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hargrove-mayfields · 3 years

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Day four of the Horror on Cherry Lane Challenge! Today’s prompt was Sunglasses!

Steve has a lot of secrets. Too many probably.

Most teenagers’ secrets are things like sleeping with the wrong people, smoking the cheap shit the jocks pass out, broken curfews and failing grades. He’s got all of those too, but Steve's secret runs much deeper than that.

His is the kind of secret that’d have men in black suits coming to take him away, or at this point, more than a decade after letting him go in the first place, putting a bullet in the back of his skull and calling it a day before any trouble comes up.

He’s been stuck in Hawkins all his life. Been fed the knowledge about the world off a silver spoon he didn’t ask for. His first five years of life are well forgotten to shock therapy and to the lab, where they intended to use him and the rest of the kids like him as weapons. Pawns in their big game of life.

But Steve was different. He could turn his powers off, make them undetectable by the machines they hooked him up to. They thought he was just a failure, so after so long, they wiped his brain with their very own cocktail of drugs and just let him go. Adopted him out to a middle aged dink couple who wouldn’t run their mouths about where their little bundle of joy came from as long as their pockets were lined with enough hush money, and that was that.

It didn’t take long for them to realize though, that he wasn’t as normal as they had been convinced he was. Not even knowing he was doing anything wrong, little Stevie would have outbursts, or small tantrums as momma always tried to convince everyone who told her Steve was too much for her to handle.

These weren’t just normal crying fits though. Anyone who got near him would be just as sad or scared or frustrated as he was. A single sob from that boy had enough power to crack the foundations of the family home.

Most kids when they have a cranky morning will get on the nerves of their parents, but Steve could disrupt the whole neighborhood without even realizing it. And that was his power.

They didn’t have a name for it, really. The range of what he can do is too broad, too undefined by anything else. There was a telekinetic girl, a pyrokinetic he’s pretty sure is dead now. But Steve was just special. Part of what made it so easy to go under their radar was this, but it also made him a risk.

The only reason he wasn’t immediately reported and given back to the bad men was the power this frail boy carried. It scared Ruthie and John, and they decided that they’d rather face the men at that lab again than a seven year old who could accidentally destroy them with his emotions.

So they kept him, and certainly kept their distance. They forced him into a little mold of how to behave properly and made him take pills to weaken his powers. They send him to behavioral therapy and make him act like he’s not a failed government experiment. A fact which he only learned a couple of years ago after his pills worked a little too well at messing with his memory that he forgot to take them, and memories came flooding back.

For the same reasons, Steve’s bored of being careful. Bored of following all the rules and being passive, just pretending he’s like everyone else so mommy and daddy dearest are safe. He starts getting a little riskier, testing what he can do, since this is the first time he’s ever really had control over his ability. He finds a link with other people and their emotions, something of an empathy power, but he doesn’t get far in his research, because his plan very quickly goes to shit when Billy Hargrove rolls into town.

Where to begin with Billy. That boy makes him feel all sorts of things he never even considered. The very first day he showed his unimpressed (but very impressive) face at Hawkins high, Steve cracks his windshield. Oops.

He was able to tap into that control and tone it down, but that reserve dwindled the more he’s around Billy, and from there it just spirals. Bending the basketball hoop on accident, exploding light fixtures, giving everyone in the school headaches. It gets to the point where Steve has to come to terms with the fact that he had a crush on Billy, and that he has to do something to get it back under his control before somebody gets hurt.

That and he doesn’t want to get caught now. He just got back into the swing of using his powers before Billy interrupted his calm. Going back there, or whatever else might happen, is the last thing he wants for himself.

He settles for a pair of ray bans.

It’s stupid, but when Steve was still young and all but popping his mommas brains every single time he cried, she was desperate to find a way to get him to stop. She started to notice he’d concentrate hard on one thing and another would happen, staring at a lamp until it shattered, looking into her face until her ears started to ring and pop. So she does what she can to break that subconscious focus. Puts a barrier between him and all that he’s hurting. A plastic, race car themed barrier, but it does its job, and it worked every time until they got him on meds. So now that he’s old enough not to just tear the damn things right off his face, he figures it’s worth a shot.

Because nothing had made him this emotional, this out of control since the day he found out the truth about his past. Billy is special, and the very last thing he wants is to lose control and hurt him.

He still feels like a dope walking into the school with a pair of shades on. Everyone starts to stare in that way he tries not to let remind him of the lab and the doctors standing in circles around him, prodding and waiting for a reaction. Steve thinks wearing sunglass inside is the least weird thing to happen in the halls of a highschool if Tina can come in with a perm high enough to touch the ceiling, but whatever. He’ll get over it.

The fact that nothing’s exploded from how on edge he is, mostly from wondering if his momma’s trick will work and not because of their judgement, is a very good sign.

Boldly, he decides to put it to the ultimate test, and approaches Billy.

In his head, he’s so focused on just going to talk to Billy, he has nothing planned to say to him, but he thinks he would’ve forgotten anyways, what with the lazy smile Billy flashes him when he notices him approaching.

Steve’s gaze quickly darts past Billy to check for damage to anything, the racing in his chest from just a look like that typically enough to at least crack a window. Maybe he’s not as confident about this as he thought, or maybe Billy’s just really good at making him flustered.

Doesn’t matter, because he’s at the other boys locker before he has time to process what he’s doing, “Lookin’ for somethin’ Harrington?”

“Oh, yeah, I was just checking for uh, my fans. Yeah, they follow me around everywhere, you know?” It’s bullshit, and it sounds more than dumb coming out of Steve’s mouth, but it makes Billy laugh, real low and raspy and that’s a win in his book.

“That what the little disguise is for?” Billy hums and taps his temple, clearly referring to the sun glasses perched on Steve’s nose.

“Oh these? No, I uh, wear these ‘cause of the uh.. because I wanna sleep in class and down want the teachers to know?” His answer comes as more of a question than anything, so he’s grateful when Billy seems to be more interested in his excuse than the subject at hand.

“Pfft, yeah right. I’ve heard you sleepin’ on the basketball bus. Ain’t no way your snoring doesn’t get you caught before your eyes do.”

Steve just waves him off, laughs with Billy even if his heart isn’t in it.

Billy closes his locker door, switching the subject as the scenery switches. It’s all a distraction to Steve, but he forces himself to look Billy in the face as the other boy asks him, “Seriously though dude, you okay? It ain’t like you to switch up your look. You’re not hiding anythin’ under the shades are you?”

“Nah. Just been thinking, I’m not the King because I’m not cool anymore, right? So I’m tryin’ to look a little more.. interesting.” Steve’s not a very quick or good liar, despite the military guarded secret that is himself and the little black number seven carved into his arm, and he can tell Billy doesn’t buy it.

He’s a good sport though, throwing an arm around Steve’s shoulders and assuring him with a little jostle, “Aw, Stevie, you're cool in my book. At least as long as you quit comin’ up with reasons not to hang with me, yeah?”

“Yeah, I- alright. I can do that. Sorry for flaking so much though. Didn’t realize until you said something.”

“S’Cool. Just meet me at the quarry after dark and it’ll make up for it.” Billy offers, obviously trying to play up the coolness neither of them apparently actually have, and Steve can’t help but call him on it. “It gets dark at like, four-thirty, five o’clock anymore?”

“Fine. Meet me at nine, pretty boy.” Billy smirks, dropping his voice to add knowingly, “And lose the shades. I think you’re much more interesting without ‘em.”

#CherryLangeChallenge #harringrove #billy x steve #steve harrington #billy hargrove #experiment! steve #ej writer #story by ej!#this is a mess but that’s okay #I have two midterms tomorrow and can’t be bothered with cleaning this up again

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life-rewritten · 3 years

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Color Rush- Crushes and Obstacles (Ep 5-6)

So I already analysed episode 5 of Color rush with the question focusing on the nature vs nurture of monos and probes. We basically have a show that keeps reminding us about the world and stigma of being a mono, the psychological regression, issues and lack of control that occurs once a mono meets their fated probe. Because of this ideology, our main character finds himself being forced to make a choice of if he should embrace becoming a monster to keep his probe by his side or if he should be alone forever stuck in a depressive state, empty and lifeless. The issue with this way of thought is that apart from maybe the media showing him clues about how monos react when they meet their probes, there's not enough evidence in my opinion that this is the only choice/way for a mono and probe to end up. Especially since our mono had seen a relationship where it was more or less successful before the mono maybe lost control once the probe died, that's his mum and dad. So this analysis focuses more on that same question is it really the only ending for a mono and probe relationship; to end with chaos, and pain, and obsession, kidnaps, crimes etc., or is this just all a placebo effect that has been embedded into the minds of monos to be this way.

Monos and Their Probes

Let's look at the details of episode 5 and 6. Yeonwoo and Yoohan's relationship evolves as they both start to fall more and more for each other. For Yeonwoo, this is hard because he's never known what that feels like, and his crush and attraction to Yeonwoo is even more enhanced in his mind because of the connection and link to Yoohan being his probe. But if we don't focus on the fact that Yoohan and Yeonwoo are probes and monos and just see them as two high school boys who have feelings for each other who went on a date, went home after and chilled, their relationship becomes like every other normal relationship, no danger, no questions of obsession and addiction. Pause.

Devotion vs Obsession

When we have feelings for people we tend to become obsessed and addicted to their presence just a bit, it's because of the serotonin, and dopamine released when we have a puppy love, a crush or even when we start to fall even more deeply for someone. It's feelings of happiness, of euphoria, excitement, and more. So Yeonwoo and Yoohan just like every other couple are going through phases of these euphoric feelings, wanting to spend as much time with each other as possible, wanting to touch each other, wanting to stay together every single time. It's what happens in a honeymoon phase of a relationship. You can't let go of the other person. Now this doesn't mean for us we want to go kidnap and commit crimes to keep our crush next to us, we may miss them, and want to keep talking to them but it doesn't mean we're insane, addicted or obsessed. Do you see my point?

I think Yeonwoo truly has exaggerated his feelings of a crush on Yoohan. He's made it so much more worse than it has to be because he's been fearmongered by the media into thinking just because he doesn't want Yoohan to leave it means he's turning into a monster when really he's just liking and crushing on his new crush. He didn't have to make the decision to go buy these kidnapping tools and to think of ways to make himself a monster, since that's the only choice he believes he's left with. No, he could have like every other normal person just missed him. So why is Yeonwoo letting himself go deeper into obsession and addiction and letting himself think he is a monster? In order to really look deeper to see if it's truly the only end for a mono, or if it's the environment that is making them this way; we have to analyse the psychological mindset of monos when they meet with their probes

Monos: The world of Lonliness and Depression

The metaphor already for monos is lack; they lack color, lack brightness, lack vibrancy in their lives. They've been forced since birth to see the world in such a dark and oblique way. And as they find out about their condition, they are seen as monsters from the get-go, forced to be alone to avoid people in case they bump into their fated probes. The loneliness and the forced mindset of a mono to stay in this lifeless energy is really psychologically depressing and tiring. And it's when they get a glimpse of hope, of companionship, love, colour, and more with their probes that Monos start to feel happy and joyful. Now it doesn't have to be this way, Monos could end up feeling comfortable with their condition if they were just treated equally and right, but no they're prejudiced, pushed away and bullied horribly once it's discovered that this is what they are.

From a young age, monos are told that they are going to be monsters, they are going to hurt people, they are going to lose their minds one day. And this is just exacerbated in the media with fears and warnings of how monos interact with their probes. If from a young age, a mono is repeatedly told, this is who they are, then it forms a placebo belief and effect, and brainwash that this is the only way they can be. Mono's don't see any other way out, or a chance to be different because everyone feeds to them the same narrative of pain, despair and obsession. And it sucks. Look at how immediately Yeonwoo's aunt reacts when she notices Yeonwoo and Yoohan have found each other, she immediately scolds him and tells him he has to move, so he doesn't break and lose his sanity. She doesn't give it the benefit of the doubt, or ask questions; she resorts immediately into trying to push them away from each other.

Now, this makes sense because she has lost her sister who was a mono who probably lost her mind once her probe died. And then went missing/ taken by maybe another mono (that's what it seems Yeonwoo and his aunt believe happened). Because of this, there is a negative stigma with the aunt on how monos can behave, she has already lost so much because of monos, and so she doesn't want Yeonwoo to be the same. The aunt is like everybody else in this world, whose first reaction to monos is to push away and to avoid, this world isolates and distances monos away from a chance to be happy, and live freely because of their condition.

The Psychological Implications of Being a Mono

The psychological implications of being a mono are so fascinating to me. It's like a psychological disorder (despite it not being that way) are all psychopaths forced to hurt and become serial killers? Are all sociopaths meant to avoid people just because there's a higher tendency that people could get hurt if it goes awry? No. Because just because you have a gene or a link to a family member that went crazy and started hurting people, it doesn't mean you would make the same choice and do the same thing. Not everyone is the same just because they have the same disorder or mindset. And that's the same for monos, monos don't have to go crazy and hurt their probes. The separation from their probes obviously enhances anxiety and fear of going back into this lifeless, darkness that they finally found a way out of; this is what drives their actions. It's just enhanced emotions and enhanced fears, but they don't have to act on it, the people who do act on it are people who were weak or predisposed to other factors that make them want to be violent. Yeonwoo doesn't have to plan ways to kidnap or take Yoohan when Yoohan would gladly stay by his side. He doesn't have to be this broken or fearful of becoming a monster; he's making these choices because he has a placebo mindset that this is who he should become. And it's heartbreaking.

The thing is we see Yoohan and Yeonwoo having a great time together, being happy and liking each others company without the color rush having to be the only focus of why they're interacting. We do get to see Yeonwoo panic because of decolouring, and he enhances those emotions because of his already ingrained anxiety about what it means to want to keep Yoohan by his side. The way I see it, Yeonwoo has formed an anxiety about who he is because of how the world treats him and other monos, and because he has that issue with stress coupled with physical evidence that he's losing colour, it drives him to think it's a sign he's becoming a monster. It's not.

First of all, of course, he becomes worried and scared about losing colours, the decolouring effect is like going from a high to a low, when colour rush happens to monos it's a euphoric effect, it doesn't last, but like a drug it can lead to a crash and a hangover, so of course immediately Yoohan leaves Yeonwoo starts to crash and regress back into seeing the world as grey, and that makes his mindset also feel depressed coupled with the fact he does not want Yoohan to go because of his crush (not dependency). So Yeonwoo misunderstands his reactions when Yoohan leaves as him becoming addicted and obsessed with Yoohan with no point of return when really he's just moody because his high is gone and he misses Yoo Han as a normal person does with their crush. So he's talking himself into thinking the only explanation is his dependency on Yoohan for color and his obsession as a mono growing. And it's sad, monos have been forced to feel this way, that they're predatory, horrifying and cruel in their love when really they've just met the one, and they wish to be happy.

Society vs Monos

It's his aunty who triggers this emotion, her conversation with him made him think there's no other way out of becoming this monster because she put that fear that he may be forced to separate from Yoohan. And this is really where I think Monos become the versions they are shown (crazy, obsessed, crimes) in the news because not every mono and probe is going to be in love, not every probe may want to be with their monos, everyone has a different circumstance and that fear of losing colors, may drive a mono to doing things. However, I don't think it's natural for them to become so obsessed and so desperate to live with colors so much that they hunt down their probes and hurt others. That's a specific few, ones that had those warped mindsets, or a more problematic background or a harsher philosophy. Not everyone becomes violent, some monos probably retreat from their probes and stay depressed, some fall in love with someone who isn't a probe, there are so many different ways it could go, the thing is monos are only shown in one light, and that's the people who chose to go far to keep their probes by their side through fear.

This self-hate and deprecation Yeonwoo has of who he is naturally reminds me so much of internalised homophobia, hating who you are naturally and thinking you're wrong because of how society has made you see yourself. It's the same feelings; the disgust, the anxiety, the repression etc. And we've already mentioned how monos and probes are probably metaphors of LGBTQ+ struggle, society making monos think it's wrong to be with the people who love them and they love. This self-hate will make Yeonwoo feel he has no other option but to check himself into a hospital or institution or to (trigger warning) end his life. And that's just so messed up. I've seen many people question his mindset because from what we're seeing his mother seems like she had a happy marriage with his father, shouldn't she be proof that monos and probes can be healthy? But I think we're forgetting that his father died, and from knowing how monos react to missing their probes, I'm guessing his mum couldn't take it and also lost some of her sanity or she fell into depression and couldn't get out of that. Also as mentioned, I think Yeonwoo thinks it's a mono that kidnapped his mum, and so that also maybe gives him more resentment towards who he is, and again makes him think monos only end up committing crimes and hurt people they love.

But we need to know more about why he thinks this way and what other evidence they have about his mother's missing case. Plus his mother has not been by his side for four years, and in those four years he's been bullied, mistreated, have to move schools each time his condition is found out, so it's been a long time of society again making him think he's a monster, and without his mum there to help him see different, he just follows that mindset, unfortunately.

