#(see that's where he's wrong because logic and being able to recognise his own value as a person is very much not his forte)

[rivilu]

I'm so incredibly normal

[ouyangzizhensdad]

one of the weirdest things in this fandom for me is people claiming that characters “deserve better”, like completely seriously, as if they’re real people that mxtx personally murdered or something. i get that people connect with characters and everything, i do too, but at the end of the day they’re just constructs in a story? idk it’s strange to me to act like the author owes characters or the audience anything

Hi anon,

I’m sort of on the middle with this one. Especially with things like franchises and tv series, where there might not have a clear arc already decided for the different characters or for where the series will go, we can encounter characters who have been underutilised or who have been treated dirty by the creators (in western tv shows that seems to happen with disturbing regularity to characters of color or queer characters). As well, works of fiction may also make the characters do things that seem completely incoherent with their characterisation, character growth or their motivations, which can make you feel like the character deserved to be treated better by the creatives. And this can be pretty frustrating not only because you like a character, but because the work of fiction seems to be lesser for not having utilised this character’s potential or for having ruined their stories. Generally, these criticisms will be able to pinpoint how that character is underutilised compared to other characters, how the character’s potential that was set up by the story were never explored or resolved or how the fate of the character ultimately contradicts what was set up at the beginning and throughout the story without providing the audience/reader a sense of diegetic logic for that contradictory fate. It is never about saying, in isolation, that “character died” or that “character suffered” or that “character is a minor character” although it can be things along the lines of “this is the only character who died so soon after being introduced, most other characters survived for at least a season and they just so happened to not be white how weird” or “while most characters are made to suffer, this is the only character that the audience is invited to be a voyeur to long, drawn-out torture sessions that are disturbingly framed in an almost erotic manner”. “Bad things happen to character” on its own is not sufficient because, uh, it’s fiction and fiction requires a minimal amount of conflict and tension which means that characters suffer and die all the time.

I agree with you that, a lot of time, when people clamour that a character “deserves better” all they mean is that nothing bad should have happened to them and that they would have gotten their own version of a happily ever after. And there is inherently nothing wrong with that sentiment: growing to care for a character is one of the ways that fiction can be effective, that it can move us. We’re supposed (if all goes well!) to come to care for the fate of at least some of the characters, whether it is a comedy or a tragedy. It’s also totally normal to see a minor character, enjoy them, and wish to see more of them even if in that particular story they were only there to play a minor role. Both of these things are part of what draws people to transformative works. It’s all fine! That being said, it starts to annoy me when people use these things as baseless attacks against a creative, especially when they display a profound misunderstanding of how storytelling and characters-as-constructs work in the process, or sometimes simply a profound misunderstanding of the story they are seeking to criticise. It’s one of the reason I wrote my MianMian meta because so many people, based only on the fact that MianMian appeared more often in the story, argued that CQL had treated her character better when, if you stop to think about it--about who the character is, what she means, what role she plays in the story--a lot more care was put into her character in MDZS even if her appearances were fewer (hell, even her agency is indirectly better since MDZS didn’t include a scene where she meets Wangxian before they rush to a scene of danger but she stays behind because gets told by Hanguang-jun to stand back in her home and protect her daughter--CQL really did invent feminism). In a way, I find it difficult to take seriously the claim that a “character deserved better” when it comes from someone who didn’t even do the work of understanding the character and its place in the story to begin with. 

I’m not saying that people need to have complete deference to the canon or the creatives that gave us a work, but I think it is a simple courtesy to not get incensed at a creative just because some of their characters are *gasp* minor characters, or to at least give them the benefit of the doubt when you feel a death is “pointless”: mayhaps check once more whether there could have been something about the story you missed or misunderstood. Also to understand that just because a character is their little cinnamon roll or whatever that they might not be portrayed that way in the narrative and as a result might not be given a perfect, hallmark-card happy ending. In other words, you can write as many fics about JYL staying alive or JYL being a “bamf” (because a female character only has value that way apparently) or about JC ending up the most happy and fulfilled and recognised person with everything he could possibly want (since he sooooo earned it in the narrative by growing and learning from his mistakes and atoning for them....), but maybe reconsider having the summary be: “Character A deserved so much better, so I’m taking shit into my own hands, fuck MXTX”. If only for the fact that it is very cringe.

[danieljradcliffe]

Ted Anon! So in season 1 we meet Ted (cute, adorable, punny). He's the closest thing Schitt's Creek as to a doctor, in the first two seasons we see Ted really trying hard with Alexis, but also he's insecure. s1e7 Alexis uses Ted as a way to get Mutt jealous, Alexis also complains to Ted in s1e8 that he's 'too nice' to everyone, and tells him to toughen up and be meaner (except for her of course), in this sense he is a bit of a doormat. People with low self esteem often put other people first 1/?

Under the cut:

before their own needs, he also does this as an extreme when Twyla gets the wrong order - he doesn't want to stand up for himself, but also he's not very assertive, he doesn't respect himself enough to set boundaries, if we don't have boundaries then we don't respect ourselves enough to subconsciously expect others to respect ourselves either or others. It can lead to a loss of self-knowledge. This can be shown through a) how he's a pushover but also b) in episode Honeymoon when Ted asks 2/?

Alexis what her and Mutt talk about whilst doing community service, but in an intense way, it kind of sounds like he's jealous, and therefore doesn't feel secure to be in a relationship with Alexis, his anxiety is building up from previous experiences of relationships where women will reject him because he's a pushover - so he's projecting his previous relationships onto Alexis. This might also be why he proposes, because in a way he feels that, once married it's 'locked' or it's set. 3/?

it's also a bit odd in a way because Alexis and Ted have only known each other for a short period of time, and Alexis is processing having a drastic life change (from riches to rags), so for Alexis agreeing to marry Ted was anxiety inducing, but also she thought she could get out of it like she always does. For Ted he did it, (and I need turtle you to remember that he was going to propose PRIOR to his knowledge that the Roses were supposedly leaving town) as I said before because he thought 4/?

that marriage would make it better or fix it or relationship bliss, see how he's content in s5 with just being with Alexis, because he sees that now. He can't bear the notion of another breakup, and that's why he proposes. Now s2 and s3 are where Ted really begins to work on himself, after Alexis rejecting him, he still goes on that honeymoon vacation whether he likes it or not, but it really helps with his self esteem, and also in a way for him it was a wellness retreat. Because SC is a tv 5/?

show it's kind of sped up a bit, but throughout s3 and 4 we can really see him being much more confident in relationships e.g. his relationship with Heather (this like it or not was probably his first stable and also secure relationship), we also find out later in s5 that he was quite the heartbreaker, showing a nice contrast to s1 Ted who would get rejected because he was a pushover. This new Ted isn't a pushover and he knows his boundaries. He still has kept his values though e.g. kind 5/?

generous, giving (he literally offers Alexis a job because his receptionist quit (did he also break his receptionists heart?!?!?!) etc, but he's secure in himself to set boundaries for himself but also others. He's much more logical, and doesn't do things off emotion. He even goes to Ted's barn party, and at least he recognises that it might be kind of disrespecting himself but to an extent he wouldn't be going if he were seriously offended, he even calls Alexis out on it - he wouldn't have 6/?

if he felt still hurt, we can see that he has mostly healed and been able to move on. As I said before would Ted have helped Alexis as much as he would have if he were that hurt, or maybe in a way he still cares and likes her. He just knows now that maybe he needs to give her space, but also in singles weeks we can see how he's processed and that's where it comes to the conclusion of why Ted has anxiety e.g. he talks about how many off road bike tours he had to take to get his mind off of 7/?

