door, hoping that Maryse would give up, waiting but she should have known that would never happen.

“I know you’re here, Isabelle. I saw you through the window even through the horrendous colors you’ve got around. Let me in,” Maryse chastised and Izzy winced.

Clary peaked her head out and whispered, “Should I go?”

“Grab the suits and hide them in your room. I can handle the rest,” Izzy said, acting quickly by pushing the wheeled mannequin housing Alec’s suit after Clary as she did the same to Magnus’. “Just one minute, mom. Clary just needed help with something. I’ll be right there.”

“I don’t have all day, Isabelle,” Maryse said, her tone clearly unimpressed. Unfortunately, Izzy knew the sound all too well.

“I’ll be here if you need me,” Clary reassured. She ran her hand smoothly down Izzy’s arm before squeezing her hand. The small gesture was enough to calm Izzy as she made her way over to the front entryway, letting out a breath when she heard Clary’s bedroom door shut behind her.

“It’s about time,” Maryse said, clicking her tongue as she pushed her way inside.

“Please, come in,” Izzy muttered with a roll of her eyes. A passerby would have thought Maryse witnessed murder with the dramatic gasp that left her lips, her perfectly manicured hands covering her mouth.

“What happened to the vases? The napkins? Even the tablecloths have been ruined?! Isabelle—”

“Izzy—” She corrected, though it didn’t really matter because Maryse continued on.

“—Your brother is going to be devastated when he sees what you’ve done to his wedding!”

“Alec wan—” Izzy composed herself with a breath, not willing to throw her brother under the bus when their mother was already strung out. “I wanted it to be a surprise. These are the colors they associate with one another and I thought it would be—”

“Oh, you thought? Did you ever think about what this would do to your brother?” Maryse asked before scoffing. “Of course you didn’t because you only ever think about yourself, just like you always have.”

“Are you kidding me?” Izzy asked.

“I’ll have to talk to your father,” she began as she tore at the banner on the wall that Clary had worked incredibly hard on. “He can probably order us some new centerpieces and table arrangements in black and white, possibly get a rushed order in through one of his contacts.”

Izzy could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she destroyed the carefully crafted centerpieces that would house the painted flowers they specially ordered. She wanted to scream, to stop Maryse from ruining something else in her brother’s life, but her mother’s words were spiraling around her head and she couldn’t stop them.

“How could you be so selfish? Alec and Magnus trusted you to make their day perfect and now you and that gypsy sister of—”

“Clary isn’t—”

“I would notice her handiwork anywhere, Isabelle. There’s no need to defend her. I can see her influence on you already. You’ve always been one to go against everything you’ve been taught so I should’ve figured you’d let her ways cloud your judgment,” Maryse said easily as if Izzy wasn’t about to spit fire.

“Her ways? What exactly is that supposed to mean, mother?” Izzy pushed.

Maryse waved her hand and said consideringly, “You know how artists can be. They’re flighty and like to pull people down with them on their journey to nowhere. That’s not who you are, Isabelle. You’re going to do great things once you can transfer over to med school and—”

“ Enough!”

“Isabelle,” Maryse shouted back, “what has gotten into you?”

Izzy scoffed, “I’m trying to protect my brother from our overbearing mother. That’s what’s gotten into me!”

“Overbearing? Because I want my children to reach their full potential and won’t settle for less?” Maryse retorted like that was an actual argument for her case.

“We’re not settling, mom. Can’t you see that? Alec isn’t settling for Magnus and we’re not settling in our careers. Everyone else in the world can see that we’re happy and satisfied with what we’ve done with our lives except for the one person that is supposed to care about that.”

“You think I don’t care about you now? Why would I allow this wedding to happen if I didn’t care? Why would I try to convince both of my children to not risk their lives every day if I didn’t care, Isabelle.”

“Izzy,” she interjected, but that didn’t stop Maryse from pointlessly defending herself.

“You always do this, both of you. I do my best to keep this family together and you all pull away from me like I’m the problem—”

“Because you don’t keep us together, mom!” Izzy yelled exasperatedly. “All you do is push us away, from you and dad.”

“It’s not my fault that you’re not as close with your father anymore, Isabelle. When are you going to stop blaming me for that?”

“How about once you stop blaming us for your crappy relationship with him?” Izzy shot back.

Maryse gasped and shouted, “You will stop talking to me this way right this instant!”

“It’s a miracle it’s taken me this long. Alec and I have done everything in our power to try and maintain the relationship we have with you and all you do is push . You push us away, you push us in directions we don’t want to go, you push at our insecurities and our weaknesses. You’re barely a parent anymore, mom,” Izzy admitted, tears welling up in her eyes.

“I didn’t— I don’t— That’s not true, Isabelle.”

“ Izzy,” she corrected immediately, “Everyone calls me Izzy and I’m a combat medic in the United States Army with no plans to be a doctor. And my brother, Alec? He’s one of the best pilots the military has ever seen and he’s never going to follow in dad’s footsteps like you keep trying to force him to.”

“Is— Izzy,” Maryse whispered, shaking her head and pressing a hand over her chest.

“Alec is getting married to a wonderful man who has an extremely talented and kind and practically perfect sister that I’m falling in love with. Magnus and Clary aren’t going anywhere,” Izzy ignored Maryse’s gasp in favor of walking to the door and holding it open, “and if you can’t accept either of those facts, you need to leave. Now.”

Without another word—like Izzy had been expecting—Maryse walked out the door, a mixture of anger and sadness in her eyes that wasn’t enough to have Izzy feeling anything but relieved by her disappearance. She shut the door and leaned back against it, sliding down until she was sitting on the ground. Her eyes were closed, but she still heard the soft click of Clary’s door opening and the gentle patter of socked feet making their way over.

“If you’re going to ask if I’m okay, the answer is yes,” Izzy said, still not bothering to open her eyes. Her head and heart hurt a little too much to deal with the brightness of the apartment or the sympathetic look she was bound to see on Clary’s face.

“I was going to say that you’re incredibly brave for standing up to her like that; for yourself, for Alec, for… me.” Clary slid down the wall next to Izzy before reaching over to lace their fingers together slowly, as if giving Izzy that chance to pull away. She wouldn’t have dreamed of it.

“I guess it’s pointless to hope you didn’t hear all of that?” Izzy asked, a small humorless laugh escaping her lips.

“It was kind of hard not to,” Clary muttered, “but I’m glad I heard what I did. I know I don’t know the entire story, but I’m really proud of you.”

“For alienating my mother even further?” Izzy leaned her head against Clary’s shoulder, reveling in the comfort it provided her. She wasn’t sure when Clary became one of the only people in the world who could calm her, but she was immensely grateful for her and the way she leaned right back.

“No,” Clary whispered, pressing a soft kiss to Izzy’s hair, “for being as strong as you are. I’m proud of you for not relenting to her even though it’s clear you care about her and what she thinks of you—” Before Izzy could deny that, Clary shot her a glare and said quickly, “You don’t have to pretend with me, Izzy. I know you care about very few people and unfortunately, Maryse is in that group.”

“You are, too,” Izzy said; quietly, but surely. Clary nodded and nudged Izzy’s chin up with her fingers gently. She placed a delicate kiss onto Izzy’s lips that seemed to ease every pound of stress off of her shoulders and caused her stomach to flutter with happiness.

“I heard you… What you said,” Clary whispered, stopping Izzy with another soft kiss on her lips when Izzy tried to turn away in embarrassment. She brushed their noses together and scrunched up her face in that adorable way Izzy loved before she continued, “I wasn’t sure, you know. You spent so much of this summer dealing with me, I didn’t think that—”

“After I took you to the waterfall? My self-proclaimed favorite safe place? After that kiss? You still thought I didn’t like you?” Izzy asked, flabbergasted by how oblivious Clary was proving to be.

Clary blushed and hid her face in Izzy’s shoulder, muttering, “I knew you at least thought I was pretty.”

“That’s one word for it,” Izzy said with a roll of her eyes. She pulled Clary’s face away from her neck so she could look into her beautiful green eyes and make sure she really heard the sincerity in her voice. “I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re what I had been searching for my entire life, but never let myself have. I spent the entirety of this summer loving the hell out of you, unable to stop it, so,” Izzy took a deep breath in and held Clary’s hands firmer in her own, “this is me, giving in and telling you that I—”

“I love you, too!” Clary interrupted like she couldn’t wait to tell Izzy the good news.