Yeonwoo and Yoohan; Just a crush

For Yeonwoo and Yoohan, their relationship is not just based on dependence, Yeonwoo thinks it's the colours, and he does not understand it's just feelings and him liking Yoohan since he first met him. Yeonwoo has had to push people away, and find excuses not to have friends, and Yoohan barged into his life without warning, both have been attracted and wanting each other from the start. Yeonwoo struggled with this information and rationalised it into thinking it's because he wants the colour rush, but it isn't that, it's more than that, he just wants to be happy, in love and with Yoohan. Yoohan is the same as Yeonwoo, he's also had to push people away, and alienate himself, and not care about the world or society because of his own condition, seeing Yeonwoo made him want to do more, he liked what Yeonwoo was to him, he liked having a crush on Yeonwoo, and so he also found himself wanting to stay with Yeonwoo for as long as he can. For a long time I've also been thinking he was just as obsessed and addicted to Yeonwoo like monos are to their probes, but no, he's a teenage boy with a crush, and so is Yeonwoo. We also let the media and how society views mono make us feel worried and scared about these two's relationship forming and whilst it was thrilling to think it could be more dangerous than it is, it's really just two people falling in love with each other, and one psychologically scarred and brainwashed into thinking there's something wrong with who he is naturally. And that's just painful.

So yeah Color Rush; a look into psychological mindsets, nature vs nurture, the addictive feeling of what love is, and more, this show is so fun to watch and analyse and see how it's going to turn out, but there are moments where it hurts and makes you think and question how society and media play a role in showing minorities, how they control the narrative about certain things and if that's right. Fearmongering, prejudiced mindsets and more isn't cool, but the world has always been led by these ignorant ideas without education and open mindsets, and it sucks. So watching color rush is an interesting metaphor and symbolism for the struggles some people have because of stigmas associated with conditions they have from birth, or just ideologies formed that isn't necessarily true about who they are as a person, it only leads to self-hate, depression, anxiety, self-harm just to fit into society's narrative and it sucks. Let's hope Yoohan shows Yeonwoo he's not a monster, and he's okay being himself and loving Yoohan. he doesn't have to hurt or go insane and do crimes because he's a mono. He'll be fine.

#color rush #colour rush #korean bl #kdrama #bl series #bl drama #not thai bl #cwg #january

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pellelavellan-a · 2 years

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OKAY GURLS I gotta have a. tiny rant and I’m sorry if any of you are teachers and pls know I’m not talking sit about you but WHY ARE TEACHERS™

So this woman, sweet lady btw other than this--side note why do customers stay exposing themselves to me at my job but ANYWAYS

So she was talking about how she wished she had the opportunity to homeschool her kids cause she asked me where I had gone to high school so I told her. And so I was listening to her reasons why cause I’d mentioned you know like my parents always claimed tey homeschooled me and my siblings cause they didn’t want “school drama” getting in the way of our education but that just did not really work out the way they thought cause I still made friends and knew most of my high school class had I been sent to public school because I had a job by the time I was 16.

So anyways she was saying it was hard for her as a teacher at times cause she felt bad teaching all of her students in a standardized way because kids just do not all learn exactly the same way. So I agreed with her and was like that’s so good to hear like there really should be more options than “normal” and “special ed” as a means to educate children cause the way they learn is all across the board. So I was telling her like I’ve had ADD since forever and only found out about it like two years ago maybe but that I felt like if I had known earlier it would have made a difference cause I would have known I wasn’t stupid cause I didn’t learn the same way as my siblings who do not have ADD did, I just had a harder time with focus and memory.

So she says to me “everyone has an attention deficit,” and just talks about every person has a hard time with paying attention to things all the time and that kinda stuff BOILS ME BLOOD because it is stuff like that that is why a lot of people who could benefit from or need extra help cause of learning disabilities go their entire time in school without it.

It’s also very dismissive. When I got tested I was told my attention span was a maximum of ten minutes long. Now take that and consider a lot of classes in school for me were 90 minutes--sometimes my college classes were 4 HOURS!

But also it would not be called a disorder if everyone had it. Like actually I don’t think everyone forgets things they meant to do immediately, loses things constantly, forgets to pay bills on time so often that it actually ruins their ability to buy a car, rent an apartment, buy a house, etc, cannot function when two different things that require some kind of attention exist like not being able to write with a tv on, complete a task in the correct order without starting another one or just stopping entirely for several minutes to a couple hours before coming back, mentally checks out entirely when under stimulated to a point of totally zoning out, struggle with a realistic concept of time and in turn time management, the list goes on really.

Having ADD is something that has actually affected both my time in school growing up and my actual adult life so much so it irks me real bad when people dismiss it as “well everyone has a hard time paying attention sometimes” like yes sometimes--not ALL THE TIME. I am not saying you have to treat me with pity or something but also recognize disorders are called disorders for a reason and attitudes like the one she had like well you can’t just say they have a disorder cause then they’ll wanna give them drugs and do this and that is actually how I got to this point in life now because my parents had the same attitude of everyone has those problems you’re fine and everyone wants to have ADHD cause they want to drug their kids with adderral or ritalin so they’re quiet and behaved and I’m just like--The way that is so false.

Anyways that’s my rant thanks for coming

#rant #ooc

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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Teenage Dream

CW: Pet whump/dehumanization/whump of a minor in 2nd section, some brief noncon references in 2nd and 3rd sections, gratuitous Katy Perry in every section because Chris wouldn’t fucking shut up until I wrote this.

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“Come on, Aki, please? Please?” Tristan’s pleading is married to his big green eyes and his coppery hair shifting across his forehead. The perfect sincerity of his request would crack any facade of ironic detachment. And Akio is trying to look detached.

“Tris, nobody likes that fucking song.”

“That’s, that’s not true, ev-everyone does, it’s on on on the radio all the, the, the, um, the time,” Tristan counters easily, and Akio can’t exactly argue that. And he can’t say well nobody cool likes it, because of course Tristan wouldn’t know he was joking and not being mean. He can’t always tell what’s a joke and what isn’t, and Akio heaves the most dramatic sigh he can manage and allows the younger boy to pull him onto his feet, making a big show of dramatic reluctance as he goes stumbling forwards onto the practice mat.

“Just because it’s on the radio doesn’t make it good, Tris.”

“But, but, but I like it, and-... and I had some, um… some ideas. Please, Akio?”

There’s the big green eyes again.

Akio sighs, rakes a hand back through his hair only to have it flop back over his forehead, and smiles. “Yeah, fine. Okay, Tris, show me.”

“Yes! Awesome. Thank-... thank, thank you, Aki.” Tris pulls him in for a hug, crushing tight like nearly all of Tristan Higgs’ hugs are, and Akio tries to look aloof and above it all. Someone nearby wolf-whistles and Akio throws a middle finger in no particular direction in response.

“Get a fucking room, Nakamura,” Lisa Huang calls out, stretching her legs off to the side. Akio changes the direction of his middle finger to aim directly at her.

“Yeah, but then you’d miss the show, Huang, and what would you do then?”

“Oh, oh, oh my God,” Tris mutters, his face bright red, but he’s bouncing on his toes and his fingers are tapping on Akio, so he knows it’s okay. “This, this, it’s not-”

“Hey, she’s just being a shit because she’s jealous I get the Tris hugs. Aren’t you, Huang?”

“Literally, I am going to melt into the floor from envy any minute now,” Lisa replies, sitting back on her hands. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to hug the Tristan Higgs and Akio Nakamura, huh? And yet-” She throws her hand over her forehead dramatically. “Neither of you ever notice me.”

“Sorry, Huang, my heart belongs to Tris.”

“What?” Tristan’s eyes are wider than ever, not following the joke, it’s all so sincere to Tristan unless he’s mad, and then he seems to get sarcasm well enough.

Akio just grins. “Kidding, Tris. Come on, show me the idea you had. I want to see, even if it means… listening to… that.”

“No, you’ll like it, Aki, I-I-I promise. Can, can, can you hit, um, um… play, Lisa?” Tris yells over the sound of the others talking, working out, practicing on the bars or the beams, the low-level noise the gym is always filled with. Akio and Tristan are officially not practicing today, but they’d both wanted to come here and Akio’s mom had been okay with driving them on her way to take Akio’s little sister to kiddie soccer, and Tris’s mom is going to pick them up later to take them home.

So here they are.

And here Tris is, convinced Akio should help him build a routine to Katy fucking Perry.

“Okay, Tris,” Akio says, and sits himself down at the edge of the mat next to Lisa Huang, legs crossed, elbows on his knees. “Here we go.”

“You know which song it’s gonna be, right?” Lisa says under her breath, finger hovering over the button on the ancient CD player that their coach lugs around. “You know it’s gonna be-”

“Yeah,” Akio breathes. “I know. Just hit the fucking button.”

Lisa laughs, presses play, and they watch Tris take a breath, shake out his shoulders as guitar starts up first. He flashes a smile at Akio over his shoulder.

You think I’m pretty, without any makeup on…

Akio manages to suppress a groan and watches Tris dance, the dancing is always effortless to him, natural rhythm running through him.

“God, I wish men did music with their routines,” Lisa mutters. “He’d nail every single one.”

“He nails it anyway.”

“Yeah, but with a soundtrack.”

He takes position, runs, hits his mark, and flips three times, spins, and lands right as the voice sings, you make me feel like I’m living a teenage dream, slowly turning, dropping into splits and back up again. Akio feels his own legs tighten in sympathy.

I can’t sleep, let’s run away and don’t ever look back

“I hate this fucking song so much,” Akio says, and watches Tris line up for his next run.

“Yeah, but you like him,” Lisa points out.

Akio rolls his eyes. “Everyone likes Tris. He’s my best friend.”

Don’t ever look back, don’t ever look back-

Tris misses the landing this time and goes down hard, rolling across the mat. Akio’s on his feet before a second has passed, and by the time he makes it to Tris, the other boy is already laughing, shaking it off, ready to start again.

Akio helps him up to his feet, and fuck it, he’ll listen to the song again if he has to. He sits down next to Lisa again, but he can already see how it would work - he’ll move around Tris fluidly, they’ll match movements here and here and here, and then they can run past each other at just the right time…

Lisa looks at him sidelong. “Now, see, you’re getting into it.”

“He is.” Akio shrugs. “I just like seeing him all excited.”

“What would you do without Tristan Higgs, huh?”

Akio watches, carefully, as Tris nails the spin this time, watches him drop into the splits and back up, rock his hips. “I don’t know,” He says, finally. “Probably waste the fuck away, Huang.”

“Damn straight. Five bucks says you guys end up with one of those ‘if we’re not married by 30, we’ll marry each other and get eleven cats’ deals.”

Akio snorts. “I’m allergic to cats.”

There’s a silence. “What, is that your only problem with that plan?”

“I don’t see any downsides to the rest of it. Do you?”

---

Nancy clears off the breakfast table. Mr. Branch is long gone, up to his office for a meeting with a few state senators on a piece of legislation, something about changing a holiday over to another holiday or something. She isn’t all that interested, really, but Mr. Branch likes to talk through things with her or the little pet before he gives interviews or has meetings. Likes a sounding board.

She’s paid well enough to listen, now and then, to something she doesn’t much care about.

Still, it means she’s late getting the table cleared.

She’s got her little radio set up in the corner, playing a soft rock station, just something to fill the silence broken otherwise only by the soft clinking of spoons on bowls. Mr. Branch had had oatmeal this morning, with fresh fruit and a drizzle of syrup on top, a scattering of almonds. Watching his figure, he says, with a smile, and Nancy always smiles back.

The coffee cup is going to have a ring, she’ll have to scrub that out, won’t she? Well, that’s not so bad.

You make me feel like I’m livin’ a teenage dream, the way you turn me on, a woman’s voice blares out from the radio.

Nancy wrinkles her nose.

Teenagers, in her experience, are entirely too much trouble and don’t know a damn thing. A song glorifying that whole lack of self-control doesn’t exactly seem like a good idea to her. Teenagers are a hassle, messy and a struggle to care for, and she can’t figure out why Mr. Branch wanted to bring one into the house so badly.

Well, no.

She knows why.

She tries very hard not to think about it, but she knows.

Honestly, Baldur is probably the most well-behaved teenager she’s ever met. The poor thing doesn’t have enough memory to be ungrateful, and he’s not going to roll his eyes or talk back any time soon, is it? They train all those impulses out of them, in that WRU facility.

He wouldn’t dare.

She hears a soft scrape, the unmistakable shuffling footsteps of Baldur himself, and glances up at the door.

He’s peeking in, Mr. Branch’s skinny pet, hair hanging over his hazy green eyes, slightly narrowed in an attempt to see her in focus through the drugs he is fed each morning like clockwork, keeping him slow, docile, easy to control.

Maybe he doesn’t roll his eyes because he’d fall over if he had to do more than one thing at once, including simply standing up.

“Can I help you?” Nancy asks, adding a sharp edge to the question. Her stomach flips, as always uneasy when she’s alone with the pet.

Baldur licks at his lips, carefully nudging the doorway open just a little more, his eyes shifting away from her and down to the floor. He’s barefoot and wearing a tailored sweater and slacks, like any high-class boy. What gives him away of course is the barefeet, and the collar at his throat, soft green leather that probably doesn’t feel any different than skin to him.

After all, he never takes them off.

Is he even fully aware he has one on?

“I… I like the song,” He says, slurring his words with difficulty. He sways a little, catches himself, sways again. Leaning against the doorframe for support. His eyes are so very wide, so deeply green. His narrow face is pinched with the effort it’s taking him to pull his thoughts together enough to speak. “On th’... the radio, Miss Nancy. Like th’ song.”

Nancy turns to glance at it, as though the radio had just appeared when he spoke about it.

Let’s run away and don’t ever look back, don’t ever look back

He likes the song? He isn’t supposed to like anything.

She steps over to the radio and briskly changes to a different station. A warbling country song is halfway through, something about lights and a woman who left. Every light in the house is on…

Baldur flinches back.

He looks like a sad sort of kitten, and it makes Nancy feel angry and guilty in equal measures. She leans into the anger to avoid the hint of thought inside of her that makes her think perhaps she should push the damn thing out the front door, put him on a school bus with the field trip children, and pretend she has no idea how he got there.

Make him someone else’s problem.

But then she’d have to explain how she knew he was here in the first place for this long, wouldn’t she?

“You know you’re not allowed music,” She chides him, and watches him sink back into himself. She swallows back the guilt. She’s not the one who signed up to spread his legs for Mr. Branch, now is she? No, the boy made a choice, and it’s none of her concern what led to it or that he regrets it now. “What would your Sir say if he caught you skulking around eavesdropping on hardworking employees instead of taking a nap, hm? Or doing your exercises?”

“He would… be upset,” Baldur says, softly. “I’m sorry, Miss Nancy. I didn’t…” He swallows, again and again, as though there’s something in his throat. His head drops against the doorframe and she wonders if Oliver gave him too much this morning, if the poor boy is going to collapse into unconsciousness right here. “Please… please don’t tell him, Miss Nancy.”

Well, he better not collapse, because she sure won’t be picking him up if he does. He can lay right there and wait for Oliver to handle his disobedience. “I won’t, if you’re a good boy now. Go back to bed, Baldur,” She says, a little more gently this time. “Your Sir will want you well-rested this afternoon, his schedule is cleared then.”

He looks up at her, and for a second he looks incredibly young, and terribly frightened.

Her heart twists, before she can stop it.

I didn’t make him this. He chose it.

She hardens her expression against his fear. He’s afraid of Mr. Branch, she knows it well enough. He’s afraid, and he’s bruised at the wrists and ankles most of the time. Last week there were red marks around his neck at breakfast, and Mr. Branch would only mention a game, the poor love couldn’t stand forever, I suppose.

And he’d laughed.

She turns away from the pet’s terror, rattles the plates together to make a point that he is dismissed. She won’t look at those wide green eyes again. He signed a contract, after all. What is it to her if he doesn’t like the fine print?

“Yes, Miss Nancy,” He says softly, and in a second he’s gone. She listens to the fading shuffle of his footsteps along the hallway, the sound of Oliver’s bedroom door opening and closing. He��ll be out before ten minutes has passed, she has no doubt. He’ll sleep away the morning like he sleeps away so much of his life.

She makes a note to herself to be out of the residence before Mr. Branch comes back after lunch, ignoring the needling stab of something in the back of her mind, something very like guilt.

He’s a boy.

No, she reminds herself firmly. He’s a pet. And he chose to be one.

She turns the radio back to the soft rock station and tells herself she won’t think about him again.