not to mention the two weeks in mexico for their honeymoon, with him trying to get his life back on track. This talk he has with David really helps us to see how he is as a character, normally people have anxiety, and then something really bad happens and they realise that they need to change their ways. As someone who always had chronic social anxiety and was not secure in myself I went through a falling out with a friend (we're still friends, but not as close, and she has some serious 8/?

anxiety, only difference is I'm super aware and working on myself, she unfortunately hasn't realised that...). S3-4 Ted is working on himself, s5 is Ted living up to his true self and is selfcare king, he understands Alexis and doesn't do anything rash like propose to her, because he knows that for her that it isn't just her thing, and he has accepted that. He stands as his own person - if s1 Ted got the chance to work in the Galapagos, he would have still proposed to Alexis, at least now he 9/?

he can talk with her in a logical manner, yes at first he doesn't want to go because he likes what he has with Alexis and can't imagine that the Galapagos is Alexis' cup of tea, (see when I say he still has his values!!!! He wants to be with her, which relationships vs career is always a hard choice sometimes) but after much consideration and encouragement from Alexis, she is willing to support him (GROWTH FOR HER BUT THATS FOR ANOTHER TIME). As sad as season 6 is :/, we see something 10/?

beautiful, he lets her go, because their relationship has run its course for NOW (I think they're going to get back together in the future), and he knows he can't have Alexis where he his because she'd hate it, but also there is a mutual respect - I can't exactly articulate it into words but that behind the episode of presidential suite really sums up their ending. But with how Alexis influenced whether he liked it or not, he became more secure in himself as a person (another reason 11/?

why Alexis is my favourite character). 12/12

Ted anon again, so I was just mullen over that I think the reason why I see this in Ted is because I've been doing a lot of anxiety/security training and I guess I can really see that in Ted, and it kind of how I've acted in the past has reflected in how he acts. So in a way I see myself in Ted a bit. Anyway thanks for coming to my Ted Talk :)

WOW. Anon damn you’ve had a lot of thoughts on this. Thanks for sharing with me. I’m very impressed! Love being reminded how much I love love Ted Mullens :) 

[fandom-necromancer]

Android tears

Thank you so much for prompting this! I loved writing this!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warning: self-harm (character unhealthily denying their personality))

‘Don’t you patronise me! I can talk and decide for myself, dipshit!’ ‘I don’t need your phcking help, leave me alone!’ ‘Oh so suddenly you try befriend me? Phck off!’ ‘So, we started working together. No big deal. But I won’t be up for this partner bullshit, yeah? And no, I won’t go with you to some bar! Get your metal ass somewhere else, I’ll go with Tina. You are not invited.’

RK900 had learned very early that Detective Gavin Reed was a rather stubborn and proud individual. It was difficult to work with him to say the least. But he was just as determined himself. If he simply did all the man demanded of him he would certainly get more civil, right? If he had no reason to complain, maybe he would become nicer. RK900 was deviant, had been woken up after the revolution by Markus and Connor. He remembered how confusing the world had been. No orders, no purpose, no goals. He had to set them himself. His current mission was to get on Reed’s good side. Only then he could work effectively.

The only problem were his emotions. Without programming to hold them in check they were free to mingle with his logic and decision-making. He had learned to appreciate them very early on because they managed to give him a clear first impression and quick reactions. A detection device in social situation and an essential part of him he embraced with pride. He couldn’t understand how others shut them out as if they were some intruding virus, although he unfortunately knew their chaining properties too.

Every time the Detective scolded him, told him what to do and more importantly what not to do, he was swallowed by emotions. They kept him back from nodding his head and go on, letting him replay his decisions in his mind to find the error. He had tried to help, helping was a good thing. He had wanted to help the Detective because then things would be easier for the human. Humans liked when things were easy and appreciated the attention and care of others. It was the basic idea of friendship and other human social structures. Working together was an essential part of their identity starting in their organic origin and ending in their self-created societies. So why was this detective so averse to him offering his help or trying to form these social bonds? He seemed to like their initial purpose, the simple machines, more. And if RK900 had to cut his emotions short to try and convince this human he was worth getting to know if Reed just tried, he would do that. Even if it made him feel horrible and made him having trouble entering stasis thinking about the regret of having to become something he was not. But if he got the Detective to like him, to be more open, then maybe he could show him his true self again. Maybe this all was too much at once for the man.

 So he stripped away more and more personality with each and every scolding or complaint. He stopped offering to carry their files to and from the archive, he stopped asking how the detective’s weekend had been. He stopped trying to engage in after work activities with him. He stopped joking with him. He slowly became more of a machine than he would have been had he never deviated. But it started to work: the detective’s complaints were becoming rarer. RK900 was sure he could soon start trying to slowly build himself up again.

‘Toaster, you’ll go right, I’ll go left! Get that asshole!’ RK900 nodded and started speeding up. Their fugitive was running in front of the detective, but if he was fast enough he might be able to intercept him, allowing them a quick and easy arrest. Reed would like that. He exceeded human speeds as his feet drummed against the ground and calculated the possible path of the fugitive. His speed was ideal. He would turn around the corner and stand just in front of the man. Perfect.

It was the void he found when he actually turned around that disturbed his preconstructing programs. He just looked at the empty space for a few moments before distant curses reached his ears. In the distance, only half way between him and where they had split up before, Reed was held by the throat over a deep chasm where traintracks emerged from a tunnel. The Detective gasped for air, scratching at the arm of their fugitive trying to get out of his grip and at the same time hold onto him.

‘Gavin!’ RK900 felt his carefully buried emotions reemerge, recognised the fear in his voice as he screamed out the name he wasn’t allowed to use. Would the criminal let go of him, the detective’s chances at survival were minimal. The drop he could survive with serious injuries, but the current was a whole different thing. His mechanical heart dropped as the fugitive saw him, panicked and let go of his partner in favour of running off. He was already running, knowing well enough he wouldn’t make it in time, but was relieved to see the man managed to grab at the edge, now hanging down the wall. RK900 was confronted with a decision. Everything in him screamed to help the man, to grab his wrists and lift him up back to safe grounds. But there was also [Reed doesn’t need my phcking help, leave him alone!]. RK900 nearly gave in to the urge, but reminded himself the detective had valued the mission always higher than his own wellbeing. He wouldn’t like it would he let the fugitive get away. Although it hurt, RK900 ran past his struggling partner and followed the criminal, catching him two blocks away and calling in someone to take him away. It was as the car departed, he saw a figure walking towards him. A very angry figure.

‘What the phcking hell were you thinking leaving me alone there?’, the detective screamed at him, while RK900 just felt immense relief that the human was still alive and well. ‘What made yoou think this was a good idea, huh? You phcking tin-can! I could have died! Ah maybe you wanted that? Get rid of me finally? You phcking asshole. Guess finishing your mission is more important than a human life.’ ‘You!’ He sucked in more air before uttering the words that cut deep, too deep: ‘You are just a phcking machine after all! Why had I even imagined you care? You don’t have emotions, you don’t have anything. Just a stupid, worthless robot.’