Clary kissed her more fervently than she had ever been kissed and crawled into her lap as if she couldn’t stand for any part of their body to not be touching, but Izzy didn’t mind. She wrapped her arms around Clary’s back and kissed her back just as passionately, threading one of her hands through Clary’s fiery hair and running her tongue along her bottom lip slowly.

Izzy wasn’t sure how long they sat there, Clary nestled in her lap while her back was still against the front door, but neither of them seemed to care.

Until a knock resounded through the room and down Izzy’s spine that was still connected to the door.

“Do we want to know what you’re doing down there?” Magnus’ voice teased through the door.

“One second!” Izzy yelled, wincing as Clary stood and pulled her up with her.

Her legs were like jelly—from Clary on her lap or from Clary on her lap , she couldn’t be sure—as she fixed her shirt that had ridden up her stomach. Clary flattened out her dark hair and Izzy couldn’t resist doing the same to the red strands that flew in every direction from Izzy’s fingers. She also couldn’t resist kissing her again, both of their giggles resounding through the apartment.

“If you want us to come back later…” Magnus began, but Alec gagged exaggeratedly before he could finish.

“This is still technically my apartment and I still have a key. I swear to god if you two are anything but fully clothed, I’m going to—”

“Will you relax, big brother?” Izzy teased as she slowly pulled the door open, laughing as Alec pushed his way in.

“Your darling mother called, insisted that you were ruining the wedding, and then hung up,” Magnus explained because Alec was too busy going through all of the decorations and centerpieces before attempting to find the tuxes.

“Did she see them? Did she take them?” Alec asked, panicked. Izzy could hear it in his tone, see it in the way he stood up soldier straight even with Magnus’ comforting hand on her shoulder. As if sensing Izzy’s own anxiety tick up, he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Your mother is a piece of work and it’s a miracle that both of you are so damn likable,” Clary interjected, sliding her hand into Izzy’s. They ignored the way that Alec and Magnus’ eyes both darted to where they were joined.

“She came here and was less than happy at the new plan. I’m sorry, Alec, I tried to convince her—”

“What did she say to you?” Alec asked, guilt replacing the panic.

“It was nothing I couldn’t handle, Alec,” Izzy said, though even she had a hard time believing it.

“She was amazing and your mother left here with her ass handed to her,” Clary chimed in, a bright smile on her face that Izzy couldn’t help but match. She blushed and that time, Magnus took notice verbally.

“Alright, do we have to give you guys the talk?” Magnus asked.

Clary scoffed, “I’m pretty sure neither of us are blushing virgins, bro.”

“That’s not what he meant, Fray,” Alec choked out, both Lightwoods blushing wildy at Clary’s words.

“Oh, I know, but it was important to me that I made you both as uncomfortable as possible.”

Izzy stopped for a moment, just admiring the way her brother swatted playfully at her… girlfriend. If that’s what they were. It must have been, really, because Izzy didn’t want her to be anything else. She watched as Magnus wrapped his manicured fingers around Alec’s bicep and pulled him away and the way Alec slumped into Magnus’ shoulder like he’d just been witness to a horrible crime.

As per usual, her eyes found Clary. But that time, Clary was staring right back at her.

There was a mixture of concern and awe, a hesitation in the way she bit down on her lip like she shouldn’t be smiling even though it was the only thing keeping Izzy sane. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Clary’s waist before pulling her in and placing a passionate kiss on her lips. She ignored the way their brothers gagged (Alec) and cheered (Magnus) in the distance in favor of focusing on how Clary fell into her like they were made to be wrapped around each other.

After a few minutes, the noise stopped and as Izzy pulled away, she tried to find Alec and Magnus, worried for a moment that they had left. Instead, she saw them sitting on Clary’s bed, wrapped up in each other just as much as she and Clary had been, with velvet boxes in each of their hands.

“I forgot to tell them we got the final wedding rings in,” Clary whispered as she rested her head on Izzy’s shoulder and wrapped an arm around her waist. Izzy tossed hers over Clary’s shoulder and leaned her head so that her lips could press against Clary’s beautifully bright hair.

“They love each other so much, don’t they?” Izzy asked.

She had believed it, seen it with her own two eyes before that moment, but something about the way they grew even closer each second Izzy saw them together had her believing in soulmates for the first time.

When she glanced over to see Clary gazing at her, she believed it for the second.

“You know,” Clary began, pressing a kiss to Izzy’s hand as she led her to the couch, giving their brothers the moment that they deserved, “Magnus was right about one thing,” she said.

Izzy glanced over at Clary, smiling when she lifted their joined hands to her lips to place a gentle kiss on the back of Izzy’s.

“What’s that?” Izzy asked.

“He said that the wedding could be nothing less than perfect because Alec left you in charge,” she explained. Then, after a moment, she added, “He also said that you were going to be exactly the kind of person I needed in my life.”

“And was he right about that, too?” Izzy asked, knowing her voice was more hopeful than it had ever been.

Clary nodded and whispered, “Yeah, you’re everything.”

#etiw #chapter six

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whimsicalworldofme · 6 years

Text

Whispers in the Dark

The peace that should come from the current stability in the Resistance is tainted for Ava now that Kylo Ren knows she’s still alive.

Word Count: 1372

Content Warnings: None

“Stop ignoring me.”

Kylo’s voice pulled Ava out of her sleep. He was irritated, but more than that, wounded. After six weeks of being the sickest she’d ever been, closed up in her quarters, Ava was finally back to work both in the kitchens and training her students with Rey. Training more Jedi meant she had to allow herself to connect to the Force even more which alarmed her. As she had anticipated, Kylo Ren’s nudging, prodding, questioning, grew endless now that he knew they had a son together. Ava felt like she’d sealed herself up in an impenetrable vault, constantly checking and rechecking that he couldn’t worm his way in. She didn’t want him finding out about the babies, afraid it would set off his rage which would lead him to do something terrible.

“Ava.”

She reluctantly opened her eyes. She felt Poe sleeping peacefully beside her, felt his breath on her neck, his arm around her waist, hand on her growing stomach. The twins had begun moving and Poe liked to feel it every chance he got. But more than that, he knew her fears were overwhelming her, so he did everything he could to reassure her that she was safe, that he would protect them. He’d done so much for the Resistance to carry on Leia’s legacy that Ava didn’t doubt they would soon have lasting peace. Their attention had turned from survival and pre-emptive strikes on First Order ships to working with rebel groups on planets around the galaxy to really hit at the heart of the First Order’s power. With Poe’s direction they’d started cutting supply lines, strategically arming their allies on their home worlds, and convincing people to reroute funds to the Resistance instead of allowing it to go to the oppressive regime. Poe was right that things had changed since Luke was born. Now the only thing that truly worried her was the constant barrage from the voice inside her head.

“What do you want?” She shot back at Kylo.

If this were a normal conversation with a normal person she would berate him for waking her at such an ungodly hour. But as it was she didn’t want to risk giving him any information that could help in pinpointing their location. That base had been safe and secure for a year. She wasn’t about to be the one to jeopardize that.

“You didn’t leave them, did you?” His voice quaked.

Those who didn’t know him well would have taken it for anger and while there was some, Ava knew better. He was afraid. But of what? Losing her? Losing the son he hadn’t even known about until a few weeks ago? She knew that they were safe, so she didn’t think it likely he was trying to warn her of something. The Resistance had been very careful in choosing that base and put in every extra effort to ensure that it remained hidden.

“You didn’t want to leave him,” He snarled. “You’re with him right now, aren’t you?”

She could picture the exact way Ben’s expression used to harden when he’d get angry, how his eyes would squint and his jaw clench. Even from a distance and without being able to see him she could feel the heat of rage in that look.

“You have no right to say anything about who I’m with or what I do.” Ava knew that wouldn’t calm him, but she had little patience for his tantrums over Poe. “You tried to kill me.”

“If I wanted you dead, you would be dead,” Kylo snapped. “If you don’t get out of the Resistance you run the risk of ending up dead anyway.”