---

“You think I’m pretty, without any makeup on,” Chris sings along with the mp3 player in the kitchen, dancing around with a wooden spoon up to his mouth like a microphone. “You think I’m funny when I tell the punchline wrong, I know you get me, so I let my walls come down… do-oh-own…”

His voice cracks on the high note, but Jake holds back any reaction, scrubbing at a stubborn spot on the countertop that he’s beginning to think is just part of the stupid house now. When does a stain stop being a stain and become a fixture?

And here you’ll see the sign of where I spilled pasta sauce and didn’t notice until the next day and what the fuck is the countertop even made of…

Not that Nat will sell this house, she’ll probably stay here until she’s a decrepit old woman surrounded by rescues taking care of her. The house is Nat, in a way that Jake can’t define and doesn’t really try. She’ll be telling people an epic story about it being a bloodstain or something one day, all wrinkled and gray-haired.

“My heart stops when you look at me,” Chris sings, and Jake watches his hair fly around as he spins, the copper catching yellowed morning sun through the kitchen window.

Should he tell Chris that he doesn’t stammer when he sings?

The barcode on the inside of his left wrist is the black blot marring the moment, the numbers etched in ink, an instant giveaway if he stepped one foot out the door around the wrong people. Here, he’s safe to show it. Here, he’s safe.

Mostly.

As safe as Jake can make him.

Jake’s rib still aches, off and on, but his black eye is gone and he’s back at school. It’s all back to normal, now, and Chris is right here where he belongs, where people love him, where Jake would take a bullet for him.

He can’t get the image of the shivering, shaking, terrified boy in the video he was shown out of his head. The way they laughed at his fear, the way he’d already learned to put out his hands to be hit when he was caught tapping to soothe himself.

He can’t stop seeing that boy and his fear layered over Chris’s easy joy now.

“This is real, so take a chance and don’t ever look back, don’t ever look back,” Chris winks at him, or tries to - really he just sort of closes one eye horribly slow - and then goes back to humming along with the music. He dances effortlessly, and Jake wonders if he danced, before he was frightened in a white t-shirt and black shorts, before he had a barcode on his wrist, before they stuck a needle in his arm and took out everything that made him whoever he’d once been.

What did Chris do, before he was Chris, before he was the pet, before whatever went wrong for him? Did he take dancing lessons? Did he get good grades in school? He kind of acts like maybe he did, doesn’t he? He seems like he wants to try so hard for anyone who believes he can do something...

He can do backflips and cartwheels and climb trees, plays basketball with Miss Ruth’s grandson and his friends while Jake watches through a window, worried that he’ll be taken the next time, but not willing to lay that fear on Chris.

He’s scared of so much. Jake doesn’t want to add more terrors to the boy’s nightmares.

“I’m-a get your heart racing in my skin tight jeans, be your teenage dream tonight,” Chris sings, wearing a baggy t-shirt of Jake’s and baggier basketball shorts. Chris, who crawls into Jake’s bed more nights than not, ever since the raid, who sleeps curled up against him for warmth and safety.

Chris, who doesn’t test him anymore, but admitted that he’s scared that it will happen again. Who told Kauri, in whispers in the dark, that he’s never wanted to be with anyone, that it was always fear and pain and holding screams back behind his teeth while forcing himself to make the sounds they trained into him.

Jake’s stomach flips with nausea, guilt for something he couldn’t possibly have prevented. It’s not his fault, but it feels like it is, he feels like he should have psychically known the kid was out there and gone to find him.

He would have.

If anything ever happens to him again, Jake won’t stop until he finds him. He knows that. He understands that, with perfect certainty.

They’ll never take Chris, they could raid the house a hundred times, and Jake would make sure Chris never went back into that hell, no matter what. No, Chris gets to be safe, here, singing and dancing around the kitchen, like any teenager enjoying a moment where he wants to be a dork, and doesn’t care who sees it.

Jake smiles a little, giving up and sitting back in a chair at the table, watching Chris dance while he dries off a dish, goes up on tiptoe to put it in the cabinet, turns back, warbles, “My heart stops when you look at me…”

Did Chris have a girlfriend, or boyfriend? A partner? Just, like, a best friend even? Someone he cared about like this? Does this song tap on some buried memory or impulse towards loving someone? Jake just watches him dance, and sing, and smiles.

He doesn’t even protest when Chris starts the song over as soon as it stops.

I came back for you, he thinks. Just like I promised. Do whatever you want, I’ll be right here. I’m right here. You’re safe.

Jake hears a slight sound and turns to see Nat in the doorway watching as well, in her housecoat but with her braid done carefully up, arms crossed in front of her. Chris doesn’t pause, if he even notices her, just keeps dancing as he empties the dishwasher piece by piece with his back to the door, signing in a soft, slight, cracking voice along with the higher voice coming from the speakers.

Nat looks less shadowed, now, and her bruises have faded away.

Still.

WRU came to round up a pet, and Nat and Jake protected him, and fuck it-

If he wants to listen to music Jake hates, let him. He’s a kid. Let him be a kid.

Chris has lost enough.

Let him have joy.

---

“Do you remember this?” Akio can’t stop himself from asking, even though it’s a total crapshoot as to what Tris’s answer will be.

Not Tris. Chris.

The knowledge hurts, it’s a knife in Akio’s stomach every single time, that Tristan was lost so thoroughly that the man who showed up with his face and his blood and his bones didn’t remember his own name until he saw the video with Akio and had… some kind of breakdown or something.

But Chris is so close, and Akio uses that to remind him that it means Tris is close, that he was never fully gone. He’s still here. He just looks a little different, now, he’s quieter, but it’s all still there, bubbling up and sinking beneath the surface again, leaving imprints of memories that make it easier for Chris to grab onto them and hold tight the next time.

The way he smiles, the way he taps and rocks and sways and stammers, it’s all still there. It’s all still Tristan Higgs, in the end, and Chris Stanton and Tristan Higgs are the same fucking guy. The teenager in Akio’s memories and stored in old photos and videos on his computer and his phone is the same person as the man sitting next to him.

One just… lived through some stuff the other one hadn’t yet, and has the scars - inside and out - to show it.

“I, I, I don’t know,” Chis says, leaning forward, looking at the video Akio’s pulled up on his laptop. They’re at an outdoor café, with the sun shining warm on their backs. Chris’s hair is starting to grow back in, the occasional blue tip fading back to new-penny copper, and the bandages are off of his face and neck. His forehead’s going to have a wicked fucking scar, though.

Chris says he doesn’t care, that it shows that he could change himself, when he needs to. That he isn’t just here to be changed by other people. His shoulder brushes Akio’s as he cocks his head. “Sorry, stuff… um, comes and, and, and goes.”

“That’s okay. Here, I’ll press play. We had this one finished, more or less, but we never recorded the full bit.” Chris nods, holding his coffee up to his mouth to sip at it.

Akio hits play, and the guitar starts up.

Chris laughs, and it’s Tristan’s laugh - bright and unselfconscious, loud enough to get a glance from someone nearby reading a book, before they look back down again. “I love, I, I, I love this this this song!”

“Oh, Christ.” Akio laughs, too, he can’t stop himself. “Of course you’d still like that song. Of all the things you lost, you kept Katy Perry?”

You think I’m pretty, without any makeup on…

The routine starts with Tris and Akio together in the middle of the mat, watching each other, hands linked. As she starts to sing, they shift apart, and Chris watches, enraptured, so close to the screen that Akio almost can’t see it anymore himself, not that he’s watching the screen.

He’s watching Chris, instead.

Chris’s foot taps to the beat and he starts to rock a little, forward and back, biting down on his lower lip with his teeth as the Akio and Tristan on the screen separate enough to hit their separate corners. Tris runs forward - then Akio does, a half-beat later.

You make me feel like I’m livin’ a teenage dream

They match flips and spins. Tristan lands and then Akio does, spinning to look at each other, laughing as Tris drops into a split and then up again and Akio… definitely doesn’t do that. Akio can do a lot of things, but he is not risking that particular move, not the way Tristan does it-

Or… did it.

Let’s go all the way tonight, no regrets, just love…

“I, I, I remember doing this,” Chris whispers. “I, I made my mom pretend to to to, to, to, to-to be you in the backyard when I made, made it up. She was a really, really bad dancer.” He winces, rubbing at the side of his head.

Akio nods, slowly, leaning in, looking at Chris as he watches himself dance on the screen. He’s squinting against the ache, but still watching. “Yeah, but she would do anything you wanted her to. I can see her trying to keep up.” He pauses, lets the tinny music play from his laptop speakers along with the noise of the gym around them as Akio and Tristan do another run. Akio doesn’t quite hit his landing on that one, but they don’t stop, dancing towards and around each other with easy, effortless understanding of each other’s space.

“You, you, you hated Katy Perry,” Chris says, softly. His fingers twitch, holding tightly to his coffee cup. “But, but-”

“But you fucking loved that shit,” Akio says, with a grin.

“I, I, I still do. Laken hates it, too.”

“See, I knew I liked them for a reason. You and my sister used to sing ‘Firework’ at me until I thought I was going to lose my fucking mind.”

“I, I, I still sing it to Laken. They, they throw pillows at me.” Chris hits the space button, pausing the video, and turns to look at Akio. His eyes are still so wide, in his narrow face, and so earnest and uncertain. Akio swallows. It feels like stepping sideways through time, every time Tristan’s eyes look at him in Chris Stanton’s face. “Were you, you, you good… without me? Did you, um, do okay?”

Akio’s smile softens into something sadder. “After a while. I got back on track, but for a year or so… I guess I just wasted away without you. You want to hear something stupid?”

“Al, always.”

Akio huffs out laughter, and digs his phone out of his pocket. He taps a few times and then lays it on the table between them. “Look at this.”

Chris looks down, fingertips just grazing the phone case, and his lips press together into a line as his eyes glimmer, shimmering with tears that don’t quite fall. “Wh-what-”

“It’s all the music you like that I hated,” Akio says, voice hoarse and rough. “I made this playlist a month after your aunt said-... you know.”

“It’s, it’s, it’s called ‘I Miss Tris’,” Chris says, softly. His voice sounds awed. Like he’s looking at something sacred and not Akio’s stupid ‘having a bad night’ playlist. “And the, the, the first song-”

“Fucking Teenage Dream.” Akio watches Chris scroll down the list, pretends he doesn’t see the droplet of saltwater that lands there, that Chris quickly wipes away with his sleeve, rubbing at his eye with the back of his hand. “It’s been, what, six or seven years since, you know, your parents, and… god, I’ve gotten a new phone every couple years and I still have this fucking playlist. Still listen to it, too. Whenever I want to mope around being sad about you.”

“In… in there… they, they, they tell us no one misses us.” Chris’s voice is low. He doesn’t look up. “That, that, that our lives were so so so-so bad that this was better. That no one… no, no, no one missed us being gone, no one wants us, that we-we-we weren’t… worth loving. I believed it. And my-... um.” Chris flushes, just a little. “He told me I, I, I, I wasn’t something you could-could love.” Chris’s eyes go distant, and he seems to sink back into himself a little, hunching his shoulders. “P-pretty, but, but, but not… worth being more than I was.”

Akio’s jaw works, fighting a mix of grief and rage that threatens to knock him to the floor, drown him in the intensity of it. He’s been hearing bits and pieces, whenever Chris feels safe enough to let one more bit of the horror that made up his past few years slip out.

Akio wonders what it’s going to do to his career if he goes public as a lib activist, and if he even gives a fuck about that anymore.

If Vincent Shield can do it, he can too, right?

Then again, Vincent Shield wasn’t about to be publicly not straight for the first time and also a pet lib activist. Akio’s mom and dad are going to be so pissed when he tells them his idea-

He doesn’t care.

His parents aren’t going anywhere. Neither is Ben, whatever he and Ben are, neither is Tristan Higgs.

Not this time.

Nobody else should have to listen to someone they loved come back from the dead and hear them say they told me no one loved me, they told me no one missed me, they told me no one cared.

So... maybe Akio can go up on the fucking pedestal, medal around his neck, and tell WRU to go fuck themselves. Maybe he can tell Chris’s Aunt Jo to go fuck herself specifically.

You told us he was dead, and you gave him to people who made him believe he was nothing, and you thought we’d never find him. And we didn’t.

God, he had to find us.

His career’s going to go down in flames if he does what he’s planning, and Akio Nakamura is rapidly discovering he no longer cares.

“Loved. You were-... loved.” His voice is tight and strained, cracking on the edges of his words. His hand curls into a fist on his thigh where it’s resting, digging his nails into his palms. “And missed. We would have-... we would have wanted you, Chris. My mom and I, my little sister won’t admit it, hell my dad… we missed you. Those assholes just wanted you to lose hope. And I’m glad the fucker who hurt you is dead.”

“They, they, they take everything. Aki,” Chris pushes Akio’s phone back to him, and looks back at the laptop screen, an image of himself, years ago, flashing a brilliant smile, with Akio rolling his eyes in return as they pressed their hands palm-to-palm, frozen mid-move. “But, but, but it’s not really gone. I remember how, how, how much you hate this song. And, and, and I remember that you still danced it with me. So, so, so that’s a start, right?”

“It’s a start.” Akio presses the button to start the video again. “And we’ve got plenty of time.”

---

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker, @boxboysandotherwhump , @oops-its-whump @moose-teeth , @cubeswhump , @cupcakes-and-pain @whump-tr0pes @whumpiary @orchidscript, @itallcomesdowntopain

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letterboxd · 3 years

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Bridging the Gap.

Filmmaker So Yun Um highlights ten underrated Asian American and Pacific Islander films set against the backdrop of America.

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month has many film lovers seeking to celebrate Asian American cinema. Beyond Minari, Always Be My Maybe and Crazy Rich Asians, there are dozens of films that depict the Asian American experience. In choosing to focus on ten of the lesser-seen, I contemplated the notion of what defines AAPI cinema.

For me, it goes deeper than films that have been directed by, or star, Asian American and Pacific artists. Having watched a wide selection of Asian American films, I can firmly say our cinema, no matter the genre, puts Asian Americans at the forefront on both sides of the camera. I believe the essence of Asian American cinema was born out of resourcefulness, mining themes and ideas that distinctly bridge the gap between Asian and American culture. These films tell stories that explore the vast differences between the two, and the ways in which they coexist, whether comfortably or uncomfortably.

In selecting these ten underrated AAPI films, I searched deep to find stories with uncompromising vision and character; stories about Asians that could only be told within, and against the backdrop of, America. These ten films highlight intimate, distinct and unfiltered experiences mostly unseen at our local multiplexes: family and cultural obligations, generational and cultural gaps, and raw, mostly obscured views of American life.

Chan is Missing (1982) Directed by Wayne Wang, written by Isaac Cronin and Wayne Wang

There would be no Asian American independent cinema without Wayne Wang’s Chan is Missing. Shot on black-and-white film, this striking noir follows Jo, a San Franciscan cab driver, and his nephew, Steve, as they track down the titular Chan after he disappears with their money. Wang’s unpredictable directing career spans neighborhood intrigues, rom-coms and family movies; alongside which, he has kept a strong focus on Asian American stories (he helmed the adaptation of Amy Tan’s generational bestseller, The Joy Luck Club).

In Chan is Missing, for the first time on screen, we get to finally see an “ABC” (American-Born Chinese) story from the source, with an all-access pass to the often misunderstood terrain and people of Chinatown. It’s the tightness of the plot and the authenticity of its characters that make this movie such a classic. Even after 40 years, Chan Is Missing doesn’t feel dated—its laugh-out-loud dialogue (they actually utter the word “FOB”!) and moody tone capture why Chinatown continues to be an enigma. Spoilers: Chinatown runs by its own rules.

Available on DVD via Indiepix Films.

Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) Directed by Justin Lin, written by Ernesto Foronda, Justin Lin and Fabian Marquez

Justin Lin’s directorial debut film is a visionary portrait of Asian Americans that’s still relevant two decades on. Since its release in the early aughts, there has yet to be a film that explores the nuances and complexities of the average Southern-California Asian American teen like this film does. Better Luck Tomorrow focuses on a group of Asian American overachievers who become bored with their lives and enter a world of petty crime. It’s loosely based on four Sunny Hills High School students and the real-life murder of Stuart Tay, a teenager from the OC.

With its depiction of overachieving A+ students who are also foul-mouthed, drug-taking kids, this film was the launching pad for many iconic Asian American actors today—Sung Kang from the Fast and Furious franchise, John Cho (Star Trek) and my personal favorite, Jason Tobin, star of the Warrior TV series. (It’s entertaining to see the seeds of the Fast and Furious series planted in this film in the character of Han, played by Sung Kang, before the explosion of the franchise: one of the characters mutters, “Rumors about us came and went fast and furious”—and the rest is history.)

Better Luck Tomorrow still stands as the most iconic film to capture the suburban Asian American teen existence in all its good, bad and ugly light. “I was part of a movement,” Tobin recalled in this GQ oral history of the film, “and it was a culmination of all the battles I had fought before that to get Asian faces on the big screen.”