RK900 couldn’t bear this any more. Everything the man had said to him until now had made him become this, he had had hope to finally be good, to finally be what the man wanted. But now… It suddenly wasn’t enough, it wasn’t at all pleasing. All these confines, all this effort – for nothing. The android felt his knees gave in underneath him and he fell together with his self-written confines. All the emotions he had locked away to please the human now came flooding back and over him, weighing him down with immense pressure. He felt it all. Hurt was the strongest, but beyond that laid an overwhelming sea of sadness with just a dash of despair. ‘Nines?’ It was carefully spoken and absent-mindedly he realised there were tears streaming down his face. Just too much emotion to handle. Everything was felt and flew down a drain just to emerge as fury and anger he tried to supress desperately, because even after all this, he still wanted to be good. To build up a friendship to this true asshole of a human being. But it wasn’t to be contained. It was like a barrel leaking water through holes and he tried to press his hands against them, only that the holes were bathtub-sized. ‘Nines, god, is everything okay?’ RK900 shook his head, the tears rolling down now of anger not of sadness. ‘You really think that? You really think that everything is okay?’ He laughed through the tears standing up and saw Gavin taking a step back from him - hand stretched out towards him before now back to his side. ‘How can you?!’ RK900 hadn’t realised his voice could be this loud, this booming. ‘I guess that’s too much for you, huh? A crying android. I bet you’ll make fun of that too! Hah, this damn tin-can invited me to drink. It can’t even drink. Hah, the toaster tried taking a box away from me. Like I couldn’t do it myself! Hah, the stupid machine can’t even take a hit, it’s crying now! I am just something you can hate on, isn’t that right? I did everything you wanted. I tried to be nice to you, who knows why, and every time you told me to stop. And I complied. I followed everything you told me. I became something I hated just to please you! And now. Now I followed it again, keeping the mission first priority as I should do according to you. And now that is wrong, too? I realise now there is no way to please you. There is no way for me becoming friends with you, because everything I do is wrong, no matter what I do or how hard I try. I realised everything I denied myself I denied without a reason, without something  to make it worth in the end. And still you have the audacity to ask if everything is okay?’

‘Nines, I.. I didn’t know-‘ ‘Oh you knew. You just didn’t care.’ RK900’s anger had subsided. It had felt good being angry, it gave him energy to say what he had wanted to push out for so long. But now… there was just the cold realisation and the sadness coming back. ‘Is that really how you felt all the time? I never realised what I said hurt you like that.’ ‘Oh no, why should it hurt, right? Because it’s just an android, right? No harm done then. Of course it hurts! I have feelings too!’ ‘You always seemed like that stoic robot to me, Nines. I didn’t even knew you heard what I’d said.’ ‘No, you just never looked past the robot. I was just another damn android to you! Like an oversized computer! I am a person, Gavin!’ There was silence as the android used his sleeve to wipe away the streaks of tears on his cheeks and Gavin looked to the ground.

As the human lifted his head again and looked into RK900’s eyes, despite logic and reason, hope rose up. ‘I am sorry, Nines.’ ‘That won’t change anything you’ve done’, RK900 hissed with venom. ‘I know.’ That caught him off-guard and maybe the detective deserved another chance. Yet another one after the uncontable number of chances RK900 had granted him already. So, he just sighed, blinking away the residue in his eyes.

‘It won’t erase your mistakes. But I guess it’s a start.’ ‘Start over then?’ Gavin held out his hand with his offer. ‘As partners?’ RK900 eyed him sceptically. ‘As partners’, Gavin agreed and Nines took the human’s hand with a firm nod.

[johnsspacesuittight]

I saw this post and knew I had to write a fic so here you go my first Kirk and Spock fic

Star Trek TOS

Spock pines for Kirk/kind of more turned into him being jealous of his new lady and because of him being gone for a while and realises some annoying human emotions are going on which leads to a lil (aka big) confession

Things had been different since the Captain’s recent disappearance. He had gone missing for 12 days and 11 hours, and, Spock pretended outwardly he didn’t remember this part, 23 minutes. It was just logical, counting the time when such an important person, it being that the Captain was indeed the Captain, went missing. However humans seemed to think it strange, think it personal, and Spock already got enough of them thinking him strange, so he didn’t mention it more than once.

The Captain had returned of course, alive and- well perhaps not well, but at least alive. As his second officer Spock had caught him as he stumbled with exhaustion, and though tired he had given Spock a thankful smile, a smile that even Spock could recognise he rarely gave just anyone. Though Spock received it on a regular basis. He supposed the Captain considered him a close friend, though Spock wasn’t sure how he would begin to return that understanding.

He had been taken to the med bay and Spock had resisted the need to stay until he was better, knowing he not only had a job to do, but that it was a strangely unnecessary sentiment that was highly illogical. Doctor McCoy was quite able to help regain the Captain’s health, Spock’s presence would do nothing but disturb. Yet he lingered outside the door just a bit longer than was normal.

This behaviour, that had kept entering Spock’s mind, only increased as time went on. It had been there every now and then when it came to the Captain, but rarely had it been disturbing. Now it had become just that, illogical thoughts and urges that to Spock’s comparison only seemed like something human. Something he was not.

In fact it got even worse when the Captain introduced the woman who had finally got him out of the situation. She had originally been part of another star ship, but at the Captain’s request had been transferred to the Enterprise. Spock’s logical side saw why, she was bright and capable and they needed another capable officer on the job. The Captain said they had worked very well together indeed, and that he needed people he knew to trust and could understand how they worked. All very logical reasons, and yet something about it bugged Spock. It made little sense, but as he continuously found her leaving the Captain’s quarters or whispering in his ears, things to which he would just respond with that smile, the one he so very rarely gave others, Spock felt a strange urge to be in her place.

That certainly made no sense, as even though Spock’s inexperience with human emotions kept him from understanding multiple things, his experience with the Captain told him that he was quite enjoying this woman. He often did, the Captain, but always said he had no time for them, as his job and his ship came first. Yet, he seemed to have time for this one, which was very illogical to Spock. And he convinced himself that was why he did not like it, even though parts of him seemed not to care that the Captain had shifted his focus from his job, but in fact that the Captain had shifted his focus from him. To which there was absolutely zero logical explanation. So, Spock did the logical thing, he went through all of his knowledge of human and vulcan behaviour, trying to place where all these thoughts and sentiments came from. Coming to the conclusion that there was indeed no logical or command related reason, and that what he was experiencing was some strange form of the human emotion jealousy.

He didn’t like to admit it, of course, as someone who’s focus remained on Vulcan ideals and ideas, he didn’t ever like to think that he could not reason himself out of his own human side. For it was there, and he knew it, though he rarely acknowledged it. He also knew, that the Captain, Jim, was indeed the only thing that ever made him embrace them, if he had to of course. He didn’t know how to call Jim a friend, or anything regarding sentiment, but he was not ignorant to it being there.

In fact, admitting it, took him several weeks, and when he finally did the next step was to attempt to reason with his own mind. Convincing himself that she was in no way taking his place, he was and would always be first officer, and there was no reason to think Jim’s closeness to her should change any of the things Spock appreciated about his connections to the Captain.

This however, only lead him to understand that this was not the reason for this strange human jealousy, in fact it had nothing to do with his postion of command or their work, it was entirely personal.

Spock had few things he considered personal, mostly because that often required emotions or sentiment, two things he very rarely let be part of his experience. However this time there had been no such choice, for no matter how much he attempted, there was no reason to it. Had it been work related that could be considered a somewhat logical reason for his jealousy, at least from a human perspective, but from a personal stand point? There was absolutely nothing to explain it. Yet, the moment he realized it was indeed personal, he knew why. The most common reason for human jealousy was, indeed, love.