“Goodbye, Ben,” Ava redoubled her defenses and rolled over with a sigh. Poe was sleeping still, completely, blissfully unaware of the unspoken conversation that had just occurred. His curls were tousled and splayed on the pillow and he looked so peaceful with his eyes shut and lips slightly parted. Ava liked seeing him that way, human, peaceful, not a warrior in the Resistance but just a man. Her husband. She cupped his face, her thumb stroking the pleasantly soft beard he’d been growing for a few days. He knew that she enjoyed him a little rugged. He didn’t grow a beard often but when he did, Ava had a hard time keeping her hands off him. And now that he’d gone naturally salt and pepper, with bits of grey shimmering in the black, the temptation grew worse.

Things had been peaceful lately. The Resistance had had sufficient time to regroup, find their center, start planning lay down complex, long-term plans. More people were joining. Those that were supportive but didn’t feel safe enough to fight sent aid in the form of ships, blasters, food, money, anything and everything the Resistance needed. For the first time, life was good and stable.

“You can’t shut me out forever,” Ben pushed his way in again and Ava ground her teeth a little in frustration.

“There is nothing to say,” Ava hoped he could detect the venom in her mental tone. “Leave me alone.”

“Does he even know who his real father is? Or did you tell him he’s that pilot’s son?”

“Go to hell, Ben,” Ava put up one more layer of defense. She took a moment to make sure it was working before nestled closer to Poe, wrapping her arm around him, enjoying the peace.

She and Rey had continued training their apprentices and they were growing in their skill and strength every day. Luke’s training continued on too, heavily emphasizing meditation and balance. He was her son more than anything else but having hotheaded Solo and Skywalker genes meant he had a natural bent for sass and stubbornness that continued to get him in trouble, often brought out by the influence Poe had had on him all his life. More than ever though, Ava was glad he’d been training with Poe as a pilot too. The notion that the war might continue long enough for him to see a battle scared her. Being a pilot meant he’d be at real risk. But being a pilot held less long-term risk than following the path of the Jedi and her son’s desire to emulated his adoptive father far outweighed the urge to follow the path of his biological father.

Ava sighed in contentment, her fingers moving up into Poe’s hair, twirling a curl in her fingers. She brushed her fingertips along his brow, worried over the black eye he’d gotten that afternoon. Someone had foolishly asked if he was excited to be a real father for the first time. It had taken a lot of prying for Ava to get that information. Apparently, whoever said that had also brought up the old rumor that Luke was just a bad seed waiting to kill them all and the fist fight that ensued was what led to the black eye. He wouldn’t identify who said it, only that he’d taken care of it. No matter what anyone said, no matter how desperately Ben Solo tried to barge his way in, Poe was Luke’s real father. He always had been.

“You are a very good man, Poe Dameron,” she whispered under her breath as she admired how handsome he was with his square jaw and high cheekbones, his lovely eyelashes and soft lips. He made her swoon just by existing. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Hmm?” Poe’s face scrunched up a little as he stretched. His eyes didn’t open but he pulled her a little closer to him. “You ok?” He murmured, still half asleep. “Are the twins jumping? Do you want me to sing them to sleep?”

“No, we’re all fine,” Ava assured him with a soft kiss. She watched as a content and giddy smile crept up his lips. “Just thinking. Go back to sleep.”

“Ok,” Poe sighed and gave her another kiss, eyes still shut. His fingers threaded into her hair and he brushed his fingertips along her neck, down her shoulder and then wrapped her up close in his arms, falling back asleep instantly.

“You’re wrong,” the deep voice raged back into her mind. “You deserve infinitely better than a pilot.”

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sapphicscholar · 7 years

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Chapter Text

“Would you stop pacing,” Maggie hissed, grabbing hold of Alex’s hand and trying to keep her calm as they waited for Sam and Victor to show up to the bar.

“What if they can tell?” Alex whispered back, her mind going into overdrive as she thought about all of the ways this could be a trap, some set up to have them take the fall for whatever horrible deeds Cadmus was surely in the process of committing or a way of getting them into a locked vehicle to kill them or kidnap them. Somehow everything had seemed so much more manageable when she thought she was in the lions’ den alone, back when she could be in Cat’s role 24/7 and keep tabs on each of her marks with equal suspicion. Now she had to deal with not only the knowledge that her identity had been compromised once already—even if it was only because Maggie had an entire team’s resources at her disposal and reason to be cautious around everyone, it still unsettled her normal confidence in the field—but also with the weird give-and-take that came with working with a partner. Now they were Cat and Maria in public and Alex and Maggie behind closed doors—and only one of those relationships operated under clear parameters. Whatever she and Maggie were was…complicated. And dammit it threw her off her game.

Maggie sighed, wishing, just for a moment, that she could bring back the cocky agent that had swept into her life in a tux with a playful bark of a laugh and a lingering gaze, easily worming her way under her usual defenses to get right to her mark with almost reckless efficiency. Of course she preferred the non-evil version of the woman, the Alex who masked her kindness with sarcasm and suspicion, who pretended to avert her gaze when they were changing and woke up holding her close, who gradually began to open up, pieces of her personality shining through even in the “safe” stories she stuck to as she learned to trust Maggie. But when it came to the mission, Alex was in uncharted territory, clearly unaccustomed to working with a partner (and just as unaccustomed to having her cover blown—something Maggie could sympathize with). She seemed cautious now, uncertain of where to draw the lines between fiction and reality. Maggie wondered whether it had something to do with the electricity that seemed to crackle between them as both Cat and Maria and Alex and Maggie, though she shrugged off the thought, knowing better than to assume anyone shared her feelings, confusing as they already were.

“We have spent almost every day together,” Maggie assured her. “We go on dates and hold hands, and I let it slip to Victor that I was going to invite you to come work with me, which means every single one of them already knows. We’re giving them an image of exactly the kind of couple they want us to be. People like seeing what they want; they trust us. All we have to do is keep from giving them reason not to.”

“Right,” Alex nodded, swallowing and trying to figure out why this all seemed so much harder with Maggie by her side. Perhaps it had something to do with the whole week they’d spent outside of Sam’s watchful eye—a week of dates and romance that felt both more and less real now that the truth had come out. They’d hovered somewhere in a fuzzy gray triangle of partners, friends, and girlfriends, even though none of the terms seemed adequate on their own. The nights she’d let Maggie guide her back to her car, the nights they’d lingered as fingers and tongues flitted across heated skin, left her cold. Because, god, how badly did she want more, want to drag Maggie back to her apartment and sink into the feeling of holding each other close and making each other come until the sun rose. But Maggie wasn’t Maria anymore, and she couldn’t drift back into the easy amorality of Cat’s character with her. Now they dragged each other upstairs and left a few inches between each other on the couch as they sipped at coffee, letting anyone trailing them believe nothing had changed when behind closed doors absolutely everything had. If only she could make her feelings match the new situation…

Spotting Sam’s car driving up the long hill—a hill she’d grown to really enjoy watching Alex bike up on her way to the bar—Maggie grabbed Alex’s hands, pulling her back toward the bike racks where it was a little more secluded. “You got this, Cat.”

“You ready to go hate on all the aliens?” Alex asked, arching an eyebrow at Maggie, who shrugged. It was easier now—now that Alex knew why she sympathized, why she’d fought to make sure she got this case, to make sure she made the bastards pay. Alex hadn’t opened up about why she cared so much, but Maggie figured in time she might. Or, she thought, perhaps the woman was fiercely passionate about all of her missions—but she doubted it; she seemed particularly willing to bring the world to its knees on this one.

“Could use a shot of courage.”

Alex’s gaze fitted down to Maggie’s mouth, to the lower lip she’d pulled between her teeth as if daring Alex to reclaim it. Before she could chastise herself for letting her thoughts drift to such inappropriate places, Maggie’s right hand was cupping her cheek, her free hand falling to the brick wall behind them. And then Maggie’s lips—no, Maria’s lips, Alex caught herself—were on hers, and she felt her worries fall away. Somehow they’d make it work—together.

“Ay! Romeo and Juliet, get in the car!” Victor yelled, letting out a loud bark of a laugh as he stuck his head out the window to wave them over.