Available to stream and rent on multiple platforms.

The Grace Lee Project (2005) Directed by Grace Lee

If you’re an Asian American who grew up in California or New York, chances are, you know at least two Grace Lees in your life. But growing up in Missouri, Korean American filmmaker Grace Lee was the only one she knew with her name. She soon discovers that with the name comes a certain stereotype, that of the “good” Asian—quiet, well-behaved and a hard worker. Lee goes on a quest to interview a wide range of women who have the same name and soon discover if this wildly common stereotype is true.

Lee’s witty, autobiographical documentary is effortlessly funny and insightful. The Grace Lee Project dives deep into identity politics to reveal that sometimes, a name is simply a name. This was the start of Grace Lee’s journey as a filmmaker and she continues to be an important voice in not just the documentary space but in narrative stories as well.

Streaming on Kanopy.

Saving Face (2004) Written and directed by Alice Wu

Alice Wu’s Saving Face is a timeless queer love story. Produced by none other than Will Smith (yes, that Will Smith), Saving Face follows a Chinese American lesbian woman and her traditional mother (played by Michelle Krusiec and Joan Chen, respectively) as both battle with their reluctance to go against cultural expectations and reveal their secret loves. It’s part family drama, part rom-com, exploring expectations specific to Asian women across generations.

While most Asian American films focus on familial obligations through the point of view of the children of immigrants, Wu’s film considers the conflicts of both daughter and mother. For Asian Americans, it’s a tale as old as time but with a twist that shows that no matter how old you get, you still have to, unfortunately, fight to be who you are. I also highly recommend Wu’s spiritual sequel, The Half of It, on Netflix.

Streaming on Amazon Prime and Tubi, and for rent on various VOD platforms.

In Between Days (‘방황의 날들’, 2007) Directed by So Yong Kim, written by Bradley Rust Gray and So Yong Kim

So Yong Kim’s debut feature, In Between Days, follows Jiseon Kim, a Korean teen immigrant, who falls in love with her best friend while navigating the challenges of living in a new country. Director Kim is a masterful storyteller and captures life as it should be seen: unfiltered and trivial at times, but using the mundane to find cinematic magic.

I like to categorize So Yong Kim’s work as a showcase of extreme intimacy. Her story features painfully delicate characters and moments so real, you’ll wonder how any of these scenes could be fiction. There’s a sense of vulnerability and loneliness that fills the air as Jiseon struggles to assimilate to a new country, replete with toxic relationships, self-sabotage and unrelenting jealousy. So Yong Kim’s work is so painfully real, it hurts to watch.

Available on Kanopy and Amazon.

Ping Pong Playa (2007) Directed by Jessica Yu, written by Jimmy Tsai and Jessica Yu

There are two things that embody countless Asian American men’s experience: their love for basketball, and their love of rap music. Ping Pong Playa covers both, and is exactly the kind of Asian American comedy I’ve been waiting for! Christopher “C-Dub” Wang (played by co-writer Jimmy Tsai) is a wannabe baller and a supreme slacker who has to step up to the plate when his family’s business and ping-pong-champion reputation is on the line. In addition to being centered around an Asian family, the core of the film rivals any other low-brow, underdog sport film.

Laugh-out-loud hilarious, this is Academy-Award-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu’s first narrative feature, following a groundbreaking career full of daring documentaries (her Oscar was for this portrait of writer Mark O’Brien, who spent much of his life in an iron lung). Seeing C-Dub as an NBA-loving slacker turned ping-pong playa felt validating; it showed that even if you’re a lazy and immature Asian, you can always find something to succeed at.

Streaming on Tubi, and for rent on Amazon and iTunes.

In Football We Trust (2015) Directed by Tony Vainuku and Erika Cohn

While Salt Lake City, Utah, is seen as predominantly a white Mormon town, it in fact has the largest population of Pacific Islanders in the US mainland, due to the strength of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ proselytizing in the Pacific. The documentary In Football We Trust follows four Polynesian high-school students, as they chase their lifelong dream of attaining professional recruitment. Told in moments of adolescence, the film follows the greatest challenges for these four young men, as they chase their dreams while trying to grow up.

In no time, they’re faced with the harsh reality that just maybe, football isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. As much as their hefty attributes and builds serve as their greatest advantages, these boys’ cultural and familial obligations become both their greatest motivations and, possibly, their downfall. Filmed over the span of four years, first time filmmakers Tony Vainuku and Erika Cohn chronicle the NFL hopefuls as they navigate the pressure to balance dreams and family to win a golden ticket out of gang violence and poverty.

Streaming on Kanopy, and for rent on various VOD platforms.

Spa Night (2016) Written and directed by Andrew Ahn

In his directorial debut, Andrew Ahn perfectly captures a specific corner of Los Angeles’ Koreatown. Spa Night’s focus is David, a closeted Korean American teenager who takes a job at a Korean spa to help his struggling family, and then discovers an underground world of gay sex. You may recognize Joe Seo as the goofy bully in the Netflix hit show Cobra Kai, but it’s Spa Night where you can see him truly shine—he won Sundance’s US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance.

Seo delivers a powerfully restrained performance, exploring the burden of hiding your true self from your family. Spa Night is more than a coming out story, it’s also about the broken American dream that so many immigrants experience. Ahn’s direction is finely tuned, honing in on the specificity of Koreatown. It is an acutely queer story of second-gen Asian Americans, where coming out is never really about just you, but also your family.

Streaming on Kanopy, and for rent on various VOD platforms.

Punching at the Sun (2006) Directed by Tanuj Chopra, written by Tanuj Chopra and Hart Eddy

Mameet is young, angry and has always lived in the shadow of his basketball-legend brother, Sanjay. When Sanjay is suddenly killed during a robbery at the family store, Mameet spirals and takes his anger out on anyone and everyone. Coping with loss at a young age is hard enough, but Punching at the Sun mixes in the specific anxieties of being a South-Asian man amidst the backdrop of post-9/11 America. In doing so, the film addresses the difficulty of juggling teenage angst and immigrant identity—Mameet is not afforded the option to express his anger and grief.

Cathartic and emotionally validating, this is a simple yet nuanced slice-of-life story that conveys the heaviness of growing up with the weight of the world on our shoulders. In Mameet’s case, thank goodness, he ultimately shares some of that burden with his comical friends and knit-tight family.

Available to rent on Vimeo.

Meet the Patels (2014) Directed by Ravi Patel and Geeta Patel, written by Ravi Patel, Matthew Hamachek, Billy McMillin, and Geeta Patel

In the romantic documentary Meet the Patels, Ravi Patel is a dutiful first-gen son whose parents are continually nagging him to marry a nice Indian girl. With Ravi's sister Geeta Patel co-directing and co-writing, and his parents in the frame, his film (and true-life story) are indeed a family affair. What starts as his journey to find a wife to make his family happy becomes an enlightening intro to Indian culture and modern love—think dating apps, weddings and a Patel Matrimonial Convention (gotta see it to believe).

Humorous as it is outrageously charming, Meet the Patels ultimately shows the struggles and cultural expectations most immigrant offspring face, on top of the million other obstacles of trying to find your one and only true love in this mad, mad world.

Streaming on various platforms.

Related content

Ten Underrated Asian American & Pacific Islander Films, a Letterboxd list

Best Asian American Films: So Yun Um’s list

Debbie Chang’s comprehensive Asian American film canon list (also features Asian-Canadian, Asian-British and other diaspora)

Bellamy’s list of feature-length films directed by Asian Americans

Follow So on Letterboxd

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years

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Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.

The magnitude of this failure is astonishing. According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering,1 the United States leads the world in Covid-19 cases and in deaths due to the disease, far exceeding the numbers in much larger countries, such as China. The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000. Covid-19 is an overwhelming challenge, and many factors contribute to its severity. But the one we can control is how we behave. And in the United States we have consistently behaved poorly.

We know that we could have done better. China, faced with the first outbreak, chose strict quarantine and isolation after an initial delay. These measures were severe but effective, essentially eliminating transmission at the point where the outbreak began and reducing the death rate to a reported 3 per million, as compared with more than 500 per million in the United States. Countries that had far more exchange with China, such as Singapore and South Korea, began intensive testing early, along with aggressive contact tracing and appropriate isolation, and have had relatively small outbreaks. And New Zealand has used these same measures, together with its geographic advantages, to come close to eliminating the disease, something that has allowed that country to limit the time of closure and to largely reopen society to a prepandemic level. In general, not only have many democracies done better than the United States, but they have also outperformed us by orders of magnitude.

Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly? We have failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn’t provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public. And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing. While the absolute numbers of tests have increased substantially, the more useful metric is the number of tests performed per infected person, a rate that puts us far down the international list, below such places as Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, countries that cannot boast the biomedical infrastructure or the manufacturing capacity that we have.2 Moreover, a lack of emphasis on developing capacity has meant that U.S. test results are often long delayed, rendering the results useless for disease control.

Although we tend to focus on technology, most of the interventions that have large effects are not complicated. The United States instituted quarantine and isolation measures late and inconsistently, often without any effort to enforce them, after the disease had spread substantially in many communities. Our rules on social distancing have in many places been lackadaisical at best, with loosening of restrictions long before adequate disease control had been achieved. And in much of the country, people simply don’t wear masks, largely because our leaders have stated outright that masks are political tools rather than effective infection control measures. The government has appropriately invested heavily in vaccine development, but its rhetoric has politicized the development process and led to growing public distrust.

The United States came into this crisis with enormous advantages. Along with tremendous manufacturing capacity, we have a biomedical research system that is the envy of the world. We have enormous expertise in public health, health policy, and basic biology and have consistently been able to turn that expertise into new therapies and preventive measures. And much of that national expertise resides in government institutions. Yet our leaders have largely chosen to ignore and even denigrate experts.

The response of our nation’s leaders has been consistently inadequate. The federal government has largely abandoned disease control to the states. Governors have varied in their responses, not so much by party as by competence. But whatever their competence, governors do not have the tools that Washington controls. Instead of using those tools, the federal government has undermined them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was the world’s leading disease response organization, has been eviscerated and has suffered dramatic testing and policy failures. The National Institutes of Health have played a key role in vaccine development but have been excluded from much crucial government decision making. And the Food and Drug Administration has been shamefully politicized,3 appearing to respond to pressure from the administration rather than scientific evidence. Our current leaders have undercut trust in science and in government,4 causing damage that will certainly outlast them. Instead of relying on expertise, the administration has turned to uninformed “opinion leaders” and charlatans who obscure the truth and facilitate the promulgation of outright lies.

Let’s be clear about the cost of not taking even simple measures. An outbreak that has disproportionately affected communities of color has exacerbated the tensions associated with inequality. Many of our children are missing school at critical times in their social and intellectual development. The hard work of health care professionals, who have put their lives on the line, has not been used wisely. Our current leadership takes pride in the economy, but while most of the world has opened up to some extent, the United States still suffers from disease rates that have prevented many businesses from reopening, with a resultant loss of hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of jobs. And more than 200,000 Americans have died. Some deaths from Covid-19 were unavoidable. But, although it is impossible to project the precise number of additional American lives lost because of weak and inappropriate government policies, it is at least in the tens of thousands in a pandemic that has already killed more Americans than any conflict since World War II.

Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.

[The New England Journal of Medicine]

#The New England Journal of Medicine #NEJM #COVID 19 #global pandemic #the plague #2020 #corrupt GOP

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autisticchicc · 3 years

Text

Autism and Love

TW: Mentions of physical and emotional abuse, drug-related metaphor

Love and obsession, for me, are separated by a very thin line. Even if I weren’t autistic, I know I would still love fiercely, but I also know that autism has a profound effect on the way that I feel and express love.

In my life there have been numerous occasions where I thought I was in love, and I often still debate with myself about whether I have ever been ‘in love’. Nowadays I tend to take the view that love is something very personal, and just because it doesn’t last doesn’t make it any less valid. Being someone who is still on good or even great terms with all of my ex partners, I’d say I absolutely loved them at one point in my life. Maybe I still do love them, but I live a strictly categorised life. That love is now a purely a platonic love that comes from knowing and trusting someone for a long time. That ability to categorise so strictly is something some of my exes have had a hard time coming to terms with, I am quick to move them into the platonic love category and keep them there. Once someone has been placed in the platonic category, they do not leave. I don’t get back with ex-partners, and I don’t actually think its possible due to that strict categorisation.

My very first boyfriend sent me a message the other day asking if I ever still think about him. I replied honestly and said that I do not. I think that this comes from the strict categorisation too. If you are my friend, I think about you, but not that often. I have a lot of things happening in my head at all times, a sensory cornucopia that is exhausting to sort through, a conscious stream of five or six trains of thought, and my special interests. Special interests are a really intriguing factor in the context of autistic love, because I believe that the intense focus and adoration we treat our interests with absolutely translates to the people we fall in love with.

Anyone who has been close friends with me while in a relationship knows how insufferable I am when I love someone. I talk about them at any given opportunity, for longer than the other person probably cares to hear about it at times. When I love someone, they become a source of great inspiration, I find the characters I write resembling them, I could spend hours editing pictures and videos of them, my artwork is littered with their image. Love, for me, is an all-encapsulating thing. It invades every aspect of my life, consciously or subconsciously. They become the most beautiful person in my eyes, I drink in their image as though dehydrated. Curiously, even things I perhaps did not like about them before suddenly become things I look at fondly. Something about that shift from like to love, it is a very powerful shift for me.

Ironically, I’m not very forthright with my expressions of love. After mulling it over for years, I’ve realised that I’ve been conditioned to believe that love and pain go hand in hand. When you love someone, you must expect them to hurt you. At least, that’s what I thought until I deconstructed why I thought that. I had become accustomed to people weaponising my love for them, using it to blackmail me emotionally or to excuse physical abuse. As such, although I feel so deeply for the people I love, I am always very anxious about showing it in ways that can be used against me. I don’t show them the story or the art that I created inspired by them, for fear that they might think me obsessed for spending so much time on something pertaining to them.

I get very embarrassed when performing acts of service for my partners. I enjoy tidying and cleaning a lot, and I often want to do it for my partners to make their lives easier, but I get scared that they will think I’m being subservient and that they can take advantage of me. When I see my partner enjoying something or fostering a talent, I desperately want to invest in it, buy them tools and find resources so that they can develop it further, but am scared that they will think me strange and over-enthusiastic. I’m the kind of partner that loves extremely hard, and wants to express it as such, but I cannot quite get over the shame.

I have only recently been able to engage in non-sexual physical touch without flinching. Learning that touch is your love language when you have been shying away from it for years is a strange thing. It almost feels like a betrayal of sorts. Why was I denied this thing that I love for so long? And the reality is, it was a part of that fear. I have to be vulnerable with someone in order to allow them to touch me. Vulnerability has never come easily for me, although I always desperately wanted it. Finding someone that I can entangle limbs with, that I can kiss and hug on a whim, that I can show physical affection in my ‘weird’ autistic ways with has been very therapeutic for me. For the first time, I feel like I can have vulnerability and touch without it being thrown back in my face. It feels desired and reciprocated, not only do I want to touch and hold this person, but they want to touch and hold me too.

Another lesson within that has been ensuring that while I maintain my tough, outer visage, I am honest about needing to be soft and fragile sometimes. I have always been forced into being strong and resilient, it was never a conscious choice that I made for myself. I was forever pushed to be strong for other people, constantly making sure that those that needed me didn’t have to see me struggling or breaking under pressure. I never had someone I felt I could truly cry in front of, ugly, drunken sobbing type of crying. At least not without feeling judged or treated like a flight risk. Having someone I can be unapologetically sad in front of and they don’t force me to be strong for their own comfort feels so alien to me, but the relief it fills me with is immense. I am no longer pretending, and I am no longer embarrassed to be fragile. I can break down in front of this person and they will never question my strength.

While crying and vulnerability are certainly an obvious hurdle for plenty of people in relationships, for autistic people there is the added stress of getting used to unmasking in front of a partner. I didn’t get diagnosed for a very long time, which will tell you just how good I am at masking. As a Hispanic girl, a lot of my behaviours weren’t reprimanded too much. Being loud and aggressive is normal in Spanish culture, and oftentimes isn’t even interpreted as aggression the way it is in the UK. Conversely, I did terribly with the tactile nature of social interaction in Spain and among Hispanics. I didn’t want to kiss strangers or even family members on both cheeks, I didn’t like having my cheeks squeezed by old women, and I didn’t like people touching, grabbing, or shaking me. But I was unfortunately forced to do it for my own survival. I don’t know if the sentiments around disabilities have changed in Spain, but the way I remember it in the part I grew up in was that they weren’t talked about. I didn’t even know what disabilities were until I came to the UK.