Such a word was unheard of for Spock to even begin to consider. And yet his logical and wise mind saw no other explanation. The Captain had formed a love bond to this woman, and Spock had urges and needs to be in her stead. He wished to take her place, however of course, he knew that logically, there was no such option.

Therefore, Spock let it be, using the very slight Vulcan control he did have, to focus on his job rather than the Captain and his lady friend. He set aside his friendship, or whatever it was, hoping that he might escape this strange emotion that he saw no reason to have. Except he did. Jim was brilliant, quick, brave and kind. He was bold and daring, and it was only logical to see his glory. Very few did not admire him, and yet Spock knew that all these things were just him. Not all people saw Jim the way he did, and perhaps that was good. He wouldn’t be special if everyone loved him. He wouldn’t be the man he was if all saw him as perfect. Well, perfection was not a belief Spock held, and the Captain certainly wasn’t it, but he was indeed special.

Not only that, but he understood and respected Spock in a way few humans did. He only had to look a foot to the left at McCoy who struggled to understand Spock’s callous thoughts and decisions. Spock could only imagine his reaction if he knew now what Spock was thinking. McCoy would point a finger and say ‘hah!’ as Spock had somehow been overtaken by emotions finally. McCoy rarely had ill intent however, and Spock did not blame him, but he put human values highly, as a Doctor, kindness and care was part of his nature. It was his most important ideals, and Spock understood his struggle to see the opposite. Just as Spock often did as well. He didn’t like to admit being wrong or making mistakes, but as anyone, he did. But his belief was firm that emotions often made mistakes bigger and worse, more easily commited. He was proven right by his current struggle with emotions towards Jim, as it was very easily distracting.

He still did not say anything. Having emotions was one thing, admitting it out loud was another. It wasn’t until the new officer, Adler, the Captain’s lady friend had left for a few days by orders from command, that he finally did something. He entered the Captain’s room, without asking and was greeted with Jim changing his shirt. The Captain paused and glanced at him. «What is it Spock?» He asked, putting his new shirt on fully. Which had distracted Spock for just a second. «Am I needed?» He added, as he had gotten no response.

«No Captain, I am actually here for personal reasons.» Spock responded finally, and Jim looked at him with slight intrigue, raising an eyebrow.

«Personal reasons?» He reiterated, surprised at the choice of words. He motioned for Spock to have a seat, rather than stand by the door as he always did, and watched on in utter amazement as Spock actually did. He usually always stood stiffly despite the Captain’s attempts at making him feel more comfortable. Usually standing was how he did feel comfortable, but none of this was in Spock’s comfort zone so he responded not fully by choice to the Captain’s movement.

«I wanted to say, sir, that I missed you.» Despite his very informal acknowledgement, Spock could not help but address his superior properly.

«You missed me?» Jim yet again repeated the wording, his face spreading out into a slightly amused smile. The question also seemed to ask when, which was understandable, as it had been several months since the Captain had been missing. Everyone else seemed already to have forgotten. While Spock still attempted to ignore the 12 days, 11 hours and 23 minutes that were stuck to his mind.

«When you went missing, Captain.» Spock clarified and the Captain nodded, now taking a seat as well, opposite him. It had become clear to him now that this was only the beginning of a potentially long conversation.

«That is, quite good to hear.» He said and Spock tore his eyes away, avoiding the Captain’s gaze as he did not know well how to hold it without his entire exterior melting. «Why tell me now?» He asked, though Spock supposed he knew the answer.

«Sentiments are not exactly, my forté.» Spock responded, and Jim nodded, having now confirmed this was certainly a longer and more complicated conversation than they usually had.

«I see.» He begun. «But you felt it important to tell me despite it?» He asked, and Spock did not correct him on the use of the word ‘felt’. It was accurate, and though his Vulcan pride was getting more and more bruised with every word. His enjoyment of correctness kept him from following usual patterns.

«Yes, Captain.» He said and Jim smiled again, still slightly amused.

«You may call me Jim, I think the conversation calls for it.» He said, putting into words what they had both figured out about the current situation.

«Yes, Jim.» Spock repeated, not unable to hide just the slightest twist of his lip into something that would be considered akin to a smile.

«I assume there’s a reason you waited for Adler’s leave?» Jim then asked and Spock frowned just a slight, not fully understanding how he could already pick that out of the so few words shared. Yet he nodded.

«I wanted to be sure we would not be disturbed.» He said and Jim smiled, still with a very amused expression, and it seemed to Spock he somehow knew exactly what the conversation was about already. Which Spock found to be strange.

«Disturbed? Hmm, I believe I could have asked Miss Adler to leave us alone on any occasion, don’t you think?» Jim said and Spock became aware that he most certainly knew more than he had said with words.

«Well, I-… I needed you alone. And you have rarely been seen without her recently.» Spock said only stating facts, and Jim’s amused smile grew into a grin.

«Do I detect just a slight of jealousy Mr Spock?» He asked and Spock gave him a hard stare, not enjoying this slight mockery on Jim’s part, and yet it caught him off guard, because it was indeed correct. And he did attempt to be correct.

«Well, I- yes.» He said and Jim seemed just a slight taken aback at this direct response. As if being direct was not one of Spock’s best used qualities.

«Really? How long have you been feeling that way?» Jim had turned just a slight more serious, as if Spock’s complete directness had made him realize there might be even more than he was expecting to the conversation.

«Since you returned. I attempted all my Vulcan methods to banish the emotion but I realized for once I had no power to.» Spock said and Jim looked at him intently and then surprised Spock by moving closer, even more so it surprised him somewhat that he did not mind.

«I don’t think you have ever admitted to experiencing an emotion to me.» He said, quite wonderingly, taken with emotion of his own it seemed.

«There is no one else I would ever have been able to do so to either.» Spock said and Jim’s expression changed. It softened further, into that way that Spock had been wishing to be looked at for months. The thing that seemed so foolish, but now that it finally happened changed something detrimental within him and his expression softened as well.

«What are you saying Spock?» Jim asked and did something that Spock could never have expected. He moved his hand, placing it on Spock’s thigh, somewhat protectively and warmly. Spock did not mind this either, though his long gone logical senses told him he should. In fact, he enjoyed it.

«I- I don’t know if I have the words to express it, but the most common reason for jealousy, especially of this kind is-» Jim cut him off.

«Love.» He said. And Spock just nodded. Feeling in some way a release from it. He was there, with Jim, alone and everything had been understood. Every ridiculous human emotion that he had wished gone, and then come to accept. They were all just out in the world now. Jim knew them all.

«Do you love me? Have you been jealous because-… because you wanted something more? Because she was getting more of me?» All the questions came tumbling out of him, all the once Spock knew he could perfectly well answer himself, and yet could not believe to be true.

«Yes.» Spock said. «Yes Jim I- love you.» The last two words were a fight to get out, but once he had he knew he could have repeated them a million times without problem. He had spoken the truth and he never wanted to go back. In some ways he did not care about the fact that emotions weren’t even supposed to be a good thing for him. All of a sudden the experience was, it was so good that it was almost painful. He knew then and there that he loved Jim so much that he didn’t even know where to begin to express it.

Jim’s face was a mix of shock and joy. He was looking at Spock that way that he rarely looked at anyone else, and now he could see not even Adler made his eyes just as sparkly and bright as they were when they looked at Spock. Or maybe that was the light, which made logical sense, but the moment was far from logical, so Spock put that thought aside.