Rolling her eyes at Victor’s antics and letting herself slip back into Cat’s persona, Alex slung an arm protectively—and okay, yes, just a little possessively—around Maggie, guiding her to the car and opening the door for her to slide in before making her way around to get in behind Sam.

“Haven’t seen much of you two lately,” Victor teased in a sing-song voice as he blew exaggerated kisses at them.

“Mm, busy,” Alex mused, dismissing the question with a flick of her hand as she moved closer to Maggie.

“I imagine so. Did Maria, uh, pop the question?”

“Shut up,” Sam snapped, nervous that Victor would ruin things just when they were finally getting Cat into a position to be valuable to Lillian, something that needed to happen before the woman decided they were getting a little too slow to be valuable to her, slow enough to become disposable, even.

“I did, though I’m regretting having told you. Should’ve known you can’t keep your mouth shut for more than a minute,” Maggie sassed. “Once the first round of construction is done, Cat will be able to come in and help work on the designs for her lab.”

“Look at you, Cat, from a bartender to a scientist in a matter of weeks.”

“Just took finding a woman who saw that mixing drinks isn’t all I have to offer.”

Maggie couldn’t help but notice how sincere Alex looked, the way her gaze seemed much softer than it ever had as Cat as she laced their fingers together. Something inside of her flickered angrily at the idea that anyone had ever made Alex feel less than valuable, less than perfect—enough that even a fake show of faith would move her.

“A bit of confidence and a whole lotta cash,” Victor teased, breaking the moment as Alex gritted her teeth and rolled her eyes, forcing a playful smile on her face.

“Nothing wrong with splurging when I’m about to become a name partner,” Maggie shrugged, remembering that they’d wanted to be sure Maria was someone who had money, power, and influence in droves. Between the two of them, they’d be all that Cadmus hoped for.

“Perhaps after the event you two should come back to my home—I’m sure I have more than enough champagne for an impromptu celebration,” Sam offered, glancing back at the happy couple in the rearview mirror.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Nonsense, if I’ve invited you, I’m happy to have you.”

“That would be great, Sam. Thank you.”

With a nod that seemed more definitive than any of the promises that fell so readily from Victor’s lips, Sam returned her attention to the road, effectively ending that conversation.

After a few minutes of idle chatter, Sam pulled off into a small parking lot. Maggie knew where they were generally, but she still had no idea what to expect, and even Victor hadn’t been forthcoming with the information.

“Ladies.” With a smarmy grin, Victor pulled open the back door for them, letting them slide out as he motioned toward the sidewalk.

“What’s the big surprise?” Alex asked, her sense of impatience growing.

“You’ll see,” Victor murmured.

“So you don’t know either, huh?” Unless Sam had truly threatened him, Alex didn’t believe he would voluntarily keep his mouth shut.

All too soon, Alex and Maggie found themselves in one of the parks downtown, surrounded by throngs of people from all walks of life. A few reporters who looked as confused as Alex felt had gathered around the edges, their cameras and notebooks at the ready as they waited to see what this gathering would become.

Sam quickly maneuvered them toward the middle of the crowd, unwilling to let her resources be caught on film and exposed before they had properly settled into their roles. “And now we wait,” she said.

As if it was choreographed—and, Alex realized, it likely was—a screen seemed to materialize from nowhere as speakers crackled to life around them, turning the park into a kind of amphitheater. “People of Metropolis!” a loud voice boomed through the speakers as an image flickered to life on the screen. “The Earth has been stolen from us. The enemy has come in the guise of heroes.” She watched as video footage of her sister and Superman racing through their respective cities—some of it new and unfamiliar, suggesting that they’d been busy while she was away. With every shot, the cameras focused on the destruction wrought in their wake, the broken windows and flames that licked up the sides of buildings, the cars smashed to pieces and even innocent civilians caught in the crossfire that she knew haunted Kara in ways the public would never know.

“They say they come in peace, to protect us from ourselves, but how long will it be before these gods decide to rule instead of serve?” A string of images flashed at them: Kara under the thrall of redK. Clark throwing a humanoid (though no less lethal) alien through the air. Astra and Non hovering high above the city. Non’s army storming Max Lord’s lab.

“We are the antidote to their poison.” The crowd went wild as images of Cat Grant’s broadcast warning the city about the dangers Supergirl posed when she was under redK’s drug-induced hold played, then cheered once more as what looked like patriotic stock footage of troops marching in perfect order played beside footage of Kara and Clark weaving around one another and leaving chaos in their wake—the fact that they were saving the world quickly forgotten.

“We are the scientists who will show them what humans are capable of. Those who have sided with the invaders will not be spared. You cannot stop us! We are everywhere! We are Cadmus!”

Before Alex could ask why they were announcing themselves already, she watched as the footage switched to what looked like a livestream, watched as her baby sister crumpled to the ground, powerless in the face of some would-be assassin whose veins glowed green, his mouth twisted in malice. She wondered how these people could cheer for someone like that to take up the mantle of humanity’s savior, but all around her that was all she saw.

As people—hired or real, she couldn’t say—took to the stage, clutching microphones and spouting anti-alien propaganda that worked the crowd up into a frenzy. She listened as the blonde white women everyone seemed so ready to protect sobbed, recounting memories of their families and homes being destroyed, caught in the crossfire, speaking of lives being lost to the aliens that Superman lured to their once-safe city—the costs they were forced to bear while smiling and being grateful to the man the media called a hero. She listened as politicians and generals marched on stage, praising the “real” American heroes who championed the “real” American way by following rules and operating in the established order, by working their way up the ranks without the help of extraterrestrial powers and making their mark on the world to which they were born—the world they deserved to control.

When she thought it could get no worse—no worse than the near mind control she saw seizing the hearts and minds of those around her—she watched as a contingent that had been worked up into a mob of sorts stormed down one of the side streets toward the alien safe haven that, according to Maggie’s frantic hissing, was apparently nearby. They clutched at weapons that looked far too advanced to have been purchased at a corner store, weapons Alex suspected had been doled out by the ones really in control—the ones who would disappear without a trace, leaving the mob to be dismissed as a few fanatics who took their message too far. After all, Cadmus was here to save the earth. How were they to predict that people would take their message to its (logical) extremes?

Alex’s stomach churned as Sam, looking every bit the part of the lawyer and former Army Major, swept over to the press, intent on spinning this event exactly the way she wanted it while she kept the reporters with their cameras from following the swarm of action, from seeing the murder and scenes of horror that must surely be playing out down the street under Cadmus’ unofficial encouragement. Alex’s fingers twitched, desperately wanting to call J’onn, Kara, Clark, to demand backup before any more lives could be lost to this senseless violence.

Victor led Alex and Maggie away from the mob, whispering that it was better to let those less valuable—Cadmus’ foot soldiers—do the dirty work while they handled the rest, grinning as though this were all some game, like they should be proud of their leading role in “reclaiming the earth.”

As they waited by the car, waited for news about the destruction wrought under their implicit guidance, Maggie’s hand found Alex’s, giving her more comfort than she would have believed a single touch could bring. The warmth and strength of her grip grounded Alex, reminded her that all of this was for a reason, that she had to trust that the police and Superman would hear and heed the calls for help, that by not compromising their identities just yet, they would be in a position to prevent tragedies of a much larger scale, to finally bring to justice all those responsible—not just the easily manipulated crowds, but the true believers, the ones who wielded microphones and hid behind screens and money and influence.

Looking down at his phone, Victor smiled. “It looks like today was even more of a success than we imagined. Sam needs to stay a little later than expected, but she’s asked me to make sure you lovely ladies get home safely and to invite you over for a belated celebration at her house tomorrow.”

“That works,” Maggie agreed. “We’re close enough to my place that we can just walk.” She suspected they could both use some time away from anyone’s watchful gaze, and getting into a car with any driver Victor trusted was distinctly unpalatable at the moment.

“Are you sure? I can call one of our drivers.”

“No, no, it’s fine. We’ll probably stop for food,” Alex lied, knowing there was no way she’d be able to keep anything down at the moment.

“At least let us send someone for you tomorrow?”

Figuring they wouldn’t be able to get out of this one, Maggie nodded.

“Excellent, I’ll send a driver to your place around 7.”