In England, pretty much every aspect of my behaviour was reprimanded; my loudness, my ‘aggression’, my opinionated disposition, my lack of a filter, my inability to understand my classmates’ feelings… The list goes on and on. At a certain point, I learned to just hold in a lot of my personality until I got home. What I didn’t realise that I was actually holding in some instinctive behaviours in privacy as well, I would flinch and stop if I noticed myself stimming, my face would go red when I couldn’t verbalise properly, and I often found myself practicing facial expressions in the bathroom mirror because I was self-conscious that I wasn’t doing them ‘correctly’. I started my own personal journey so to speak about a year ago to completely unmask, alone. I still cringe when I catch my arms pulling up into ‘t-rex’ form or if I start verbally/physically stimming, but I’m slowly becoming less ashamed of myself.

Consequently, unmasking in front of someone else has been incredibly nerve-wracking. The ‘issue’ (I say issue but it’s quite the opposite) is that I’m so comfortable in my partner’s home that I unmask without even realising it. Something I’ve noticed however, is that half the time they don’t. When my fingers twist and rub against each other, I glance up nervously to see if I’m being watched. No one has even glanced at me. I stammer and mess up my sentence, or my mouth fails halfway through, and yet even then no one laughs or looks at me strangely, they just wait for me to rectify or finish the sentence. I wonder if part of me still thinks I’m under the ultra-critical gaze of my secondary school peers, expecting to be torn to shreds verbally over my quirks as I always was, but it never happens. I have to constantly remind myself that I am well liked here, and my quirks are something people are fond of now.

Overall, love as an autistic person is intense and difficult, but an experience that is so all-consuming it feels almost like you’re on some kind of drug. I’m a very logical, science-based person, but love is one of the few things that still feels remotely magical to me. It can draw me out of my cold, black and white world and into an illogical whirlpool of emotion. I rarely act on emotion alone, but love is something that certainly has the power to make me do so. It embarrasses me a lot, it makes me feel out my depth, it makes me behave in ways I normally wouldn’t, but I’ll endure those feelings any day for the reward. I still have a long way to go before I can properly express myself to a partner, but one day I’d really like to be able to show them all my projects inspired by them, and the true level of sappiness I’m capable of (lol).

#autism #asd #aspergers #autism and love #asd and love #love #disability #disability and love #aspiegirl #neurodivergent #neurotypical #neurodiverse #autistic #autism spectrum #autism awareness #autism and relationships

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route22ny · 4 years

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(This editorial appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine on October 8, 2020)

***

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812

Also available in pdf format at the link.

#covid-19 #coronavirus #public health #trump knew and did nothing #VOTE

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rinusagitora · 3 years

Text

The love, lead, and the undead.

Fandom: Monster Prom

Characters: Vicky Schmidt, Damien LaVey, Brian Yu, Oz, Zoe, Vera Oberlin, Polly Geist, Amira Rashid, Kale

Pairings: BriDamiVicky, OzZoe, AmiVera

Words: 2.9k

Summary: Canon divergent. Chapter 10/?. WARNINGS- PTSD symptoms, drug use, fanart drawn by @spookyhugsandkisses; Everyone is home, and is processing the events that have so far unfolded.

AO3

It was one of those nights Oz just wasn't able to focus. Even snuggled against Zoe and watching a goofy, uplifting anime, he couldn't ease the pit in his gut.

Zoe's thumb rubbed his brow. It was nice stimulation, at least. She was sweet in every way.

It was just a bad couple of days, Oz reasoned. He lived through millions. The birth of predator and prey, the fall of civilizations.

Zoe asked, "Do you remember your very first day?"

"Maybe long ago," he replied. "My first memory is in the dark, just beyond an orange light…. I think. There are so many now, it's hard to sort through them."

"Me too."

"What brings this up?" Oz asked.

"This, that, the other," she said. "I'm trying to remember a time before now that I've worked to keep people alive."

He frowned. "We're not very good at it.'

"No," Zoe agreed.

"We try to save people, but… they just end up dying. Or someone does."

She said, "They're all too eager to. Vera happily forked over her soul."

"And they adore destruction…. I hate demons for that reason. The Aquino, the LaVey, gungho for ruination and bloodshed before diplomacy."

"We wouldn't be here without it," Zoe said.

"Don't you tire of it?"

"I never said it didn't."

Oz hummed. His vision was blurry. Phobias kissed Zoe's hand, hugged her knee. He barely understood what Sergeant Frog was saying.

But that was the least of his worries.

"All of this now… what we're doing… is it helping, or is it retribution?"

"That depends on our intentions," she said. "Neutral good and lawful evil can approach a problem the same way and the only thing that puts them apart is their intentions."

Oz sat up. His Phobias whined for her skin like grumpy children. "Do we avenge Vicky?"

"Is she our friend?"

"... she's not innocent in all this."

"No, but that's irrelevant at this point."

He cocked an eyebrow. "How so?"

"We walk among mortals for so long and they rub off on us." Zoe cupped his cheek. Oz's eyes fluttered shut as she pet his cheekbone. "You more than I."

"Are you saying we mingle in these partisan affairs?"

"We already mingle, love," she said. "We've gone this far for them. I don't mind going further."

Oz's Phobias smiled with him. "I love you, Zoe."

---

Vicky felt like she hadn't been home in years.

It was stale, but just as she left it.

Vicky lingered in the doorway as her boyfriends made a beeline for the bedroom, Damien stripping to his boxers en route and littering his clothes on the floor.

She wasn't sure how she felt about being back. Vicky felt foreign, different, displaced. She stood in the entrance, shoes and jacket still on, and tried to piece it together with a puzzled furrow in her brow.

How many times had Vicky died? Once… twice… thrice? What counted as death and undeath?

Philosophy made her head fuzzy. She pushed off her shoes, not even caring to toss them into the shoe rack inches away, and made for the kitchenette in search of moldy dishes and rotten food. She'd need laundry done too.

"Babe, chores can wait."

Vicky didn't even bother to check if that was Brian or Damien. She said, "I want my place to be clean. Plus, I need clothes for class tomorrow."

"I thought we should skip," Damien said.

"Been through enough to warrant a break," Brian agreed.

She huffed. "I want to see my friends. Liam and Blobert don't know I'm back yet. It's not fair to keep them in the dark."

"Yes," Brian said, sitting on the floor with Vicky, "so we'll call them. Or meet them after school. But Vicky… you're still in fight or flight mode. We need to get out of that."

She laughed wryly. "What, like Hugh isn't at large?"

"There are three of us, and one of him. If he does invade your home, I think we got him," Damien snorted. Brian glared at him over his shoulder.

"Not helpful," he said.

"What? It's true."

Vicky sighed and continued to gather her outfit for tomorrow. She got together something presentable and went to her closet for the wire so she could hang them up in the bathroom. She shook Brian's hand off her pant leg but was caught by Damien a second later.

"Yeah, we're going to bed and sleeping in."

"No," Vicky argued. "I want to go to school."

"Baby, he's right. I'm so tired I'm gonna pass out when I hit the pillow," Damien said.

"Like you don't already?" Vicky snapped. "Dami, let me go. I have to get ready for school."

"We're going to bed," he said, firmly, golden eyes boring into her own.

Her nostrils flared irritably. Vicky adored her boyfriends but everything, the second the door closed, once she was relieved of the worries of her loved ones’ livelihood, she was imprisoned in a maelstrom of conflicted emotions. Fear, grief, rage. Shame that she was annoyed that Brian and Damien breathed over her shoulder. They just missed her. Vicky knew she would have behaved exactly like them if she watched either Brian or Damien die.

But sometimes, Vicky felt like her loved ones forgot she had a threshold. In less than a quarter of a century, Vicky was routinely sexually abused, experimented on by someone even more horrendous than herself as a bank robber, killed someone, and finally, she had died twice.

Vicky felt like she had every right to a night where she didn’t have birds chirping in her ear.

“Move,” Vicky said. “I’m just doing laundry.”

“No. We’re gonna relax tonight.” Damien's voice was rising, he was getting angry. Brian gawked at the scene unfolding from the corner of Vicky's eye.

“I want to go to school. I want to see my friends, and I don’t want to smell like stale laundry when I do!” she insisted, her voice quickly reaching a shrill crescendo in her frustration.

“What is your fucking problem, Vicky?” Damien barked.

“Nothing! I just don’t want to smell like stale laundry when I go to school.”

“It’s safe to say we’re not winning this fight,” Brian grumbled. He tried to grab Vicky’s laundry, and she pulled them away. He scowled and swiped again. “Babe, please give it to me.”

“No.”

“Am I seriously the only one here who’s exhausted?” Damien said, storming into the living room and tearing at his hair. ��It hasn’t even been a fucking week since you died. We’ve been through a lot. We deserve some fucking sleep!”

Vicky whipped to him and screamed, “Like I fucking don’t? Like I fucking didn’t?” Her hair bristled with static. “You can’t fucking begin to comprehend the pain I’ve been through, asshole. I’ll cope however I fucking please.”

“I just watched you and my dad die! Don’t guilt-trip me.”

“Guys,” Brian said as stepped between them, “let’s not get into this. I’ll do the laundry. You two can go to bed.”

Vicky shoved past Brian. “Guilt trip?” she squawked. “You want a fucking guilt trip, Damien? I’ll show you a fucking guilt trip. You could’ve fucking saved me! You knew who took me, but you waited days to get me. Do you know how badly I was hurting? How isolated and confused I was?” She jabbed her finger into his chest. “You’re selfish and… and dictatorial! You got to grow up in a sweet little princely bubble where everything’s fucking rosy, but I was tortured, and killed, and raped, you son of a bitch, and when you guys had the opportunity to help, it you fucking days!”

Brian replied, “What the fuck is wrong with you, Vicky?”

Tearfully, she screamed, “Shut the fuck up, Brian!” She turned back to Damien. He was tearful. Irate. “What the fuck do you have to say for yourself?”

Damien bent over her and said, “I was in so much pain without you, Vicky. I wanted to get you every day. But if we stormed without a plan, they would have killed you.”

“They already killed me!” Every inch of her mortal skin felt hot from her anger. “All I want to do is something mundane to keep my mind of this bullshit, but you guys are breathing down my fucking neck. You don’t have to fucking help me, but I need some room to breathe.”

“You were just fucking murdered and had to fight for your fucking life just a couple of hours ago. Vicky, you can’t work yourself to the bone! I was worried about you and you jumped down my fucking throat!”

Brian pushed the pair apart. “We need to calm down before the cops get called,” he reasoned.

She slapped away Brian’s hand. “Don’t defend him,” she said, “you’re as insufferable as he is!”

“Vicky,” Brian said as he wrapped her fists around her’s, “we weren’t trying to breathe down your neck. We know you’re in pain, and we just wanted to help you feel okay.”

“I don’t get to be okay! I just get to be miserable and hurting!” Vicky slipped away and wept. She combed her fingers through her hair and blubbered noisily. “I’ve wanted so badly to just die so all my pain would end. I’m even in pain when I sleep. But when I die, there’s just more of it. I’m in Hell if I’m not on my way.” Her lip wobbled. “And I drag everyone down with me.”

“You’re not dragging us down,” Brian reassured her.

“Scott,” she argued. “He may as well be dead. He was just a good friend and now he’s a vegetable because of me.” While she cried, she sunk to the floor. “I have to live with all this pain. The second something good happens to me, it’s ruined. I was better off exploited.”

Vicky cried into the carpet. Brian and Damien laid down with her. She clung to them, she blubbered apologies for everything under the sun and cursed her suffering.

Damien stroked her hair, holding her so tightly her back popped. It was so hot between them. She wanted to writhe in pain, in misery, but they caged her. Made her remember her company and her family.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, "I'm sorry."

Damien hushed her. "It's fine. It's okay."

"I love you all so much."

Brian pressed a kiss to her. Again, again, again, until she was short of breath.

She sat up. Damien laid his head on her lap.

"I'm thirsty," she said, raspy and tired. "I'm going to make tea."

Damien and Brian followed Vicky into the commons. Damien took a seat, and while Vicky prepared water in the kettle, Brian hugged her from behind. Kissed her scalp.

"I missed you," he said. "I love you so much."

"I love you too." Vicky swayed. Her eyes watered again. She hated how much she cried. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Everything."

Brian hummed. His cheek laid in her head. "Water under the bridge, and all. Most of it isn't even you." She felt his frown. "Given the chance, I'd light your uncle on fire."

"Fuuuuck," Damien groaned. "If my dad and Hugo are fucking brothers, that means Dahlia is my fucking cousin."

Vicky frowned. "That may become… problematic," she said.

He scratched his ear. "I don't wanna worry about it now…"

"Mood," Brian agreed.

The kettle whistled. Vicky poured it over a tea bag and then took a seat between her boyfriends. They leaned against her, eyes glued to the television screen.

She sipped her tea. Brian and Damien drifted off. They were exhausted, truly. She didn't blame them. It was a long week.

But could she find a reprise? Never.

---

Something was exhausting about trading with eldritch creatures. Like her chest was scraped with a curette. Painkillers weren’t helping, and Vera was debating whether or not to undergo local anesthesia.

But she was so tired. With Vicky passing, Scott in a coma, and then Vicky returning, she was exhausted. That was the first day in years she hadn’t even checked her phone to work.

She missed Scott so much.

His machines beeped rhythmically. It should've been a peaceful sound. Like white noise. But the context almost put Vera in a fugue state. Catatonic with… with feelings she didn't quite understand.

Amira shook her shoulder. Morning light cast a shadow over the building. It was still dark in their room due to western exposure.

He said, "Baby, you look so… tired. Have you slept?"

"No. I don't think so, at least." Vera only then managed to pull her attention away from Scott. "I need to call in my absence."

"I took care of it," Amira said.

Vera hummed. Her chest still hurt.

"I want to stay here for the day," she told Amira. He nodded.

"Agreed." Amira pulled up a seat and crossed his legs. "He's got some color in his cheeks, though. The witches here are doing a damn good job."

"Nothing can fix everything." Not science, or magic, or what have you. But Amira squeezed her hand.

He said, "I know. But I'm optimistic."

"Aren't you always?" Vera looked back to Scott. He was intubated. Made to breathe. His heart was pumped by machines. Everything mechanical. Vera didn't have high hopes for his survival.

And it broke her heart. Scott could be obnoxious, but he was ultimately harmless! A victim in all this, the truest of them all.

Vera hated the Aquino family for victimizing someone whose inner light brightened the world like the sun. She'd be certain to rain terror on them from on high. To ruin them in every way she could.

Amira seemed to pick up on Vera's vitriol. He said, squeezing her hand again, "Do you want something to eat? Drink?"

"... just some water," she replied quietly.

Amira walked out. Polly floated in a second later.

Vera wasn't in the mood for conversation, but wasn't about to kick out a grieving friend, either. She wordlessly nodded to Polly. Polly smiled. She looked like she, too, was crying.

"I miss you," Polly croaked. "The hardest part of you being gone is that those of us left behind had so much to tell you, so much we wanted to experience with you, and now… now you're gone." She wiped her face. "I'd do anything to make you better, man."

Vera bowed her head, crying too. God, she missed him so much.

---

That morning, Vicky sent a text to Blobert and Liam to meet them. Of course, she was spammed with messages, but after proving it was her, and telling them she'd explain everything after school, they relented.

They waited in the parking lot hours later. Vicky smoked, and it reminded Brian that he could go for some weed. Everything was so uncertain. So tense. He needed something to ease his nerves.

The bell rang and students began to file out. Kale walked by, oblivious as he played what Brian was sure to be PokeMans.

He elbowed Damien. Both he and his girlfriend turned to him. "I'm gonna talk to Kale if that's cool."

"Go ahead." Vicky smiled a smile that made Brian swoon without fail.

Damien pecked Brian on the lips. "We'll hold down the fort, babe."

"Thanks."

Brian strode to catch up to Kale, before saying, "Hey, man! It's been a minute."

Kale turned around, bark crunching, and smiled. "Hey there. Glad to see you back." He pulled his headphones around his neck. "I heard Vicky's back too."

"Yeah. It's…"

"A long story?"

"You have no idea."

"As fun as the details prolly are, I'm sure you'd rather wind down."

"You read my mind." Brian pulled a baggie out of his coat pocket. "You got a minute?"

"Sure."

Brian and Kale found a secluded bench where the air smelled fresh and the only sounds were birds chirping. Traffic was completely absorbed by tall hedges.

They made their joints and then leaned back to enjoy them. It lingered in his lungs, making him buzz pleasantly. He could feel his stiff, rotten muscles easing.

"The fuck even happened?" Kale asked. Brian hummed dumbly. "With Vicky, I mean."

"Oh." Brian frowned as he ruminated. "She got into some trouble during a job. Some people didn't like it, and so they took her out." That was the simplest explanation, without the messy politics of Hell, and without a long story that was sure to just make Brian miserable.

"She's back now, at least."