«Well I- I don’t know how I am supposed to respond to that.» Jim said, kind of ripping up the whole thing, as Spock realised he may not have felt the same. Everything was telling him so, but logic had no place here, and Spock then knew nothing about anything.

«I’m sorry, I realize- you and Adler-» Spock begun but Jim waved his hand, shushing him.

«No- no forget about Adler, Spock, anyone with eyes can see that I feel the same.» He started. «I just- I had never thought it could be more than that. I was doomed to a one-sided relationship when I became your friend and I accepted it, and when it became more I- I knew that it could never be that for you so I looked for other things.» He looked at Spock still with those eyes that no one else had, and Spock did the only thing he could figure to do. He moved forward and kissed his Captain. Jim froze, and then he kissed him back, not hesitating even a bit.

When they let go both were a bit flushed, it was sort of strange, because neither of them had ever been able to imagine this scenario, and yet both had wanted it.

«I love you too Spock, and I will definitely need some time to wrap my head around being able to say that.» Jim said, smiling, the smirky one that he always did, but better, more happy. And Spock knew that it had indeed all been there for longer than he understood. But when Spock had started to realise things had become different, he could have never imagined exactly how different.

[iffeelscouldkill]

The big picture

A/N: WHAT’S UP GUYS I’M BACK AND I WROTE A FIC. 

Not the steadily growing WIP that I’ve been talking about for weeks (that’s still ongoing) - this one is a companion fic to That’s why we do what we do because I was listening to Episode 10 and suddenly I needed to write Park’s perspective. And then of course it grew out of control and I wound up taking like a week and a half to finish it xD

This fic contains spoilers for TSCOSI Episode 10. I feel like it’s been long enough now that I don’t need to put the whole thing behind a cut, but still, spoilers!

Warning that this fic also deals with the fate of Team Two in a little bit of detail - not graphic detail, but it tells that scene from Park’s perspective, so heads up for sort-of-offscreen character deaths and the emotional impact thereof.

Agent Park has one goal going into the Plan: keep McCabe safe.

Of course he also wants to help the crew of the Rumor, and ideally make it out alive himself (priorities in that order), but large parts of those two things are out of his control. This, on the other hand...

He remembers McCabe’s face when Major General Frederick came to take him away; the way they defended him without hesitation to the highest-ranking General they had ever met. So few members of the IGR rank and file, no matter how new or green, would dream of doing something like that. But McCabe is different, and always has been.

He makes sure that McCabe sticks close to him even as Goodman and Clark peel off to patrol the labs. McCabe doesn’t seem to find it unusual, falling back into their old roles of superior and subordinate with something like relief. McCabe was never a ladder-climber, as much as they tried to pretend that they were. 

Really, he thinks that all McCabe ever wanted was a partner – someone who would treat them like an equal. That was all Park wanted, too.

“That ship’s empty,” he tells McCabe, as they announce their presence to a battered-looking but innocuous ship in the North-27 docks.

“How can you…?”

Park knows it’s not the Rumor because he’s been specifically told how to recognise it for the purposes of the Plan. But it isn’t hard to think up another explanation.

“Feel the side? It’s cold. Nobody’s flown it in hours.”

“That’s… really smart,” says McCabe, in the slowly delighted tone of someone who has been spending a lot of time around people who don’t comprehend logical or lateral thinking, and has just rediscovered an intellectual equal.

Back in the early days after McCabe had joined his team – after they’d loosened up a little and realised he wasn’t going to report them for being a human being with the occasional flaw – the two of them used to challenge each other with thought experiments and reasoning problems, charting different possible courses for the Rumor, extrapolating potential interception scenarios and theorising how the crew would react to different courses of action.

The Intergalactic Republic does not recruit for intelligence. In fact, they recruit for the exact opposite: an ability to follow orders in the face of logic and common sense (and often, ethics) – something which Park and the others are counting on heavily for the Plan to work. People of McCabe’s talent tend to wind up either becoming disillusioned and corrupt, defecting and getting taken away, or in rare cases, climbing to the top ranks of the organisation.

While he was around, Park had been doing his best to prevent any of those things from happening. It was probably naive of him to think that he could keep it up for very long.

“This one’s warm,” says McCabe with hushed excitement, and Park nods in approval.

“Go ahead.”

“Attention. Attention! This is Agent McCabe of the IGR--”

McCabe pauses as the message echoes back to them on a slight delay, playing through the audio device Park is carrying. “What’s that echo?”

“I’m picking up the transmission from the nanoswarm,” Park replies tensely.

“Why is the swarm—” But it doesn’t take McCabe more than a second to put two and two together. “It’s picking up my voice because it’s in this ship?”

Park switches on his walkie-talkie. Time to get the next part of the show on the road.

“Park to all agents. Park to all agents. Agent McCabe has located the Rumor. Sending you our location. Major General Frederick, please advise.”

He finishes by hitting the little button on his walkie-talkie that will send out a beacon with their precise location. In reality, he’s pretty sure that IGR-issued walkie-talkies are broadcasting their locations to upper management at all times (why would the Regime pass up a perfectly good opportunity to spy on its employees?), but he has to play the game. That’s what this is all about.

“This is Major General Frederick,” the Major General’s voice filters back through the walkie-talkie. “Stand by for Team Two.”

“Copy that,” Park confirms, and switches the walkie-talkie off.

“Now what?” McCabe asks.

“We stand by,” Park replies, dryly.

“Right,” says McCabe. Then, with the air of someone who has been desperate to bring this up,

“So, did you hear about the latest crackpot conspiracy from the Rumor? They said the Major General is developing the nanoswarm so we can use it when she starts another war with the Dwarnians. Ridiculous, right?”

“…Of course,” says Park, and even to his own ears he sounds unconvincing. He wishes he could tell them something more meaningful, or better yet, level with them about what’s going on. But Team Two will be here any minute, and he has no reason to believe that the IGR isn’t listening in on their conversation – especially as they stand feet away from an alien nanoswarm that was configured for constant surveillance.

“Um. How’s… Shelley?” asks McCabe after a beat of awkward silence.

“She’s fine,” says Park, a little too quickly. “Relieved,” he adds, at McCabe’s quizzical look.

Park hasn’t in fact spoken to Shelley since he was released from Zone Z. He’s not really sure what he would say. If everything goes well with the Plan, Park won’t be coming back to New Jupiter for a good, long while. And if it doesn’t, well… letting Shelley know that he was safe and that his name had been cleared right before he was either recaptured or (more likely) killed would just be cruel.

If he survives, then once they’ve made it a safe distance from New Jupiter, he’ll try and get a message to her.

Maybe.

“What happened to your eye?” McCabe asks. Park knew this was coming.

“Zone Z happened,” he replies, flatly.

“But… you didn’t do anything. Did you?”

Park knows that McCabe is grappling with the idea that he could come back to work, act fine, and still profess loyalty to the Regime - to the “Republic” - after what has been done to him. He also knows that IGR recruits are taught – and that McCabe still believes, however doubtfully – that only traitors and criminals of the very worst kind are sent to Zone Z, so they deserve every bit of the punishment meted out to them there. To have him walking around, demonstrably innocent, doesn’t sit well with that narrative.

There’s a reason that no-one comes back from Zone Z. But Park insisted. And luckily for him, the IGR is stretched and disorganised enough right now that it couldn’t afford to pass up the prospect of a trained, capable agent who knows the enemy returning to work.