---

By the time they made it back to Maggie’s apartment, Alex couldn’t hold onto the façade any longer, sinking to the ground as she bit back bitter tears she refused to let fall. Because dammit, this wasn’t how she responded. She wanted to scream and yell and hit something. But instead she found herself constrained, forced to wait as everyone around her did the hard work and she sat there and pretended to support evil. And having to see her sister lying on the ground, looking utterly lifeless while she sat in another city doing nothing but encouraging this kind of hatred—it felt like more than she could handle.

Maggie sank to the ground next to Alex, handing over a bottle of some fancy electrolyte water that kept showing up in the groceries Kate and Bruce had delivered to her building—always coming with a surprise or two hidden among the organic vegetables and artisanal cheeses.

“Thanks,” Alex murmured, taking the bottle, grateful for the cold glass—the sensation grounding her, drawing her back into the moment. As she took a sip, though, she gagged, coughing and spluttering. “What the fuck is this, Sawyer?”

“I don’t know, fancy white people water, I think.” Scrunching her eyebrows together in confusion at Alex’s look of horror, Maggie grabbed the bottle from her and took a sip. “Ugh, that’s awful.”

“It tastes like ass.”

“That’s an insult to asses everywhere.”

And despite everything, Alex found herself laughing—laughing too loudly as the defensive walls she’d spent so many years building and solidifying seemed to crumble, Maggie knowing just what to say and do to make her feel safe enough to let the cracks split them wide open. As the barks of laughter joined with tears of frustration and anger that Alex hurriedly wiped away, she felt Maggie’s arm snake behind her back, pulling her in close as she held her until she stopped shaking.

“You’re good,” Maggie whispered, her fingers gently stroking up and down Alex’s back even now that she seemed okay once more. “I’ve got you.”

“Thanks.” Alex’s voice was gruff as she attempted a kind of stoicism that she knew her earlier show of emotions had probably ruined.

Figuring Alex could use a distraction more than empty words of comfort, Maggie held out a hand and helped her up. “How about you go find us some comfortable clothes from my drawers? I’ll get a snack and meet you in there.”

“Roger that.”

Half an hour later, they found themselves far more relaxed (if a little tipsy) curled up in Maggie’s bed in designer sweatpants, a plate of cheese and chocolate in between them and a bottle of ridiculously expensive red wine being handed back and forth and drunk straight from the bottle as though it were two-buck-chuck getting passed around a high school party, the expense of red solo cups one too large to bear after having bribed an older sibling to even get the wine in the first place.

“Worst undercover moment—and nothing sad!” Maggie added, pointing her finger right up in Alex’s face as if to emphasize her point. The wine had messed up her depth perception just enough that she ended up booping Alex’s nose slightly, snorting at the face Alex pulled.

“I had to go on a date with Max Lord, and he fed me snail eggs.” Alex looked pained at the mere memory of it, while Maggie howled with laughter.

“No!”

“Yes! It was awful.”

“I can only imagine…”

“What about you?”

“Oh, um, I once spent two whole months in Florida pretending to be a heterosexual.”

“I cannot imagine that going well for you,” Alex laughed, offering the wine back to Maggie to help her wash away the memory.

“No…I’ve never been hit on by so many adult men with frosted tips. And, to add insult to injury, I was forced to look mildly pleased about it!”

Crinkling her nose in disgust, Alex shook her head. “At least Max was just a couple of times. I think I’d have killed him if we had to spend more than a week together.”

“I’ve broken my fair share of fingers and wrists—handsy marks, what are you gonna do, right?”

“I guess I should count myself lucky to have all my bones intact, then,” Alex laughed, thinking back to the night they first met at the fight club.

“Nah, you were like my evil knight in shining armor, sweeping me away from the creepy men who wanted to hold my hand during the fight or some shit.”

“Ah, well, that’s me—regular old Lancelot over here.”

“So does that make me your Guinevere?” Maggie teased. “Didn’t quite have a husband, but I did have an ex-husband I cheated on—or Maria did,” Maggie trailed off, looking up as she tried to think back to her college English classes.

“You’re a nerd.”

“You caught the reference, Danvers.” Before Maggie could gloat any further, she found a pillow being shoved into her face and the almost empty bottle of wine snatched away before any could spill.

As Maggie recovered, she propped herself up on the pillows and stretched her legs out. With a quick grab, she stole the wine back and took a long sip, growing contemplative. “Would you choose this life again? If you had the choice.”

“What—this mission or undercover work in general?”

Maggie had meant the latter, but she was morbidly curious to know whether Alex would opt to meet her knowing all that would happen—all that could still happen—so she shrugged. “Both.”

“I don’t know. I think so. I don’t go on these long missions so much anymore, which helps.”

“Got someone waiting for you back home?” Maggie asked, trying not to focus on the sinking feeling in her stomach.

“A sister,” Alex answered—it was the first time she’d spoken about her family.

Trying not to grin when that was the only person listed, Maggie nodded. “Does she at least know what you do?”

“Yeah, now she does. It was worse when she didn’t, when I had to act like I just wanted to ignore her for weeks, sometimes even months at a time.”

“It really is quite the relationship ruiner.”

“You have someone waiting back home? Or someone you hope is still waiting back home?” Alex asked, secretly hoping the answer was no.

“No, no,” Maggie answered, shaking her head ruefully. “Tried it—never works out. They say I’m more committed to the job than I ever was to them, or I end up having to cheat on them for the good of the mission. It’s just…no. Just me.”

“Would you choose a different life for yourself if you could?”

“Sometimes I think I might have—now that I’m in my thirties, I can’t help but think that it might be nice to have someone to come home to at the end of the day. But, hey, I’d never have met you otherwise.” It was supposed to lighten the mode, but she suspected it sounded more sincere than she’d intended.

“You have me now,” Alex whispered, dropping her head down to the pillows as she looked up at Maggie, wanting nothing more than to roll over and kiss her hard—hard enough to chase away the haunted look in her eyes that came from too many people walking out the door, leaving because they’d decided it wasn’t worth the effort, never lingering long enough to understand just how amazing the woman they let go really was. Because Alex knew if they had, they’d never have walked away.

“Right, yeah, I’ve got Cat for the time being,” Maggie sighed, forcing a smile, desperately trying to remind herself that all of this would end soon enough, that getting attached—even to someone who wasn’t evil—was never a good idea.

Ignoring the way her thoughts railed against that, protesting against the idea that all they had was what Cat and Maria had, Alex nodded. “Right, right. Cat and Maria.”

“Yeah.”

#undercover(s)#sanvers #slow burn #spy au #alex x maggie #angst #cadmus #alex danvers #maggie sawyer #fanfic #ao3feed

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caitofcaithall · 4 years

Text

Wasteland

[TW: unhappyish ending, implied suicide, implied murder. This is effectively prologue to a series though; the happy ending is on the way! Also, this was written about a year ago, so before C19 - I just didn’t feel right starting to post the series without it.]

So it’s like this:

The world fell apart on a Tuesday. While happy, unassuming people were eating their morning pig in a poke and rushing off to the office, a rather special, rather deadly virus was escaping a military lab somewhere out in Missouri.

Perhaps it could have been contained, if they’d realized it in time.

But the doctor in charge of the specimen was due for his vacation. The other scientists in the lab had no initial reason to think that procedure wasn’t being followed to the letter.

The apocalypse had begun, and no one noticed… for another eight hours, anyway.

It seemed to take scarcely any time at all before the world was in ruin. World leaders fell. Governments toppled. Society as we knew it came to a screeching halt, and what was left were the remnants of those who adjusted and fought to go on.

Gavin grew up poor.

It’s just how it was. His parents died at the height of the plague. His elder brother held on for a few years, shielding him as best he could. He was probably the reason that Gavin survived. But then he, too, succumbed to the harsh scrapyard that had become their life, and Gavin was a young alpha alone.

He was determined to survive, so he scrambled and he scrapped and he scraped for every drop of water, every hard-earned crust of bread. It made him strong and it made him fierce and it made him lonely and he decided, one night when the sun dropped below the horizon and the earth was blanketed in darkness and starlight, that when he was old enough and strong enough he would make something of himself. He would be bold and he would live fully and he would have a mate and a family of his own.

This is not that story.

This story is much darker.