"Equally as complicated," Brian told him.

"I bet." Kale took a puff. They sat in silence for a good minute. "It's fucked up, though. Are you sure you're cut out for this shit?"

Brian was a little hurt by that like Kale was suggesting it was somehow Vicky and Damien's vault she was murdered. It was a power grab. That's all.

But Kale was just trying to be a good friend, Brian reminded himself. He said, "Yeah. All this bullshit just reassured me how much I love them, y'know?"

"I'll take your word for it. I dunno much about that love bullshit, but if you're happy, man…" Kale trailed off and shrugged.

"Thanks."

Again, silence as they smoked. That was something he liked about Kale. How laid back he was. As fun as the insanity as Spooky High was, it was much nicer when insanity was a fraction of his day. Brian preferred sleeping like the dead or getting as close to it as possible.

Kale then asked, "What're you gonna do after all this?"

Brian pondered for only a second before he pictured Vicky and Damien in wedding garb from his home country.

"I want to get married."

#monster prom #bridamivicky #ozzoe #amivera #oz monster prom #zoe monster prom #vicky schmidt #damien lavey #brian yu #kale monster prom #amira rashid #vera oberlin

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behrooz-musigns · 3 years

Photo

+ Innovative, warm, witty, kind, protective, geeky +/- Intellectual, observant, horny - impatient, unreliable, outspoken, easily distracted

++ BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME: Behrooz Hakim Najm PRONUNCIATION: Beh-roes MEANING: Lucky ZODIAC: Pisces ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Bi SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Poly CURRENT LOCATION: Epineios OCCUPATION: Student, IT

++ BIOGRAPHY

Behrooz personally invented the saying ‘I guess luck is just on my side’, or so they would have everyone in their school believe when they got another high score in one of the games they played in the back of the school. They would do guessing games, with people asking them a number which they had written down, and Behrooz would always guess right.

Sadly luck rarely followed them home. They were raised by their grandmother, who forbade them to hang out after school, and certainly ensured they would never be seen hanging out with girls on their own. She would remind them time and time again of their father, a gambler who had made it big winning game after game, then one day showed up with a baby, only to drink himself to death a year later. She would remind them that they were the family’s burden, and they would have to behave in order to not bring another burden upon them.

And as they grew older, luck left them more and more often. Being a practicing Muslim was already a hard sell, but with the world growing more extreme around them, they found the community stifle their ambitions daily. It confused Behrooz that while their religion gave them anxiety, praying chased the demons away. It was almost as if they couldn’t have the one without the other.

Life was a constant . Bad people walking in and out of their life, bullies, racist teachers, judgemental neighbors, judgemental extended family members. Behrooz tended to lock themselves up in their room every day, listening to music or playing games of chance. A knot seemed to live inside their stomach all the time, a fear of being plucked off of the street and never arriving home.

When that actually happened, it wasn’t like they had imagined.

Being mostly interested in digits, numbers, code, etc. Behrooz hadn’t paid much attention to history class when Ancient Greek and Ancient Rome were being discussed, and as they saw a creepy creature with goat legs walk up to them, they really wished they had. There was a whole speech about being in mortal danger, gods, strange creatures on the loose, yada yada. Behrooz had a headache by the time the goat legged creature told them to follow him. Very close to sparking some lie about soccer practice or prayers, their head snapped back to attention when the creature suggested they had a mother who was a God.

The only thing driving them forward was the possibility of learning who their mother was, something in their brain sending out constant messages of: gotta meet mom, gotta meet mom, gotta meet mom. Rather than forming coherent sentences. They disappeared into some cleared out old train tunnel, and emerged on the other side of the bleedin’ ocean. All Behrooz knew to say was: “thought your accent sounded funny.” Before being swarmed by the strangest assortment of kids, some younger than their fourteen years, others older, everyone excited. Was this the right time to say they were Muslim and watch everyone slowly disappear like they had done back in school?

Nobody really seemed to care however, over the years - in which they discovered their godly parent, never got to meet her, discovered she was probably the most difficult goddess to find, got a large portion of the camp to join them during Ramadan - Behrooz stayed at the Camp the whole year round. They didn’t wish to return to the UK, and followed online lessons to keep up with their education. Of course they were bleedin’ lucky, and with time they learned how to use that luck to their advantage, and to that of those around them. Yet, Behrooz started to appreciate the balance of it all, the bad and the good.

To them, code was good. Watching others struggle with programs and computers, just made them more interested in it. Algorithms fascinated them, they could spend hours looking at code trying to figure out how it worked. When the time came for them to move out of the warm nest of Camp Half Blood, Behrooz had already set their sights on studying Programming at the University of New York.

++ HEADCANONS

++ Horny as hell, and often very lucky in love, although they can never seem to hold on to anyone for long.

++ A skilled programmer with a love for code and numbers and digits. They can stay up nights on end trying to figure out some new program or write an algorithm of their own.

++ Despite their interests in the digital, Bez spends most of their time outside if they can help it. They love forests, trees, the fresh air. They take walks a lot, driving the metro to the park and helping themselves to a huge thermos of coffee.

++ Religion is an important part of their life, without it they would be nowhere. Whenever they feel lost or anxious, they tend to be eager for it to be time to pray, something they do five times a day.

++ They’ve read the Quran, although their grandmother never taught them Arabic beforehand, so they’re currently reading it in English in between classes, thesis writing, and walks.

++ Bez is a very kind individual, who will help others whenever they can - mostly with IT stuff. As a job, or a way to get money mostly, they help teachers or partake in arranging anything that needs a programmer. They’re a regular Upwork user.

++ In fights Bez uses their ability to generate luck to get other Demigods out of trouble and make the damage less.

++ They love bunk beds.

++ Wears very loose-fitting clothing.

++ Drinks way too much coffee and black tea.

++ Doesn’t like it when people constantly nag.

++ Extremely messy, will end up finding coffee mugs everywhere.

++ Is always running from one place to the next because he has too much planned on a daily basis.

++ SKILLS & ABILITIES

PHYSICAL STRENGTH: Above average OFFENSE: Lacking DEFENSE: Main attribute SPEED: Above average INTELLIGENCE: High ACCURACY: Descent AGILITY: Good STAMINA: Fine TEAMWORK: Speciality TALENTS: Luck manipulation SHORTCOMINGS: Easily distracted, no overview LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: English DRIVE?: yes JUMP-STAR A CAR?: not really CHANGE A FLAT TIRE?: absolutely not RIDE A BICYCLE?: absolutely SWIM?: decently PLAY AN INSTRUMENT?: piano and guitar PLAY CHESS?: no BRAID HAIR?: one day maybe TIE A TIE?: yes PICK A LOCK?: yes

++ PHYSICAL APPEARANCE & CHARACTERISTICS

FACE CLAIM: Viveik Kalra EYE COLOR: brown HAIR COLOR: brown HAIR TYPE/STYLE: semi-long, wavy, thick GLASSES/CONTACTS?: no DOMINANT HAND: right HEIGHT: 1.75m WEIGHT: 65kg BUILD: lean EXERCISE HABITS: jogging in the morning, some sparring during the weekend SKIN TONE: brown TATTOOS: none PIERCINGS: none MARKS/SCARS: none NOTABLE FEATURES: three-day beard on account of forgetting to shave USUAL EXPRESSION: concentrated or dreamlike CLOTHING STYLE: loose clothing, soft fabric. JEWELRY: two rings on their right hand ALLERGIES: incense

++ PSYCHOLOGY

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral ELEMENT: earth MENTAL CONDITIONS/DISORDERS: Dyslexia, slight ADHD SOCIABILITY: normal EMOTIONAL STABILITY: average, let’s not talk about it. OBSESSION(S): code COMPULSION(S): gambling, drinking coffee and forgetting coffee, hyper-focus PHOBIA(S): fear of people being Islamphobic ADDICTION(S): caffeine DRUG USE: none ALCOHOL USE: none PRONE TO VIOLENCE?: no

++ MANNERISMS

SPEECH STYLE: quick, active, excited ACCENT: London British QUIRKS: licks teeth, uses swear words HOBBIES: coding, walking, jogging, drinking coffee, is Starbucks a hobby? HABITS: forgetting to sleep, running from place to place NERVOUS TICKS: tapping feet, sighing a lot DRIVES/MOTIVATIONS: meeting their mom, finishing their education FEARS: fear of being neglected or ignored SENSE OF HUMOR: yes, mostly dark British humor. DO THEY CURSE OFTEN?: a lot, though they use ‘bleedin’’ and several other more British less terrible words. CATCHPHRASE(S): “must be my lucky day” “I was born lucky”

++ FAVORITES

ACTIVITY: walking/hiking in the forest ANIMAL: raven BEVERAGE: coffee BOOK: Thief Lord by Cassandra Clarke CELEBRITY: Tom Hanks COLOR: Green DESIGNER: ?? FOOD: Sharma FLOWER: Lotus GEM: Emerald HOLIDAY: Eid al-Fitr MODE OF TRANSPORTATION: Bike MOVIE: The Internship MUSICAL ARTIST: Sigur Ros QUOTE/SAYING: “No person knows what he will earn tomorrow” SCENERY: forests SCENT: freshly grinded coffee SPORT: soccer SPORTS TEAM: Manchester united TELEVISION SHOW: I, Robot WEATHER: overcast and drizzly VACATION DESTINATION: -

++ ATTITUDES

GREATEST DREAM: to create their own algorithm that can help people choose what they want the most GREATEST FEAR: being targeted or discriminated based on their religion MOST AT EASE WHEN: at home, in their bed, with coffee, coding, or hiking in the forest, or at a mosque praying LEAST AT EASE WHEN: in a crowded place, discussing religion WORST POSSIBLE THING THAT COULD HAPPEN: being killed before finishing their degree BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT: getting a scholarship on luck alone BIGGEST REGRET: never having known their father MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT: grabbing a girl by her boobs in a hug from behind by accident BIGGEST SECRET: sometimes wishes they weren’t born a Demi-god. TOP PRIORITIES: finishing their thesis

#about

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strangerontheotherside84 · 4 years

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Wild Child (Billy Hargrove x Reader) part 5

Hey everybody thank you all so much for your nice feedback. I originally just wrote this story for a friend and didn’t think that anybody else would give a shit about it tbh. Which is also the reason why there is no regular uploading schedule and I am super shit at this whole tagging stuff…

Tagged-list: @speedmetalqueen @charmed-asylum

Warnings: language, mention of abuse, blood, mention of drug use

„Honey, I’m home.“ you shouted dramatically as you entered the small house, kicked of your boots and walked down the hallway into the kitchen.

You had actually been surprised to see lights burning inside the house as you arrived, your uncle didn’t mention that he was going to be home for dinner. Well now you at least had someone to share that frozen lasagna with. „Woah uncle Lou what’s that smell? Did you find out about the magical effects that spices have on pre-cooked food or-? Oh…“

You stopped at the sight of your uncle sitting at the kitchen table with your next door neighbour Ms Johnson, both of them looking very caught. And what you had mistaken for a very upgraded frozen lasagne seemed to actually be a real home-cooked meal. Well….you had definitely crushed their date.

„(Y/n)….I didn’t expect you to be home this early…I met Helen uhm Ms. Johnson at the garage and she suggested to cook dinner for us.“

„Yeah no worries.“ you laughed. You knew very well that Helen and your Uncle had a thing for each other. Nobody needed their car to get fixed that often. She would also regulary pretend to check up on you to see if your uncle was home. Once you even caught her, leaving the house through the backdoor early in the morning. They were acting like teenagers which to be honest was kinda cute.

„Wait a minute..“ you began, suddely realizing something, „Why did you think I wasn’t going to be home for dinner? I only had class until 2.“

„Well…school called.“

Oh fuck. Shit shit SHIT. Of course they did. How could you be so stupid?

„Well about that….“ you began laughing nervously, „I can only say it propably wasn’t as bad as it sounds.“

„What exactly?“ your Uncle was raising his voice at this point, but no matter how hard he tried…he was really bad at this whole strict-parenting-thing, „The part where you got sent to detention for almost getting into a physical fight with a boy OR the part where you got expelled for, and I quote their words: innapropriate actions with the exact same boy.“

„Well what can I say….I might have lost my temper a bit.“

„A bit?“ he was raising his eyebrows at you.

„Yeah ok maybe a little bit more than that. But I can assure you that I’m fine again. Also, innapropriate actions sounds like we were sacrificing children. It was just…oh nevermind. I’ll leave the two of you alone now“ you smiled at him and Helen, who was visibly uncomfortable with the whole situation.

„Where do you think you’re going?“

„To the lake. To think about my mistakes and nothing else of course…maybe god will end my suffering and let me drown.“

„(Y/n)!“, your uncle moved his eyes towards Helen, indicating that she wasn’t used to that level of sarcasm, „Also don’t you think, that after being expelled from school not leaving the house would be a more fitting idea?“

„Oh come on Uncle Lou…we both know that you don’t know how to punish me for something like that. And trust me I am already punished enough since I will forever have to remember making out with the biggest dickhe- uhm jerk in town…also…don’t you think it would be better if I was gone so the two of you can continue to do whatever needed to be done before I got home?“

„Fine fine fine. Get lost you little shit.“

„As you wish, sir.“ you grinned, „Bye Helen, feel free to use the front door this time.“

„(Y/N)!..I’m sorry Helen..she is….an idiot.“

„True. It runs in the family though.“ you yelled as you grabbed your stuff and made your way towards the front door.

You lit a cigarette, deeply inhaling the smoke only to release it into the crisp air within seconds later.

You had always enjoyed spending time at the lake.

Especially at night, there was something very soothing about this kind of solitude.

You were the only one present, as usual. Which might have been due to the fact that it was already december and pitch black outside.

But actually people didn’t really go here anymore no matter what time of the year it was. Not since they found that body which turned out not to be Will Byers, last summer. People thought the lake had been infested with some kind of supernatural bacteria, some even claimed that it was haunted.

„Well if you’re here lake-demons. Now would be a great time to drag me into the water and let me vanish from the surface of the earth.“ you mubled while flicking a stone into the dark water, watching the circles it created on the black surface.

The sound of a car stopping and a door being slammed shut in the distance suddenly pulled you from the thoughts circling in your head. Pretty weird that someone would be out here at 9pm on a monday night. Might be Chief Hopper? He would regulary pick you up at this place, when you were trying to get away from your mom and her shitty boyfriend.

But nothing followed that noise, which left you diving deep back into your thoughts once again.

You just couldn’t understand what had happened only a few hours ago.

Why WHY would you decide to kiss that walking trashbag of a human? And why the fuck did it have to feel so damn good? Worse enough that Billy already thought of himself as the hottest shit in town…why did it have to be true?…Well only kinda. It was just a few seconds of making out, which fair enough even the biggest looser would have been capable of.

Holy shit you didn’t even want to think about what you would have done if Mr. Jenkins hadn’t stopped you…but on the other hand you had the feeling that you would think about that a lot in the next few days.

Ok you really needed to stop that. NOW.

In order to not act like some horny piece of shit anymore you decided to walk around for a bit. Sitting on the freezing stones in front of the water was getting way too cold anyway.

You moved slowly on the slippery pepple stones, your eyes trying to focus in the foggy darkness. How good that you knew this place by heart and didn’t park your car too far away. You were already pretty close to the road as your eyes catched the sight of an unfamilair figure. Looked like somebody had parked their car right here in the middle of nowhere.

Please don’t let this become the next underage make-out hotspot. Isn’t Lovers Lake enough?

There clearly was somebody sitting on the hood of the car, looking rather wasted to be honest.

„Hey is everything alright?“ you asked as you approached the dark figure.

„Yeah..everything is just great.“ even though his voice sounded exhausted and faint you realized immediately who you were talking to.

„Hargrove? Are you following me or what?“ you groaned, „Is there really not enough space in Hawkins for the two of us not to meet every other day?“

„Look (y/l/n),“ Billy began, his husky voice sounding even weaker than before, „I appreciate your overall dedication to being an annoying bitch 24/7 but please, not now. Leave me the fuck alone.“

This made you very suspicious. „You sure you’re alright?“ you moved a few steps closer towards him „Holy shit dude what happened to your face?“.

It wasn’t a secret that Billy would regulary get into fights, but he would usually emerge from those as the winner. But today? The whole left side of his face was bruised, blood dripping from his eyebrow and the corner of his mouth.

He quickly faced away from you, wiping his palms across his face. „I said go away. Everything is fine.“ he growled, his voice now almost back to it’s usual low thick sound.

„I would believe you if your face didn’t look like it was hit by a fucking truck. And trust me I don’t like you enough to pretend that I care. But you look rough.“

„Well you seem to like me enough to not leave me alone.“ Billy taunted you with a grin on his face which quickly turned into a painful groan.