Park told them he had a personal score to settle. It was the truth.

“In the end, I caused the Republic a lot of paperwork,” he tells McCabe, knowing exactly how flimsy and bureaucratic it sounds. “Every dead end is wasted time and energy.”

“But you didn’t do anything,” McCabe repeats.

Exactly, Park wants to say. You know that’s wrong. Trust the instincts that are telling you that this is not okay.

“During the war, we used to say sooner or later, we all make sacrifices,” he says instead. “The trick is to keep your focus on the big picture.”

“Oh… of course,” says McCabe uncertainly, as Team Two’s footsteps sound behind them, led by Agent Seiders.

Park watches impassively as Team Two cut their way in through the side of the ship. McCabe watches with narrowed eyes, and Park knows that they’re thinking this is far too easy.

“We’re in,” Seiders reports. “Any clue where they’re hiding?”

“Let’s see…”

Park adjusts the settings on his audio device until he’s picking up the transmission from the cockpit, Brian and Violet’s voices singing softly. “Sounds like the cockpit,” he replies.

In reality, there’s no way he would be able to tell that straight off, but Seiders takes it at face value.

“Copy that. Passing a storage room on my 9 o’clock, cockpit straight ahead. Think it’s safe to say they don’t see us coming.”

As the singing continues, McCabe’s eyes narrow even more and they shake their head, agitated. “Something’s wrong.”

“Too easy?” asks Park.

“Too familiar,” McCabe replies.

“What?” Seiders isn’t following.

“I’ve heard this before,” McCabe insists.

So has Park, but he pretends not to follow their meaning. “We… all have?”

“No, I’ve heard this before. They’re playing a recording!”

Fortunately for the Plan, Seiders’ ego won’t allow him to take a hint from someone else, least of all a lower-ranking Agent. “McCabe, as the senior agent here, I’m gonna make my own calls.”

“Incoming call from – Brian Jeeter,” ELLA’s voice sounds over the audio device.

“Computer, accept?”

Brian Jeeter’s voice comes through the speaker. “Computer, execute Sequence Five. Brian Jeeter out.”

The recorded singing abruptly cuts off.

“Team Leader Two!” Park says urgently. There should be just enough time for Team Two to get clear of the blast, but they need to move right now.

“This is for – Alvy Conners – the entire crew of – the Iris – and – Emily Craddock,” says ELLA pleasantly. “You – can’t – make – a person – disappear.”

Park has to hand it to the Rumor crew: they have style. The words send a shiver down his spine.

“Self destruct in ten…”

“Should we… retreat?” a young junior agent, uncertain but with far more common sense than Seiders, asks.

“Nine…”

“It’s a bluff – they don’t have that capability,” says Seiders, far too self-assured. Park almost swears. His arrogance is going to get his entire team killed.

“Eight…”

“Don’t risk it – get out of there!” he orders.

“Seven…”

“Hang on – they have a still, for moonshine,” says McCabe, because not even the probable threat of an explosion will stop them from reasoning through a situation.

“Six…”

“What if they recalibrated it—”

“Five…”

“Take your team out of there!” Park shouts more insistently, grabbing McCabe by the arm and pulling them backwards, outside the blast radius.

“Four…”

“Fine, let’s move!” Seiders finally says, with just three precious seconds to spare. Footsteps sound, and Park keeps his eyes on the hole in the ship wall, thinking about the time it takes to run from the cockpit to the outer door. Too long. But maybe if they jump clear—

The countdown reaches one, and the footsteps of Team Two stop.

“Told you it was a bluff,” says Seiders, confidently. It is the last thing he ever says.

“Goodbye.”

The Rumor explodes into a fireball of flame, a wave of heat like a wall slamming outwards, causing Park and McCabe to cringe back. Smoke pours from the blackened skeleton of the ship, and Park and McCabe choke and gasp for air.

“Holy—” McCabe manages.

Park switches on his walkie-talkie, though he’d be surprised if that explosion wasn’t heard across half of the complex. “Agent Park to Major General Frederick: the Rumor just… just self-destructed, taking out all of Team Two.” He doesn’t have to fake the defeated bitterness in his voice.

“We’ve been set up,” the Major General states grimly.

“Major General—” McCabe interjects, coughing. “In order for Jeeter to- set off the sequence, he must’ve had an eyeline to the ship. He’s got to be somewhere nearby.”

Park takes a moment to reflect on how much more difficult executing the Plan would be if the IGR had the common sense to put McCabe in a position of actual leadership.

“There’s no time to worry about that. That blast of heat means they’ve just set a swarm of rebooted nanoswarm on the loose. We need to secure the lab – now. Park, McCabe – go.”

As they move off, McCabe takes one last look at the remains of the Rumor, their expression haunted and shellshocked as the reality of what just happened to Team Two starts to sink in.

Goddamn it, Park, you had one fucking job, Park thinks, bitterly. He touches them on the arm, gently, and McCabe jumps as they come out of their trance.

“Come on,” he says in a low voice. “Let’s get out of here.”

Krejjh getting shot was not part of the Plan.

Well, okay, there were something like forty different versions of the Plan, which meant that technically most things were part of the Plan at some point. But Krejjh getting shot was not in the ideal version of the Plan (the one where things went well).

Neither the Rumor crew’s planning nor Park’s recollection of the lab security had accounted for the sheer number of guards stationed throughout the first floor of Advance Labs. Park thinks that the original plan had been for Arkady to take out any guards she encountered en route to Lab 1032 while Krejjh found a hiding place, but instead, the Dwarnian appears to be acting as a distraction: a loud, flashy, defiant, poetry-reciting distraction.

“What am I? I am your enemy incarnate! I am the dizzying swoop as gravity surrenders!”

McCabe motions for Park to be quiet as they steal towards the blind corner that Krejjh is currently careening towards, disabling guards with quick, precise gunshots as they go. Not that it’s really necessary – the Dwarnian is making enough noise to cover any footsteps.

“I am the sick-hot, blinding fire of ignition! Fear blinks before me, and death knows not my name.”

Park sees a look of calm focus come over McCabe’s face that he knows is them going into ‘sniper mode’. There’s nothing he can do to prevent this without blowing his cover, and it’s too early. The only good thing is that he knows McCabe won’t shoot to kill – partly because of the treaty, but also because kill shots are not McCabe’s style.

(He knows better than to hope that McCabe might miss, because McCabe never misses).

“I am more than you can possibly imagine! Heck yeah, hahaha- augh!”

Krejjh’s giddy laughter cuts off abruptly as McCabe hits them squarely on the knee. Ouch. Park is no expert on Dwarnian physiology, but if it’s even passingly similar to a human’s, that had to hurt.

“Good shot, McCabe,” Park says approvingly as the two of them round the corner. He’s being sincere – it was an excellent shot, perfectly aimed at a moving target in a way that would disable them without being fatal. “We’ll take it from here, Officer,” he adds, dismissing the remaining, shaken guard. The fewer witnesses they have for whatever is about to happen, the better.

McCabe stands up a little straighter, and Park thinks that there’s some pride mixed in with the triumph in their smile. “So! Krejjh Sh’Eejjhgreb,” they say, bearing down on Krejjh, who is slumped against the corridor wall.

“That’s- not how Dwarnian names work, champ,” Krejjh replies, strained. Park reminds himself that this is a gravely serious situation, and laughing would be totally inappropriate.