This is the story of the universe where Gavin’s dreams went up in smoke.

Farmer. Builder. Hunter. Shoemaker.

Esteemed professions all. Gavin worked with all of their masters, trying to find his place in the world, a spot he could settle in and be proud of.

He was good at them. He had a way with the grapes on their trellises. He could fix roofs and bring down deer to feed his patrons for weeks at a time. The shoemaker he studied under wanted to keep him on, admiring the small artistic touches Gavin assigned to the leathers they worked. Told Gavin he could be more than good, if he got more practice in him. The man would be happy to name Gavin his heir in place of the boy he lost long ago.

But Gavin couldn’t settle. It wasn’t so much ambition as it was a thirst - a desperate need to know more and more, to be learnèd for its own sake. But ambition came snaking in, anyhow. The world might have changed, but it was still ruled by the wealthy.

If Gavin were wealthy himself, he reasoned, then he’d never have to go hungry again. He wouldn’t have to hope for the best, that an omega might look beyond his threadbare clothes and his blunt manners, in order to see to the heart of him. He’d be accepted just about anywhere he went. He could have a voice, an influence. He could be of service to those who needed it in a way that he was limited from, now.

He knew that the only way he’d reach that ideal was to be educated.

So he studied.

He worked all day with the shoemaker, or with the farmer in his fields. And he studied all the night, sleep taking a backseat to the quest for more information, more polish. He never noticed the omegas who did hunger for him, saw beyond his patched clothes to the heart of the man beneath, the man who always had time for the wee toddling children and the old men and women without families. Never saw that his own striking good looks and hard-working disposition was enough to get him the life he wanted, just as he was.

When the day came that Gavin purchased his first proper suit, he nearly didn’t go through with it. The suit cost as much as he would make in an entire month of work - maybe more - with no options for trade or barter. But when he took a bath and slipped the fabric on, staring at himself in the mirror, he felt a surge of confidence take up habitat in his bones.

It was time. He was ready.

His first two interviews for positions that utilized his hard-earned book learning didn’t bear any fruit. But he rationalized it to himself, remembering his brother’s favorite phrase as they would scavenge for food and glean from the edges of the fields - third time lucky.

So he interviewed for the position of a tutor to an omega son of a local aristocrat. The advertisement made it seem as though his charge would be younger, needing a firm bit of polish before being introduced to the upper crusts of society.

Gavin met with the boy’s father in a wood-paneled study with large windows, in a house that had a maid to answer the door. He must have made some kind of good impression, because after the man finished smoking a cigar, he leaned back in his chair and told Gavin what his salary would be and that he would be required to begin lessons the next day.

Gavin could only agree.

This was it. This was his chance. This was his way out of poverty, his way into being a powerful man in his own right. Maybe he would even find a mate of his own. Maybe he too would eventually own a big house with paneled walls and villagers who admired him for the abundance he brought to their area.

His dreams lasted precisely as long as it took for him to walk out into the fields with his new employer, that he might meet his charge.

This was no young omega who needed a firm hand to keep him in check as he grew up.

This was a full grown man, eager and ready, his scent calling to Gavin like the bouquet of a fresh baked apple pie to a starving man.

Gavin went to purgatory every day for six hours - the amount of time allocated for him to instruct Jay in science and literature, etiquette and history. He learned things, too, like the shape of Jay’s mouth when he frowned at the ‘useless essays’ Jay’s father wanted him to complete, and the way the sunlight burned gold into Jay’s dark hair when Gavin had to track him down in the fields.

For the most part, Jay was a good sport about the tutoring. It was obvious he didn’t want it; he was most at home among the rows of corn and squash, or wading in the creek that cut across the backside of the property. But every time Gavin would come to collect him, he’d give up the hoe or the fishing line or the moment of snugging his fingers into his favorite dog’s scruff, and walk back to the house with Gavin, his gait loose and easy as he peeked up from the sides of his eyes.

It took three weeks for Gavin to break.

“Why don’t you have a mate, then?” Jay asked, the corner of his mouth tilted up like he had a secret he wasn’t keen to share.

Gavin swallowed. “Never did find the right person, I suppose,” he answered.

“Hmm.”

They walked in silence for a moment longer. Once they crested the hill, they’d be in sight of the house.

Jay stopped abruptly. “Do you believe in the old ways?”

Gavin wasn’t a man used to floundering, but he wasn’t sure how to answer Jay’s question. Not honestly, anyhow. Not without opening a box of worms that was sure to see him thrown out on his ass with no references.

When the silence hung in the air a little too long, Jay shifted his weight and ducked his head. “I do,” he murmured. “My mam does. My father’s not my real father, you know. My mam’s true alpha died when I was a child.”

Christ. Gavin scrubbed his hand across his face. He wasn’t ready for this. It was the very definition of standing between a rock and a hard place. There was even an outcropping a few feet away, and his feet took him there without his consent. The stone was hard against his backside as he sank down to sit.

When Jay joined him, Gavin sighed. “I do,” he said. “Believe in the old ways, I mean.” How could he not, when every moment since he’d met Jay, the sight and scent of the younger man called out to him like a beacon?

“Then you know what I’m about to say,” Jay said gently.

Gavin wanted to be a better man. He’d had a plan for his future, a plan that involved making nice with these people, and investing his wages, and building a name for himself. Settling down with a nice omega. Having a family.

He never dreamed he’d find his omega. The person the gods themselves chose for him. The son of a man with wealth and power, who’d made it abundantly clear that Jay would be seeking a marriage of stature in the city the following spring - if he wasn’t married off to support a business alliance, first.

“Where you are - ” Jay started, but Gavin moved quickly, placing a finger across his omega’s lips before he could finish the start of his chant, the ancient rite to take one’s own fated in marriage.

“You hardly know me,” Gavin said, but it came out weak.

Jay shook his head. “I know you by the scent of your sweat,” he said. “The pine resin and woodsmoke, the earthy loam that leaves me so scent-drunk I can hardly stand it.” Gavin opened his mouth again, but Jay hurried on before he could speak. “I know you by the way you stopped to carry my mam’s baskets for her last week, and how patient you are when I don’t understand the questions you put to me in the schoolroom.” He reached out, his fingertips ghosting along Gavin’s palm, ever mindful that they were not truly alone. “I know you by the calluses in your hands, that you’ve done hard labor - by the muscles in your arms as you tossed and played with the children on Sunday last.”

Jay looked at him boldly, defiantly, a bright flush spreading across his cheeks and over his ears, down his neck and under the cover of his shirt. “I know you as an omega knows their alpha, Gavin. Or at least, I’d like to.”

And what could Gavin do, faced with his own feral omega, Jay’s scent heady in his throat, Gavin’s own skin tingling where Jay brushed against it?

Everyone knows that an alpha surrenders to their own heart.

It was hard to keep a secret in Jay’s household. They felt like Romeo and Juliet, that famous alpha-omega couple whose forbidden love was doomed to failure. They realized it would be easier for Jay to aver any questions that might come if he was found wandering in the night or the early morning; therefore he was the one to creep quietly along the corridors in search of his alpha.

They were quiet. They had to be. Gavin agreed with Jay when Jay told him that his father would never accept them, and that he needed a few more weeks to prepare before they came clean with their deception. They knew they’d have to leave quickly in the aftermath.

Which is why it was a surprise when Jay’s mother pulled Gavin aside one morning, looking carefully up one way and down the other, before pressing a bulging cloth bag into his hands.

“I’m expecting you to do right by my boy,” she said softly. “I just want him to be happy.”

“Mrs. Adams,” he started, but she shook her head.

“My husband is a good man,” she said. “But he doesn’t understand. You take Jay and you leave, you ken? Give him a day or two to make his peace with it, and then you go.”

He opened his mouth again, but the creak of a tread on the staircase had her jerking back, stepping away from him quickly and hurrying down the hall to intercept the maid, come up to do the cleaning.

Gavin lifted the flap of the bag. Dried beans and jerky, some travelers biscuits, a small block of hard cheese. Some jewelry - more than suitable for a good trade. He sucked in a breath, glancing back the way she’d gone, before moving back to his room to secrete the bag amongst his things for safekeeping.