„Alright that’s enough let me see that.“ You took a seat next to him, carefully touching his jaw, turning his head towards you. He flinched as your fingers moved across his black and blue cheek. „Doesn’t seem to be broken..but still…who did that? Did you screw somebody’s girlfriend?“

„Doesn’t matter.“ Billy mumbled, trying to avoid eye contact.

„Well I’m not a big fan of the cops but don’t you think your parents will call them when they see you like that?“

„Nope.“

„..or maybe at least want to know what happened?“ you continued.

„Nope.“

“..or wanna know who did that?”

“Nope.” Billy seemed to be getting more and more fed up with you at this point.

„Well can you at least tell me then?“

„YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?“ Billy suddenly facing towards you, screaming at the top of his lungs, made you jump a little, „I GOT EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL BECAUSE OF SOME STUPID BITCH AND THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR NOT BEHAVING AT MY HOUSE! AND NO THEY WON’T CARE WHO DID THAT BECAUSE THEY ALREADY KNOW!“

Billy was looking furious, breathing heavily, his whole body shaking with anger. His breath created little clouds in the cold december air and you thought that you could see tears shimmering in his piercing blue eyes before he turned away from you again, smashing the hood of his car, screaming with anger as he jumped onto his feet.

„Fuck…I’m sorry…I didn’t know.“ „Oh really? Thought you knew absolutely everything about me and how much of an asshole I am.“ Billy growled, still facing his back towards you as he lit a cigarette.

Yeah you deserved that one.

„Well I seem to be just as big of an asshole at this point.“ you mumbled as you reached into your pocket, „Here…guess you need that more than me.“ without waiting for a response you placed the joint from your pocket inside Billy’s left hand. He looked up to you slightly confused. „For the pain…if you need anything else..my Uncle’s secret girlfriend is a nurse. I’m sure I could get you some harder drugs.“

“Thanks…but please (y/l/n) leave me alone now.” the curly haired boy’s voice was back to that faint husky state from before, his body still visibly shaking.

“Yeah whatever I was just trying to be nice.” you mumbled not really knowing what to do. You really didn’t like him enough to be any more supportive than gifting him your last bit of weed.

“I don’t need you to be nice to me.”

“Don’t be such a bitch, Hargrove.”

„Leave me alone. And don’t even think about being nice to me just because you feel sorry for me.“ Billy snapped, pushing you aside as he walked back to his car and drove off into the night.

What a dramatic bitch.

#billy hargrove #stranger things #stranger things imagine #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove x y/n #billy hargrove x you #wild child part 5

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linkersint · 4 years

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The “Rich Getting Richer” Argument

This piece of writing is taken from Bestselling Author Rob Moore book “MONEY”. This book is all about philosophy of money, myths we have in mind about this concept, and how we can achieve financial stability and then financial freedom by understanding the nitty gritty of money!

We normally hear an argument that “RICH GETTING RICHER”. Mr Moore claim that this argument is a myth. Everyone can become rich if he/she follows its fundamental laws. Those who have more money are doing and behaving in certain way than those who are struggling with it. In below chapter, you will learn why “rich getting richer” argument is invalid.

****

from the book

You hear many people debating, ‘why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?’ Many people get frustrated about this and demand a redress of the balance through higher taxation, setting up unions, and greatly increased philanthropy.

There are simple economic laws that explain why the rich tend to get richer. These economic fundamentals bust many of the myths about the rich and poor divide, certainly in the first world. And guess what? The wealthy know and leverage these, and the poor don’t and are leveraged by them.

Common Sense?

Common sense suggests that something tends to move more easily in the direction it is already going than if it changes direction. You could call this momentum, or compounding or simple common sense. Newton’s first law of physics is this:

‘An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion, with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force’.

Of course you’re likely looking for a deeper argument than the rich get richer than ‘because they are already rich’, and the poor get poorer because ‘they are already poor’, but let’s not dismiss something for its simplicity. If you have not attained the levels you desire yet, keep going. Keep on, keeping on, you will get there.

Balanced Economics:

In any monetary system all expenditure must equal all receipts. This means that all spending equals all money received.

People don’t burn money (unless they are The KLF, the British band who set fire to a million pounds of their own money) and even if they did, that money would be out of the system and all existing money in the system would balance between expenditure and receipt. Even when more money is printed, that new money in the system, like all the existing money, balances where all expenditure equals all receipts.

Therefore, of that finite (but huge) amount of money in circulation at any one time: it distributes exactly from those who ‘spend’ the most (expenditure) to those who sell or receive the most (receipts).

If there is an inequality of balance, which there always is because products and services are not of equal value and humans value money differently, then money moves more freely and in higher amounts from those who value and focus on expenditure higher than receipt to those who value and focus on receipt higher than expenditure.

In other words, money moves from those who value it least (or value expenditure more than receipt), to those who value it most by saving, investing, compounding, (or value receipt more than expenditure). Money moves from consumers to producers.

No matter how many times you may try to use power, rule, unions, regulations, or governments to more equally distribute money, it will always reset its ‘balance’. So, if you want to redistribute wealth more towards you, don’t ever get dragged into the victim mentality of a higher power or system, begging or expecting them to redistribute it for you. The capitalist system is unlikely to change in your lifetime, so it is a huge waste and opportunity cost of your time and energy to fight against it. Instead, learn about and focus on the management, mastery, and rules of money, service, contribution, enterprise, momentum, compounding and velocity, and make it more important to you to understand and value money and wealth. And more will come your way. The more you learn, the more you earn.

Theoretical redistribution of wealth:

It has often been suggested that there should be a redistribution of wealth, from those who have the most to those who have the least. Before we delve into this, there already is a redistribution format: it is called taxation. In most developed countries, taxation is geared towards being a higher percentage of income the more one earns.

The main problem I see in theoretical wealth redistribution is that it doesn’t stay with or serve those it is distributed to. I’m certainly not against sharing wealth with those who need it more, in fact it is contribution that plays a big part in building wealth. However, you can’t manage more money until you learn how to manage what you already have, and the big abundant lack is in education as much as it is in redistribution.

Imagine if a wealthy person owns a betting shop. A gambler comes in and spends all his money, helping the owner make more money. The state increases taxes and redistributes much of the money back to the gambler. The gambler then goes back to the betting shop and makes more bets. The owner might have to increase his margins to compensate for the increased ‘taxation’. This costs the gambler, who keeps gambling, more money. And so the cycle continues, but doesn’t help or change anything other than perhaps the owner moves to another country if too much is taken from him, and the gambler spends more and has a bigger addiction.

Perhaps if the business owner was allowed to create fair profit, was given assistance, protection and tax breaks and incentives to start up, and there was fair competition so that prices self-regulated, then the system would work. Oh, wait a minute, that’s called capitalism. And for the gambler, education and help on the addiction is likely to be far more effective than feeding the habit. While this might seem an extreme example, most people manage their money like a gambler, wasting it and only just keeping their heads above water. It is education that is needed, in our schools and society, on how to manage and master money, not redistribution and handouts that de-incentivize work and contribution.

Lottery redistribution:

The National Endowment for Financial Education cites research estimating that 70 per cent of people who suddenly receive a large sum of money lose it within a few years. Forty-four percent of lottery winners had spent all of their winnings within five years of winning the lottery. Nine out of every ten lottery winners believe that their new family wealth will be gone by the third generation. Again, you can’t manage more money until you learn to manage what you already have. Interestingly, only 2 per cent of respondents said that they were less happy with life after winning the lottery, despite the data above suggesting a greater percentage can’t handle it, lose it, or feel it will be lost soon enough. Who says money doesn’t make you (more) happy?

So in fact, there actually is a seismic wealth redistribution right now: from the poor when they get large sums without knowing how to handle it, back to the rich.

Production vs consumption

Non-wealth, first-world poverty doesn’t contribute. It doesn’t create service, enterprise or economy, and doesn’t care enough about humanity to give value to others. Poverty in this sense consumes more than it produces, and is more selfish than selfless.

To be wealthy is to give service, to produce for other people in physical (consumable) or ethereal (information) form. To be poor is to consume: wasting or spending money and time-consuming depreciable. The wealthy produce for the poor to consume, and so redistribute wealth towards themselves from the first-world poor. Vast wealth comes from vast production nationally, globally, and in high volumes, whereas poverty comes from a negative differential between production and consumption. Individuals, geography, or governments could cause this.

The wealthy create enterprise and economy through jobs, value creation, increased flow and velocity of money, contribution to taxes, hope, belief and inspiration to others, service to vast numbers of people. The poor are independent on these to survive. Virtually all global wealth is now private: 99 percent according to Thomas Piketty in his book Capital. This means that producers finance all state benefits that poor consumers consume. Because poverty consumers more than it produces, this has to be economically balanced by large-scale production, and because of the 80/20 principle, the 20 per cent will produce for the 80 per cent to consume, roughly speaking. And so this will compound in the direction it is already going – the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It is hard to change the velocity once it has momentum, which explains why when starting a new vocation it can be hard to make money in the early years, yet those who’ve been doing it for decades seem to have vastly compounded wealth and passive income, more easily.

For redistribution of wealth to work, consumers would have to take responsibility to produce more than they consume. If you give a drug addict money, you know much of that is likely to go. If you give any consumer more money without the responsibility and education to produce with it, it will be consumed in the same manner all previous money was consumed. If a producer receives more money, mostly through cashflow, increased profits or leveraged loans (rarely through gifts and subsidies), they will invest it to produce more. Of course you could call this greed, but you could also call this growth, evolution and supply and demand. Greed and growth are only differentiated by an individual’s perception. As long as there is demand and a need for the human race to grow and evolve, producers will produce more and more and more, and consumers will keep consuming. The titans of wealth across the last 6000 years are the largest, most vast producers.

The question is: which will you choose to be, a producer or a consumer? Will you get sucked into debating the rights and wrongs of the rich and poor divide, or focus on service, solutions, scale, and contribution, and enjoy your fair share of wealth?

#real estate real estate agency wealth&money

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lukes-writing · 5 years

Text

Character Introduction: Whisper Johanna Archer-Gutenberg

Project: The Dreamcatcher series Name: Whisper Johanna Archer-Gutenberg Age: 19 Height: 161 cm (5″ 3,4′) MBTI: ENFP

Continue reading below

Appearance

Whisper is a slight girl of average height with fair skin and flat chest which is sometimes a target of mockery. She has dreamy, faraway hazel eyes and a winsome, mysterious smile; the combination of these traits lends her a slightly otherworldly, uncanny appearance. Apart from her face, her most prominent feature is her fair hair tied into long dreadlocks.

Whisper's style of clothing is as eccentric as her hairstyle and personality. She usually dresses in loose-fitting clothes of bright colors and floral patterns including long skirts, sundresses and airy blouses. She feels the best walking barefoot.

Whisper also wears excessive, flashy jewelry and plentiful of talismans, magical amulets and lucky charms. She has also several tattoos, the most prominent being a large dreamcatcher on her upper back. Due to her eccentric appearance and style of dressing, she's nicknamed "the hippie girl" by her friends and she doesn't mind it

Personality

Whisper is a difficult person to understand. Even though she's generally kind, caring and positive person, it takes a careful, delicate approach to reach into her comfort zone and gain her trust. She is whimsical, even erratic, and nobody knows what's going on in her mind at the moment. That makes her difficult to lead and control, even though her spontaneous and impulsive behavior can offer a solution to many challenging situations.

She is generally an extroverted person who enjoys company, but like most aspects of her personality, her temperament is a subject of frequent changes. She enjoys time alone, spent by relaxing, meditation or long walks. She is the happiest when she's at peace with herself and the world and values all kinds of harmony.

Whisper is also very sincere about her feelings and is not hesitant to express them, no matter how harsh it may sound. She is also open about which people she dislikes and tends to avoid them at all costs, even if it means getting into more conflicts which is frequent because of her stubbornness and quirky nature. On the other hand, when she gets on well with someone, she quickly becomes attached and makes a great friend.

Even though Whisper seems timid at first, she is open about nudity and sexuality, claiming it's a natural part of life. On the contrary, she strictly condemns any kind of intolerance, hate, bigotry or unnecessary violence. Her opinions are liberal and she has trouble accepting authority, especially when the person is trying to assert their dominance using force.

She abstains from alcohol, but rather frequently smokes marijuana which helps her unwind and focus. She claims it also enhances her ability of astral traveling. She is open to experimentation of all kinds, but she's also rational enough to not let it go too far.

Skills, talents and weaknesses

While Sienna is the team's most valuable member when it comes to logical thinking and far-sighted decisions, Whisper is appreciated for her intuition and creative approach to problems. She always follows the voice of her feelings rather than cold logic which can end up with various results.

Whisper is artistically gifted - she is able to paint, compose poems and play several musical instruments, which takes a toll on her practical abilities such as the knowledge of technology or the ability to do manual work. Since she is usually lost in her thoughts, she's also forgetful and scatterbrained.

Another of Whisper's strengths is her empathy and ability to understand people. She can see the person's true nature and intentions just by spending a few minutes with them. She's extremely sensitive to body language and can perceive the person's aura to some degree, making her an efficient lie detector.

Whisper's greatest weakness is the lack of physical strength. She's not proficient in any kind of martial art and neither can she handle a firearm or a weapon. This is partially caused by her strictly pacifistic nature and also by her slight, delicate frame not suited for physical combat. Moreover, in stressful situations, she often tends to panic and rushes into stupid decisions. That's why she usually counts on her battle-skilled teammates when it's going tough.

Special powers

Whisper's special power is astral traveling, an ability to detach her soul from her body and travel through the astral realm. This allows her to travel unseen to dangerous or restricted areas without the risk of getting hurt. During the detach, the body and soul are connected by a silver astral rope called a "Lifeline" by the travelers.

Her ability requires years of training in the form of meditation and relaxation techniques and has several levels of mastery:

Out of Body - the traveler can detach their soul from their body and roam the astral realm;

Out of Space - the traveler's soul isn't affected by space, allowing them to immediately transfer the soul to any place in the world;

Out of Time - while traveling, the traveler's soul is unaffected by time, able to change the subjective perception of it.

The ability also has several drawbacks. The most obvious one is that Whisper's physical body is unconscious when her astral body is detached. That requires her to either perform the detach on a safe, isolated place or to have someone to look after the senseless body and protect it from harm. Also, to perform the detach, Whisper has to remain relaxed and focused for a while, making it hard to detach in the middle of the fray. Another danger are the immaterial astral beings known as "Hunters" which possess a potential threat to the detached soul.

Her abilities allow Whisper to serve as an efficient spy since physical boundaries don't affect the detached soul. Also, while on the Out of Space level, she can immediately contact any other person able to tap into the astral realm anywhere in the world.

Questions

Favorite color? Green

Favourite artist?

Favourite animal? Dog

Least favourite animal? Toads (because they’re slimy)

What element would they be? Wind

Theme song? Waiting on the Sky to Change by Downplay

Alignment? Chaotic Good

Deadly sin that best represents them? Lust

Which animal would they be? A swallow bird

Socioeconomic level? Comes from a rich family, but money doesn’t mean much to her

Hobbies? Reading, poetry, music, walks in nature

Patience level? Variable, according to her current mood

Favourite place? Anywhere green and calm

Role model? Her uncle Wiccan Salisbury

Favourite foods? Grilled salmon with vegetables, sushi

Favourite book? The Harry Potter series

Pets? Four budgies (Godric, Rowenna, Helga, Salazar) and three dogs (Arwen, Frodo, Gandalf)

Most appropriate TV trope(s)? “Granola Girl”, “Does Not Like Shoes”, “Cloudcuckoolander”

Smells like? Spring air and a soft perfume

How do they feel about love? She believes in true love and soulmates, but her urge to seek variety and new things in life makes her doubt she would be able to stay with just one person for the rest of her life

Quote/catchphrase: She sometimes tends to replace profanity in a sentence with some more innocent word, creating expressions like “What the twig is going on here?”

Least favorite color? Gray

Fears or phobias? She suffers from mild claustrophobia; being in a closed, isolated room makes her anxious

Music they listen to? Ambient music, soft rock

Bad habits? She occasionally smokes marijuana

What turns them on? Quiet, affectionate talk, soft touches, neck kisses

What turns them off? Roughness, insensitivity

Religious and to what extent? Any spiritual beliefs? She firmly believes in some kind of higher power, but is not a part of any organized religious movement

Kind of student if they attend/were to attend school? (e.g. class clown, straight A) Her grades varied greatly according to the subject and her current mood. She wasn’t too eager to study as she preferred to groom her artistic side.

Random fact!