“Agent McCabe to Major General Frederick,” McCabe says, activating their walkie-talkie. “We have incapacitated Source D with a bullet to the knee! What is our next course of action?”

“Good work,” replies the Major General – and then she says the one thing that Park has been dreading. “Kill them.”

McCabe falters, the pleased expression on their face giving way to confusion and shock. “Uhh- Ma’am? If we kill a Dwarnian, especially the relative of a high-ranking diplomat…” McCabe’s tone is light, as if they’re expecting – hoping – to be told that this is all a misunderstanding.

“McCabe, your duty is not to ask questions. It’s to follow orders from the ones who know more than you,” Major General replies flatly. Park clenches his jaw, fighting down a surge of irritation and anger just as he’d done every other time a high-ranking member of the Regime spoke condescendingly to himself or his team. Especially his team.

He sees McCabe stiffen, and knows how much this must rankle. McCabe has always been defensive about their age and sensitive to comments about it – or to any implication that they don’t have the experience or the skills to hold the position that they do.

He knows it only makes them more determined to prove everyone wrong, but just for once, Park wishes that McCabe didn’t have to fight for every scrap of recognition, that they didn’t need to be ten times better than everyone else just to get noticed. He wants a way out of the IGR for both of them – not just for himself.

“Are we clear?” asks the Major General, and Park makes his decision.

“We’re clear, Ma’am,” he says.

To their credit, Krejjh immediately starts to play along, attempting to make a call to Brian Jeeter as if they know that this could be the last thing they will ever do. Park draws his gun and points it at their head, and their voice trails away.

“Agent Park?” McCabe asks, sounding shocked.

“Listen,” says Park, keeping his gun levelled at Krejjh but looking McCabe straight in the eyes. He has one shot at trying to communicate to McCabe what’s happening – to try and get them to understand.

If McCabe objects, or otherwise raises the alarm, the whole Plan will be shot to hell. But Park doesn’t think they will.

“My time at Zone Z reminded me why I signed up in the first place – why we do this work,” Park says with deliberate emphasis. “Keep the stakes in mind, and everything becomes simple. Stand back, McCabe.”

McCabe backs away several steps, still staring at Park numbly, as if they can’t quite comprehend what is about to happen.

Park may have recently lost an eye, but he knows his aim is still true. He used to practice shooting with one eye or the other closed, or with both eyes shut, because you never knew what conditions you might encounter in battle.

He’s not a patch on McCabe, but he doesn’t need to be for this.

Park squeezes the trigger twice, and two bullets embed themselves into the wall next to Krejjh’s head. Krejjh makes a choked-off noise and slumps down, then winks at McCabe, putting a finger to their lips.

McCabe is staring at Park like they’ve never seen him before. “You…”

“Humankind, McCabe,” says Park. It’s his last chance to try and explain. “That’s why we do what we do.”

“Agent Park?” McCabe asks in disbelief. But they haven’t given him away. To Major General Frederick, listening in on the whole exchange, it will just sound like the disbelief of a naive young Agent who has never witnessed bloodshed before.

Park had faith that they wouldn’t – it’s why he was prepared to gamble everything on this moment. But it still causes a warm feeling to spread through his chest as he activates his walkie-talkie again.

“Agent Park to Major General Frederick. It’s done.”

“Perfect.” Major General Frederick’s satisfaction practically oozes through the speaker. He imagines that she’s congratulating herself on the decision to send Park back to work – such a dedicated agent, such a loyal subject of the Regime. Everything that happened to him in Zone Z has only made him more focused and deadly. “Find a handcart, and bring the body down to Lab 1008. And don’t get too close – they’re still infected with the strain H nanoswarm.”

Park takes grim satisfaction in the fact that he’s directly working to undermine her toxic, fascist regime. He intends to be very deadly indeed.

“We’re aware, Major General. Roger that.”

Park retrieves a handcart from a storage cupboard halfway along the corridor and wheels it over to Krejjh, who grins as they hoist themself onto it. McCabe stands and watches them, looking extremely conflicted – presumably between their gut instinct and what they know is protocol.

It would be very easy for them to go for their gun right now and shoot him, or Krejjh, or both and claim that they didn’t act sooner because they were waiting to catch him with his guard down. But they don’t.

Park wheels the handcart around and looks at McCabe. He wants to ask them to come with him, but he has no idea how things are going to turn out after this, and McCabe is capable of making their own decisions about what to do. He hopes they’ll decide to lay low out of sight, then devise a plausible alibi – or better yet, use the confusion to escape.

“You’d better get out of here, McCabe,” he says in an undertone, before wheeling the handcart past, Dwarnian passenger and all.

Park wasn’t lying earlier about their saying from the war – about sacrifices and the big picture. It kept him going through the waking nightmare of Zone Z, and it’s kept him going since. But the big picture is only half of what makes it worth the fight.

He hopes that he’ll see McCabe again.

[cchellacat]

Game of Thrones Finale

Here be spoilers for the last season of GoT.  Turn back now or forever hold you peace.  Trust me, I am not holding my peace, I feel like going to war and breaking a bloody wheel over the back of D&D’s heads.

I knew going in, this wasn’t the ending I had been hoping for, or even expecting for nine years.  After the penultimate episode the writing was clearly on the wall, so I watched this final chapter, ready for crushing disappointment and grief. D&D did not let me down. 

They completed their character assassination of Daenerys with all the clumsy, lazy, pretension and dreadfully written dialogue as one might have come to expect, if they had been paying attention since the start of the season. 

When left to flounder in the seas of uncertainty without the masterfully crafted scaffolding of GRRM’s books to hold them afloat, the writers sunk the whole thing gleefully. I’m absolutely certain they took great pleasure in destroying every logical expectation.

This constant need to justify their own twisted ending and eradicate certain characters development and arcs, left me feeling bewildered and horrified.  The beautiful woven foreshadowing that had been building since season one seemed to be cast aside at the last and replaced with some Frankenstein monster, cobbled together from a need to be “different”  to “surprise”, to be “edgy”  and “subversive”.  

This isn’t how good writing is done.  You don’t change the track of a story just because it’s deemed predictable or because fans guessed the ending. 

The onus then, is on the writer, to follow through and complete the story while still making it enjoyable and intriguing.  It isn’t to upturn the apple-cart and refill with limes.  It’s to take the damn apples and make pie.  Make it interesting, draw the audience in, there is nothing wrong with giving the audience what they want. There is nothing wrong with delivering a satisfying and sensible conclusion.  There is nothing wrong with giving the main character/s a happy ending.

Their fear of cliche, lead them straight into trope hell.  The “face heel turn” of Daenerys from Liberator and Mother to Tyrant and Murderer was sloppy, poorly written and did not have a justifiable history to back it up. 

Do not even get me started on how they killed her.  JFC.  Could they have been anymore obvious about how that was gong to go down?  Talk about cliche. 

Murdered by the man she loves, who loves her and who is also her only family.  We’ll talk later about what they did to poor Jon.  Just for reminders sake though, here she is, held in the arms of the man she loves as he promises her she will always be his queen, kisses her and stabs her right in the heart.  **blood boiling**

Turing Sansa into Littlefinger 2.0 made my inner rage monster scream.  Her transformation from  the “The High Queen”  to “The Chess-master” makes me think the North isn’t in any better hands than it would have been with Littlefinger in charge.  How convenient that none of her siblings will be nearby to notice.  Bran in the south, Jon in the True North and for some inexplicable reason, the girl who spent eight season finding her way home, decides to go gallivanting off into the west on some LotR, knock off elf quest. 