Jay wasn’t ready to go. It was obvious, from the drooping line of his shoulders to the crease that took up roost between his eyebrows. But he drew in a breath anyway, and reached down to fumble his shirt between his fingers where the fabric met his stomach.

“Alright, then,” he said firmly. “I’d like to leave now.”

“Now?” Gavin had intended to give him more time. A day to rest up for the journey and finish saying his goodbyes to his mam and the land he ran wild over, but Jay’s jaw was set.

“Mam wouldn’t have approached you if she weren’t worried,” he said. “That means it’s probably best to go now.”

“You know what this is about,” Gavin mused, and Jay nodded.

“We can stand here talking about it, or I can fill a pack,” he offered.

Gavin leaned down to press a kiss to Jay’s lips. “Go on, then,” he said. But as Jay stole from the room, Gavin resolved to ask again later.

The house was silent as they slipped down the stairs, avoiding the treads that creaked and groaned, and out the back door. Jay’s dog was asleep on the stoop, and he rose to his feet with a whine of greeting, wagging his tail and pressing his head against Jay’s legs.

Gavin’s stomach sank. It was clear the pup would wake the house in his excitement if they didn’t hurry things up. They didn’t have the provisions to care for a dog, but a single look at Jay’s face had Gavin whispering, “Keep him quiet and you can bring him along.”

Jay didn’t bother to hide his grin.

“Hush, Samson,” he murmured, and the dog grew calm, falling into place beside them as they crept through the courtyard and down the road.

They were well away from the town before Gavin spoke, still careful to keep his voice soft and even, the slightest rumble on the balmy night breeze. “What was it that made you want to leave tonight?”

Jay didn’t answer for a long moment, and when he did, his voice was sharp and ugly. “A suitor,” he said. “Father wants me to marry him.”

“You know the man, then,” Gavin realized.

Jay shuddered. “Yes.”

Gavin reached up to secure Jay’s hand in his. They didn’t speak for a long time.

The sun rose red in the morning, it’s crimson shadows dark like blood. Gavin’s feet were sore in his boots; he’d no doubt that Jay’s were the same.

They could stand to walk farther. A few miles more would bring them to a small town where they could have their marriage officiated in a church and trade for transportation; there’d be no separating them once they were legally secure and well away.

They stopped anyway, weary from their trek and lack of sleep. They’d no reason to suspect anyone yet knew of their departure; a few hours nap wasn’t likely to hurt.

They found a sheltered spot beneath a willow tree to hide them from prying eyes. Gavin intended to stay away to keep watch while his beloved slept - but as the long night and day before caught up to him, he too succumbed to the succor of sleep.

The growl of the dog jostled them awake; when they were roused enough from their slumber to understand the danger they were in, there was no retreating from it. They were surrounded.

There was nothing to do for it. Behind him, Jay shivered in fear. Ahead, men circled the tree, the willow vines offering scant protection. Their leader called out, crooning, his voice sickly and dead, his eyes fixed on Gavin’s mate.

“You didn’t think you could run away from me again, did you, little omega?”

The land was silent; all that could be heard was the deep thurl of Samson growling in defense of his master.

“You’ve no business here,” Gavin said, his voice loud enough to carry. “Let my husband and I go in peace.”

“I’ll see you shot for your impudence, whelp,” the strange alpha declared, and then they were out of time, out of choices, out of peace. They pulled Jay one way; tore Gavin the other. Samson’s yelp echoed, Jay’s screams heavy behind it. Their bags were shaken out and emptied onto the ground; the glittering gold of Mrs. Adam’s jewelry the last thing Gavin saw before it all went black.

* * *

Jay woke up alone in bed. The sun shone brightly through the windows. Samson lay bandaged on the bedcovers beside him. His mam gave a sharp gasp of surprise before she began to fuss over him.

“What happened?” Jay winced, and his mam’s face grew dark and weary.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she said, and the fear in the pit of his stomach grew and grew until he could no longer contain it. He bolted from the bed on unsteady feet to be violently ill in the room’s attached bath.

“Where’s Gavin?” he croaked as soon as he could speak.

“I don’t know,” came the honest reply, and those words would echo in his head in the time to come.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

“Mam?” he started, and hated how soft and small his voice came out.

“You’re going to be okay,” she promised, and drew him into her arms, rocking him like he was a child again and not a man standing a head taller than she did. “You’re going to be okay, Jay.”

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

“Your tutor! What were you thinking?!” his father raged, and Jay stood there, dumb and stony-faced, his back straight and tall.

He wasn’t ashamed.

“It doesn’t matter,” his mother’s husband said finally. “Jessup will still take you. Has a bit of an obsession with you, poor bastard.”

“I won’t marry him,” Jay said. “I’m already mated.”

“That ridiculous ancient rite?” The man who had raised him, sheltered him, sneered, his face ugly. “At any rate, not for long.”

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

There was a knock at the locked door. Jay looked to it listlessly; it wasn’t as though anyone needed his permission to enter. That had been made abundantly clear to him. He had been locked inside for weeks, seeing only his mother, the maid Celia, and the doctor. After he heard the shouting the other night between his mother and her husband, she hadn’t been back to see him.

He placed a hand on the light, increasing swell of stomach. He expected Celia again; it was a bit early for his nightly meal but it wasn’t as if his comfort was anyone’s priority.

A key rattled in the lock.

It wasn’t the maid.

“Who are you?” he demanded, but even as the words left his lips, he knew the answer.

Witch. They said she was Jessup’s mistress - a slender, evocative thing with ink-black hair and enough presence to command an army. The look of anxiety on her face appeared unseemly, somehow.

“I can’t be found here,” she said quietly, closing the door behind her with a quiet snick.

“Why are you here?” Jay asked.

“To bring you this,” the witch said, and produced a small vial in her hands, setting it down atop his dresser.

Jay swallowed. “What is that?”

“I think you know.”

Jay said nothing for a long moment. Then - “Do you know what happened to him?”

The witch regarded Jay calmly. “Not for sure,” she said, cautious, but then her tone turned bitter. “I only know that my own beloved came back one night gloating, and that he still has plans for you.” She gestured to his stomach. “After.”

“You have to know I want no part of him,” Jay said, and the witch snorted.

“I know. Believe me. Your soul fairly reeks of the love you have for your husband. It’s… overwhelming.”

“You’re here for another reason,” Jay guessed, and backed away as she strode forward, catching his shoulders in hands of steel.

“I’ve come to warn you,” she said. “And may your souls find peace.”

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

* * *

The witch was a canny sort. She could see for herself the light that shone between the two lovers - perhaps she had seen it before they had, on a dusty summer’s day, when she’d spied the two of them cooling off in the creek.

When Jessup came to her, teeming with rage and a viciousness that scared even her, she knew that she would do his bidding. It was for the good of her own survival that she had laid the curse, that each life lived in each other’s company would be full of toils and trials, that their mistake of loving only each other might haunt them through the many worlds.

But she was not without a heart. And when she brought the curse to bear, she writ in a failsafe: that if they found their way back to one another, again and again, their love might burn apart the bindings of the curse, so that each time they encountered it, the curse would be weaker than before.

In this life, Gavin was lost, no trace of him to be seen, leaving only agony in his wake.

But in the next life, and the life after, and the many worlds as they were writ parallel throughout the universe, there were other Jays - other Gavins.

And the misery of her curse did take them, twisting their circumstances and their hopes and sometimes their very natures - but with each incarnation, the pain eased, and lessened, until all that was left was their very own

Happily ever after.

[The next episode of the Find You series is about 30k. I’ll be posting on Tuesdays and Fridays until it’s finished! For other fics, you can find my Tumblr masterpost here or check me out on A03!]

#my writing #omegaverse #original fic #find you series #fairytale

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brian-cdates · 6 years

Text

What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body

Years Living With Processed Foods

How long have you been living with processed foods?

“Please help me go, please help me go” —a breath prayer I often said aloud for years while sitting in the Loo (i.e. on the toilet)—in the pit of discomfort!

I often just WANTED (and needed) to “go,” but, many times, I not able to “go” for days.

Constipation is Real

Stuck—often times how I felt in my own skin. Stuck in my gut. Constipated. And like my body was at war, in my own skin.

At age 26, even though I ate “healthy” (on paper), something was not right.