What ONE item would they take to an uninhabited island? A notebook to write down all kinds of ideas she would come up with

Outlook on life? Always positive, “happy accidents” outlook

Favorite object? Her decorative brooch shaped like a key with wings - she considers it her lucky charm

What was your character like as a child? She tried to be well-behaved to her parents’ image, but her erratic, moody personality sometimes caused discords

What is something other people assume about your character? Judging from her look, the people can guess her loony personality and inclination to art, but they also often assume she does drugs and/or takes sex very irresponsibly

Nervous habits? Talking to herself

Addictions? Apart from harmless addictions like tea, books and music, she has no harmful addcition

Enneagram type? 4

Siblings? Knight Edward (older brother), Liberty Camilla (older sister)

Wears jewelry? Yes, she wears a lot of excessive, flashy jewelry

First kiss? (when and with whom) When she was 18, she experienced her first kiss and first intimate experience with her best friend, Noelle

Glass half full or half empty? Half full

Belief in an afterlife? Yes

Views on gambling, lying, killing, etc...? Strictly negative. She is a person of firm morals and she hates people with questionable moral code.

Do they stand up for what they believe in? Always, firmly

How much do they value money? Not much. It can buy nice things, but it’s not the most important thing in the world.

Wants to get married? Indifferent

Wants to have kids, raise a family? Indifferent; not yet decided

Cat or dog person? Dog

Is there one fictional character (print/stage/screen) you could compare them to? She has a part of Luna Lovegood in her, but there are a lot of differences

Anyone they really hate? Bigots and hateful people

How has their look/design changed over time? Not really, I’ve always wanted her to be like this, so I created her this way. She was maybe more timid in the early stages of development.

What brings them the most joy? Being herself; people accepting her for who she is

Do they play any instruments? Violin, piano, flute

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

Favorite holiday? Christmas

Nickname(s)? Often nicknamed “hippie girl”

Would they dare kill someone? Only if there was no other way to save a friend/family member in danger

Body modifications? (Piercings, implants, tattoos, etc.) She has several tattoos, with the most prominent being a large dreamcatcher on her back

Author’s Note

So this is my first character introduction (with more to come in the future), of course I’ve picked my favorite in my current project ^^ If you have any further questions for/about Whisper, or if you have any feedback about her, please send me an ask or post a comment! If you enjoy my work, you can consider a small donation at www.paypal.me/lukassladky. Thank you for stopping by!

#my oc #oc introduction #writeblr #writers #my writing #TeamDreamcatcher

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twistedsimblr · 5 years

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For the drabble challenge; #116

This is really long and made just in time to get ready for work enjoy. Grammar or spelling may not be perfect.

I’m a cool guy, but I’m still dad. The dad that paid his way out of a ten year prison sentence by modeling underwear briefly heheh. It brought me some “brief” stardom for a time.

When I got out of prison I continued the path by upping it up to include some nude work, including at the community college for still life artists and… again at Rens school.

Like how was I suppose to know she was in that class? I love it though always taught the kids that nudity was really no big deal. Never yelled at them when they barged in on Me and Meg doing the nasty.

But we installed locks after that hahaha, The body is a beautiful thing especially if it’s soft and supple like Megs. Anyway getting distracted.

I could talk about her forever. I really could. But this story isn’t about Meg but Ren. I’m not the big dumb idiot everyone thinks I am . I am very much aware what is going on in my kids lives. But time for us is like a bubble things around us change all the time but we kinda remain the same.

Changing ever so slightly. Over a period of time. Hence… why we moved so much in the past. Trying to keep the normalcy. But we love Brindleton Bay if it comes to Home schooling then We’ll do it.

But for now we seem to be doing just fine. Nobody has really challenged us on what we do. Not that many would even think about trying I’m not a tiny man by any means haha. In fact I’ve lost count how many times I’ve made a grown ass man piss his pants in fear at just the mere sight of my huge mother fucking ass not super tall but I’m all muscle..

.Meg wants me to say with some fat though … My family means every thing to me I will lay down my life for them I may not be the greatest dad, and are kinda neglectful but …I have my reasons, I prefer not to say But lets just say I kind of know what will become of them one day. You could even say I know this because I myself are from the future.

Nobody knows that not even Meg. I’ve kept this secret for years, I killed off this time line self and replaced it with my future self .. me. Hence why I have grey in my hair. I was slightly weakened upon returning to the past. A week after Ren and A.J were born.

Boy was Meg ever PISSED she thought I left her, it took some serious convincing to keep those babies I owed it to her, most of all I owed it to Ren whose the reason I was able to do this to begin with. Her future self is not here… So this allows me to be the father I’ll want her to remember when… never mind. Maybe one day I’ll tell Meg…

But for now it’s my burden to bear and I’m, just happy to know I really am hearing her voice again that this this may not be a dream at all and I can finally be at peace .

The future has made me incredibly powerful I am I can some how create this bubble like I mentioned before where none of us are affected by time or it’s just slower for us. I can’t stop Meg from aging but I can slow it down in more ways than one if you know what I mean …I can manipulate her cells repair damaged cells and keep her looking like the day I met her… Sort of six kids kinda change how you look bigger breasts bigger hips But I’m not complaining. She is my everything and I was a very different man with out her ..

But I don’t want to talk about that. This is about Ren I wouldn’t be here with out Ren, It’s my job as her father to protect her to teach her to guide her everything I wasn’t I want to change that. I want to change everything… Parenting of two teens isn’t without it’s challenges.

She’s going through the stage where she’s discovering where she stands who she likes and what she likes “experimenting” Has a different partner every week. Very much how I was. …in the future and the past.

I had to put a stop to it or at least slow it down before she fucked her self up. Her grades were slipping she was skipping school doing some drugs. Caught her with some cigarettes once, I sat her ass down and pulled out 50 bucks and threw it on the table and pushed it to the middle and said to her. Looking her dead in the eye

“This is yours if you can smoke the whole damn pack right now .” I mean hell that’s not super terrible but I wasn’t happy either I mean it wouldn’t hurt me but I have no idea what kind of abilities Ren has if she has all of mine some of mine. I wanted to prove a point stop doing stupid careless shit.

She barely made it through one row which I’ll admit had me kinda impressed. Probably my favorite was the the look on her face when I found out about this.. false pregnancy scare. I mean I’m by all means not Mr. Responsible but guess what I’m married my names on the mortgage I can kinda do as I please.

She went from blue to white. I don’t get angry often when I do I have to leave the house because it becomes harder to control certain urges where I could put my family at risk of being harmed. I’ve bitten Meg only once and drank from her and I want to keep it that way. Everyone else can deal with my wrath when it happens Fuck them. She behaved her self after that spiel. At least I thought she did.Boy was I in for a rude awakening one night. I came home after work, 11 pm and I found Meg in the kitchen in one of my huge shirts. That looked like a blanket with sleeves staring at her phone biting her nails. I put my hand on her shoulder and startled her.

“You okay?” I said leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek. She sighed shaking her head. “It’s Ren.” I let her go out but she’s not answering her texts. “ We talked about that.” But it looks like it’s time to pay her a visit and remind her instead.” I grumbled. Before I left I went back to her and allowed my hands to get a little frisky.

“I want you in bed when I get back.” I gave a playful wink and took my leave… as a bat. “ Be careful.” Meg warned. She’s at that I don’t remember the name of it. “ That’s helpful I said furrowing my brow rolling my beady bat eyes. “ “I’ll find her, I think I know where she is”… A new place just opened up in San Myshuno about maybe 30 to 40 minutes from here . 10 minutes if I speed in a car because he ass needs to be called out on this bullshit.”.

So where do you think she is Meg asked her deep blue eyes full of annoyance . You know the uh… Place with people with all the weird names live? Apparently it’s banging according to the teens and god knows what other losers would go there.”

“ Nice…” Meg flattened her features in a mixture of shock and annoyance that I could say something that sounded so borderline racist. But that town was so diverse it’s just the names I had so many questions about that… “ I made you dinner ..” “ I’d rather have a mouthful of Mosquito’s what even is that? I’ve seen you do better I’ll see you later.” Meg just shook her head and half smiled as if she ran out of fucks to give. “I love you!” I hollered back to her attempting to soften the blow of my criticism . “ I love you too dingie.” She sighed.

Took me a while but I finally found her. And when I did , Oh man it was hard to stomach. Do kids these days not know how to dance Ewww.. I kept back to the darkest part of the club I didn’t want her to know I was here … Not gunna lie those beats were seriously bumping and I was half tempted to tear up that dance floor.

Probably the oldest dude there Ugh it was awkward.. Oldest maybe not I saw a few guys that looked like that MAYBE they were doing the same thing or being damn creepy .

Holy fuck the atmosphere there were people doing shit Meg and I haven’t even tried yet . The club wasn’t huge but it was a good size and I saw Ren finally retreat to a part of a bar a like maybe 20 or so feet away from me. I wasn’t the only one who noticed . I watched from a far I saw her smile I saw her fiddle her hair I saw her blush.

As this young ass hole tried to pick up on my daughter. I know Ren wasn’t completely helpless I took comfort in knowing she did wrestling and could hold her own if placed in a situation that called for it. Except she was more reserved when it came to uh… dealing with an issue like I would. With brute force My eyes were glued to that guy .

I almost lost sight of what was happening when some nasty cougar was staring at me.”The hell you looking at?” I growled. “Keep to your own kind!” Gross ass bitch. “ She exhaled in utter disgust that someone would say something to her in that manner.

But didn’t give me any more trouble after that. Finally I was able to focus on this Ass hole that found his way to her he was a rather tall intimidating guy maybe a few feet shorter than me but .

I knew his game and knew what he was going to try and do. All she had to do was leave . I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely into the guy or was reacting because she was embarrassed for the guy I saw her shake her head and him insisting on buying her a drink so it looked like and her finally accepting..

She turned to glance at her phone apparently she lost her friends in the sweet rave party happening and she missed something I DEFINITELY SAW before he slid her drink to her and oh boy I was NOT having ANY OF THAT.

“Oh… Hell no.” I uttered almost choking on an ice cube. I slithered through the crowd I was seeing red my eyes were red.

Things were about to get ugly fast… Finally I rang Ren on her cell “ Hello?” She asked. phone. “Look behind you I snarled.”

Time seemed to have stopped for a moment. Her face drained of all color as she saw me standing behind her. The look of absolute terror on her face. As I grabbed the ass hole seemingly frozen in time for a moment and slammed his face into the bar table so hard I broke his nose… smashing his face into the drink itself shattering the glass ..

Then to add insult to injury, kicked the stool out from under him. The animation of the event was epic he screamed. Causing a brief halt in activities as people were trying to figure out what just happened.

As if he did this all on his own. I couldn’t take the blame for it because I did temporarily freeze time something I don’t like to do but only in extreme circumstances. Of course I covered my ass I was standing there But I wanted to have fun with this ass hole So I kicked him before standing on his head pretending I didn’t see him there.

“Whoops my bad.” my voice dripping with sarcasm. I helped him up this took every once of my sanity not to loose my cool but I was not finished with this dirt bag who was going to do dirty things to my daughter.

And we stared at each other for a moment, it hit him with the realization that we were similar and when he put two and two together it became very VERY clear. She was my daughter and a minor. Suddenly a wave of shocked and surprised gasps surrounded us both as I threw my head forward and delivered an epic head butt.

There wasn’t a reason to do that I just felt like it. He hit the floor again. And once again I helped his sorry ass up. Ren had her hand over her mouth in utter shock .”Daddy..” “Sorry I broke your nose… But what you were doing isn’t fair..” So I ruined your fun before you could ruin hers.” “Now beat it, before I beat you some more.”

“As for you I narrowed my eyes at her. She refused to look at me. This was my chance to be the dad she hated or the dad she was going to respect.

At the same time her friends showed up again having finally found her emitting high pitched girl excited sounds that they do.. Calling over to her “ Omg is that your dad He’s hot for an older dude! “Old? I thought damn I’m not THAT OLD i THOUGHT.

” Hi Rens dad…. “Go on and have fun.” Text me if you feel unsafe When your ready to leave come find me I’ll at least make sure you get home safely .. “ Daddy I… “It’s okay ..I interrupted her Now get lost. I grinned playfully She had begun to take off but before she did she ran back to me and gave me a hug… “Thank you..”

#blindingechoes

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californiadreaminghq · 5 years

Photo

SPOTLIGHT

NAME: Nicky Slick FACE CLAIM: Nico Tortorella AGE: 28 TITLE: The Pretty Vacant OCCUPATION: Guitarist for Violent Vale

INTERVIEW

If you could do anything in the world for a living, what would it be?

“You mean other than this or can I just say this? Because I’m already livin’ the dream, mate. Who wouldn’t want my life? Sex, drugs, rock’n’roll, literal piles of money, thousands of adoring fans. I’ve got it made and wouldn’t change it for the world. There’s nothing like being on that stage with the crowd going wild ‘cause I’m killing a solo. Other than this? Hell, never really thought about it.” Nicky took a puff from his cigarette and leaned his head back, contemplating as he exhaled slowly. “Nope, nothin’. Got no answer for you, sorry. This was always what I wanted to do.”

If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?

“Well, we’ve been a lot of places already. Hard to go anywhere without being recognized but then, why wouldn’t I want to be recognized? I’ve heard Las Vegas is fun, would be nice to check that out. What’s that fancy place in China with all the casinos?” He paused for a moment, frowning slightly as he thought before shrugging. “Whatever it’s called, there. New York was a bloody good time so I’d go back there, too. It’s a party wherever we are with me and the boys.”

What is one thing that makes you different than anyone else?

“You’ve seen and heard me play guitar, right? There’s a million wankers out there who play but none of ‘em do it as well as I can. I know how that sounds, but it’s true. Come to a show and you’ll see. I do things with a guitar most people only dream of. But honestly, do come to a show, mind. I’ll set you up right, backstage passes, the whole bit. Maybe I’ll even take you to the after party, ‘cause there’s always an after party, and trust me you haven’t partied until you’ve done it with Violent Vale.” He flashed a grin with an almost dangerous edge to it. “We’ll show you a proper good time.”

BACKSTAGE

Nicholas Hardy was never supposed to be a rock star, at least not according to his mom. Nicky always had other ideas, however. She did her best, raising him on her own in Bristol, but he was always a little wild. Some blamed the fact that there was no father to speak of in the picture and Florence Hardy was never forthcoming with details about who he might have been. Most outside the family assumed he’d died in WWII, given that Nicky was born roughly a year before it ended, but Nicky knew that couldn’t be. If his father had died honorably, as a soldier, surely his mom would have been willing to talk about him, tell stories, or even have pictures in the house. But Florence wouldn’t even talk to Nicky about his father so he came to the conclusion that the man must have abandoned them, must not have wanted him. His mother did the best she could and he’d always felt loved at home but the idea that his father hadn’t wanted him planted a bitter seed in his heart that grew as he did.

One thing that eased that bitterness was music. Nicky loved music from a young age and displayed talent early on. Florence wasn’t impressed with it at first but when it became clear he was going to do it whether she wanted him to or not she managed to scrimp and save enough of their already meager funds to get him his first guitar. She hoped, somewhat vainly, that he might just keep it as a hobby and go on to more stable pursuits. That wasn’t to be, however, since Nicky excelled at guitar and had a clear passion and love for it. He liked music more than he liked school, and, in spite of his mother’s strictness about grades and keeping it up, it wasn’t long before Nicky was cutting class to jam with his mates. The group of them had been friends for a long time and Nicky was often the one who got them into trouble but he was equally as often the one who could talk them out of it. He was certainly charming, even as a young punk of a teenager, though sometimes he was just as willing to get into a down and dirty fight as he was to talk his way out of it. Nicky especially railed against men in positions of authority. People said it was because he’d never had a father to be strict with him and teach him respect and they were half right. He saw the father he’d never known in all of those men who were trying to control him and wanted to spit in their eyes to show them he didn’t want or need them.

It only made sense that Nicky would get into the punk scene, scrappy and talented as he was. He and his friends formed a band and being on stage, even if they were the sticky stages of tiny little clubs, gave him a rush like no other. He came alive in front of an audience, hit them hard with his chords and left them wanting more and soon enough, Nicky Slick was born. Nicky plunged headfirst into the lifestyle his mother had never wanted for him. Sex, drugs, alcohol, and parties became a way of life and Nicky loved it all. The adoration from fans inflated his ego and his natural charm made him even more popular. He got to live fast and free and he loved every minute of it.

The ride got even wilder when they broke out of Britain and went to America, attacking New York and all it had to offer, which was quite a lot. Nicky was happy to indulge in any drug anyone would give him, chasing the same euphoria he found on stage. He was talented and he knew it and the world was his oyster. Who needed a father’s love when he had the love of thousands of fans? It was a real shame when the label pulled them out of New York and sent them to California because they were ‘too wild’, as if there was such a thing. They were supposed to behave themselves, party less and focus more on the music, but Nicky wasn’t quite sold on that. Why couldn’t he party and do music? He saw no reason why he couldn’t and has always been more than willing to convince anyone who might disagree with him that he can do it just as well as he does everything else.

#nico tortorella #rpg #period rp #rp #the pretty vacant #nicky slick

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