Greens? Check.

Sweet potatoes? Check.

Salmon? Check.

Almonds? Check.

Eggs? Check.

Broccoli? Check.

Coconut Butter and Coconut Oil? Check.

I was doing ALL the “right things,” so why did it have to hurt so much?

Answer: Healthy “being” goes far beyond diet alone.

At least once you’ve been enlightened…

Exhibit A: Day 1 Nutrition School (You & I Are NOT Alone)

“Stand up and introduce yourself. What got you interested in studying nutrition?” the teacher said.

As we went around the room sharing our stories, one by one, we also began to realize that…we were not alone.

Many of my fellow classmates were survivors of the processed-food, antibiotic, vaccine, sedentary lifestyle and chronic disease generation, and somehow, had all lived to tell about it.

Mic drop.

Nope. None of us were alone.

What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body

Even if you “eat healthy” and “do all the right things” today, your past experiences paved way for the way you feel (or don’t feel) now.

I’m a Survivor

For the first 26 years of my life, my body didn’t see a real food—really.

The universal theme? My body—namely my gut—didn’t know how to deal with the influx of foods that were difficult to digest. The result? A host of inflammation and imbalances.

In short: How you feel today (or how you will feel tomorrow, or 10-50 years from now) is a result of the choices you made years ago.

Survey Says

I spent the entire 26th year of life, studying nutrition and forming the foundations of my current functional medicine, nutrition and therapy business.

The following images from a few of my lab tests are just a glimpse of what 26 years of processed foods, lifestyle and gut stress does to your body.

Osteoporosis:

Cause: Malnutrition, lack of essential fatty acids, inability to absorb nutrients (“leaky gut”) and bacterial overgrowth

SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth)

Cause: High grain consumption, low stomach acid, stress, overtraining, artificial sweeteners, low fat diets, FODMAP foods, antibiotics, processed and packaged foods

High Cortisol (i.e. stress hormone)

The Bottom Line

Knowledge is power, and healing IS possible—(even with 26 years+ of processed foods and other health stressors under your belt).

The secret?

It goes far beyond “clean eating”….

How to Heal Your Gut

It’s easier than you think. It involves 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Identify the Underlying Root Cause(s) of your Gut Issues

Environmental toxic burden

SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth)

Parasites, fungal or bacterial infection

Dysbiosis (imbalanced gut bacteria)

Food intolerances

Intestinal permeability

Chronic infections (Lyme, Ebstein Barr)

Bonus:

Stool testing

Comprehensive blood chemistry testing (not just a CBC)

SIBO breath testing

Organic acids testing

DUTCH hormone/cortisol testing

IgG, IgA, IgE food intolerance/allergy testing

Heavy metals/essential nutrients testing

Step 2: Get Back to the Basics

You cannot supplement or eat your way out of a stressful lifestyle. The “unsexy” simple health basics are game-changers for calming stress AND gut healing including:

Eating a nutrient-dense, whole-foods ancestral diet (proteins, carbs and fats included)

Drinking half your bodyweight in ounces of water daily

Taking a quality probiotic, prebiotics and eating fermented and prebiotic foods daily

Sleeping 7-9 hours per night

Resetting your circadian rhythm (limiting screen exposure/artificial light at night; eating at normal times; getting fresh air)

Daily movement/exercise (but not TOO much)

Step 3: Heal (Don’t Manage) Your Symptoms

The post What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body appeared first on Meet Dr. Lauryn.

Source/Repost=> https://drlauryn.com/gut-health/what-26-years-of-processed-foods-does-to-your-body/ ** Dr. Lauryn Lax __Nutrition. Therapy. Functional Medicine ** https://drlauryn.com/ What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body via http://drlaurynlax.tumblr.com/

#Brian C. Dates #BrianDates #Holistic #Nutrition #Therapy #Recovery #Functional #Medicine

0 notes

clarencebfaber · 6 years

Text

What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body

Years Living With Processed Foods

How long have you been living with processed foods?

“Please help me go, please help me go” —a breath prayer I often said aloud for years while sitting in the Loo (i.e. on the toilet)—in the pit of discomfort!

I often just WANTED (and needed) to “go,” but, many times, I not able to “go” for days.

Constipation is Real

Stuck—often times how I felt in my own skin. Stuck in my gut. Constipated. And like my body was at war, in my own skin.

At age 26, even though I ate “healthy” (on paper), something was not right.

Greens? Check.

Sweet potatoes? Check.

Salmon? Check.

Almonds? Check.

Eggs? Check.

Broccoli? Check.

Coconut Butter and Coconut Oil? Check.

I was doing ALL the “right things,” so why did it have to hurt so much?

Answer: Healthy “being” goes far beyond diet alone.

At least once you’ve been enlightened…

Exhibit A: Day 1 Nutrition School (You & I Are NOT Alone)

“Stand up and introduce yourself. What got you interested in studying nutrition?” the teacher said.

As we went around the room sharing our stories, one by one, we also began to realize that…we were not alone.

Many of my fellow classmates were survivors of the processed-food, antibiotic, vaccine, sedentary lifestyle and chronic disease generation, and somehow, had all lived to tell about it.

Mic drop.

Nope. None of us were alone.

What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body

Even if you “eat healthy” and “do all the right things” today, your past experiences paved way for the way you feel (or don’t feel) now.

I’m a Survivor

For the first 26 years of my life, my body didn’t see a real food—really.

The universal theme? My body—namely my gut—didn’t know how to deal with the influx of foods that were difficult to digest. The result? A host of inflammation and imbalances.

In short: How you feel today (or how you will feel tomorrow, or 10-50 years from now) is a result of the choices you made years ago.

Survey Says

I spent the entire 26th year of life, studying nutrition and forming the foundations of my current functional medicine, nutrition and therapy business.

The following images from a few of my lab tests are just a glimpse of what 26 years of processed foods, lifestyle and gut stress does to your body.

Osteoporosis:

Cause: Malnutrition, lack of essential fatty acids, inability to absorb nutrients (“leaky gut”) and bacterial overgrowth

SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth)

Cause: High grain consumption, low stomach acid, stress, overtraining, artificial sweeteners, low fat diets, FODMAP foods, antibiotics, processed and packaged foods

High Cortisol (i.e. stress hormone)

The Bottom Line

Knowledge is power, and healing IS possible—(even with 26 years+ of processed foods and other health stressors under your belt).

The secret?

It goes far beyond “clean eating”….

How to Heal Your Gut

It’s easier than you think. It involves 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Identify the Underlying Root Cause(s) of your Gut Issues

Environmental toxic burden

SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth)

Parasites, fungal or bacterial infection

Dysbiosis (imbalanced gut bacteria)

Food intolerances

Intestinal permeability

Chronic infections (Lyme, Ebstein Barr)

Bonus:

Stool testing

Comprehensive blood chemistry testing (not just a CBC)

SIBO breath testing

Organic acids testing

DUTCH hormone/cortisol testing

IgG, IgA, IgE food intolerance/allergy testing

Heavy metals/essential nutrients testing

Step 2: Get Back to the Basics

You cannot supplement or eat your way out of a stressful lifestyle. The “unsexy” simple health basics are game-changers for calming stress AND gut healing including:

Eating a nutrient-dense, whole-foods ancestral diet (proteins, carbs and fats included)

Drinking half your bodyweight in ounces of water daily

Taking a quality probiotic, prebiotics and eating fermented and prebiotic foods daily

Sleeping 7-9 hours per night

Resetting your circadian rhythm (limiting screen exposure/artificial light at night; eating at normal times; getting fresh air)

Daily movement/exercise (but not TOO much)

Step 3: Heal (Don’t Manage) Your Symptoms

The post What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body appeared first on Meet Dr. Lauryn.

Source/Repost=> https://drlauryn.com/gut-health/what-26-years-of-processed-foods-does-to-your-body/ ** Dr. Lauryn Lax __Nutrition. Therapy. Functional Medicine ** https://drlauryn.com/

What 26 Years of Processed Foods Does to Your Body via https://drlaurynlax.weebly.com/

#Clarence B. Faber #ClarenceFaber #Holistic #Nutrition #Therapy #Recovery #Functional #Medicine

0 notes