Arya’s end is as unsatisfying as every other one.   She spent years growing stronger, learning to kill, striving to be No-one.  Her whole character arc was about her coming to terms with her loss and recognising that no matter how far she ran, she would always be Arya Stark. 

Then is was her journey home, learning that she could go back, that even changed by war and blood, family meant everything.  Her clarion call, that the “lone wolf dies but the pack survives” has been with her every step.  It’s the message her father taught her, one she held too.  Why on earth would she leave her pack behind? 

What even was the point of having her and Gendry meet again and come together if she was just going to walk away?  I’m not saying a character has to be defined by a romantic relationship, but why bother giving the fans a few crumbs just to spit on it an episode later?  This is clearly baiting of the worst kind.  I’d rather they met as friends and parted as friends than the shit show of having Gendry propose, only for her turn him down.  I mean, she could have learned another lesson with the Hound, that defining your life by revenge and forgetting to live only ends in death.  Her returning to Gendry after that would have made sense.  It would have made sense for her to go build a pack of her own.  But no, that would be too easy.  What shall we do with Arya?  Lets put her on a bus!

He did love her.  Jon was crazy about Dany.  She was crazy about him.  This is the man who puts family first, who lives by his honour.  He is his Uncle Ned come again.  Ned, who lived and died by his oaths.  The only time he broke them was to protect his sisters son, to protect Jon, his family. 

This is why they had to destroy Daenery’s character so completely.  They had to make her the worst villain imaginable to make it look even remotely plausible that Jon would;

1. Break his oath of fealty

2. Murder his own blood.

3. Betray the love of his life.

They had to preserve Jon’s good name, oh yes, because Jon wouldn’t kill her for power or because she lost her temper and disagreed with him.  No.  They destroyed both Jon and Dany with this plot. 

Jon is now Queen Slayer and Kin Slayer and he has broken his word, his oaths of loyalty, his unspoken oaths of love and protection, which she rightly expected from him as her blood and her lover and has been reduced to a shadow of the man he was meant to be, the king he could have been. 

He is cursed by the gods in the eyes of most Westerosi, or he would be if they knew the truth.  After all, look at how the nobility treated Jaimie after he killed the Mad King.  It didn’t matter to them that the King was evil, no, what mattered was that he broke his oath.

Oath breakers are anathema in Westeros. 

So much for a Targaryen Restoration.  Goodbye Iron Throne.  The whole point of Jon’s character was just erased.  Did he defeat some great evil?  No.  Did he overcome war and death and end triumphant on the throne as the last dragon?  No.  There was no point in bringing him back after his death in season six.  Anyone could have went to bargain with Dany and the outcome would have been the same.  Ugh!

Jaime and Brienne.  The love story/redemption arc I was so invested in.  One hand gives and the other takes away.  In the end it seems that Jaime learned nothing, according to the writers that is.  I call bullshit.  Jaime had redeemed himself.  If he had to die, it should have bee while killing Cersei.  The foreshadowing of him being Cersei’s death has been around for years. Cersi didn’t love Jaime, she loved controlling him.  Cersei loved no one but herself.  That was the lesson Jaime was meant to learn.  Thanks so much for taking away eight season of character development and self realisation.

Tyrion got shafted too.  His speech near the end, it was a load of cow dung.  In the end they left Tyrion to be Westeros’ own comic relief.  The Small Council was a bloody farce.  All that scene did was reinforce my belief that nothing in Westeros has really changed.  It doesn’t matter what title you give someone, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Give it ten years and Bron will be the power in Westeros in all but name. 

Now who have I forgotten?  Ah yes.  My Special Mention.

Sandor went out the way he meant to, bringing an end to his brother.  But not before the writers gave him a brief moment with Sansa.  There you go Sansan fans, he called her little bird!  Now shut up and let us kill him in a fiery fall of doom. 

Death by fire, the worst death they could give this man.  He wasn’t a good man, it’s arguable that none of the characters were good people.  However, Sandor Clegane suffered more than most.  He spent his life, angry and bitter, seeking revenge for himself and his sister and father.  I think, if they had to kill him, they could have given the man a better exit than him tossing both himself and his brother into the flames.  It was cruel to make that the only way out, the only triumph he could claim.  I think Sandor should have lived.  He deserved to find a life of peace after all the fighting he did.   It is not poetic or clever to kill a character off with the object of their own fear.  It’s not clever when they do it to a villain, it’s doubly unfair to do it to a hero.  He was a hero by the end.  Sandor deserved better.

Now look, I‘m not saying that in a show like this, that everybody should live or necessarily get the end they deserve, but, they went too far in the name of shock value, leaving no one happy, well, virtually no one. I guess the rabid Sansa fans who loathed Dany are feeling pretty good about now. 

(Yes, okay that was mean, but I got sick of seeing it in my timeline and unfollowed a few people.) 

I was always very much of the belief that Sansa and Dany had more in common than would drive them apart.  I didn’t expect an easy friendship or alliance, but I did expect them to find common ground and be able to build a relationship over time.  Strong women supporting each other is what we need more of on TV.  Not this misogynistic desire to see two strong women fight over a man, which is essentially what they reduced Sansa and Dany too with poor Jon caught in the middle.  

In conclusion...

I feel as though the writers went into season eight with a clear idea of where they had been building and then someone get a bee in their bonnet and posed the question, “Who is the least likely to end up ruling Westeros?”

The answer of course is Bran.  Bran the Broken, how fucking ignorant is that?  How about Bran the Burdened or Bran the Broker or Bran the Benevolent, if you’ve really got such a hard on for alliteration?

So now Bran, who is so disconnected from feeling that he can’t love anyone, sits the Iron Throne and is somehow meant to be a good ruler. 

All that’s needed to achieve this happy ending for the writers?

Goodbye Character development and epic love stories, hello smear campaign, death, destruction and the end of one of my favourite canon ships to ever sail.

Rest in Peace Jonarys.  I believed in you. 

[yutark]

achievement guide/tips

< warning > : i am neither a mod or a professional at this, but i know a lot of people get confused and lost over achievements. these will not work for everyone, not to mention its your muse and time and you should do what you want or think is best for your muse, everyone is different and wants their muse their own way. no one is wrong or right, but this is simply some tips on them. every muse will find their place and will be valued, achievements or not -- so do not stress. 

rookies is an roleplay and for fun, first and foremost.

first notes

the first thing to note for everyone, from the rkachievements blog: “lots of achievements =/= lots of skills.” there are two examples of what this means on the blog if you want to check them out, but the basic idea is, some people will have a lot of achievements and some people will have a lot of skills, and having both types of people in the company is good since they cover different things. neither one is better than the other, it is up to you how you want your muse to be. 

but i, as a non-mod*, would believe a mix of achievements and skills creates for a better rounded muse. 

this is my own personal guide, that means that the mods could see things very differently, but i know a lot of people who are very lost and confused on achievements and feel extremely overwhelmed with what to decide or do with them. in the end, everyone needs to do what makes them happy and what suits their muse, and i encourage people to ignore this if they do not think it suits them.

this is for people who need a little guide and help, and if theyre still lost, i’m certain the mods will explain anything they’re uncertain of to the best of their ability. because they, just like me, want you to focus on what makes you happy and what makes it enjoyable for you.

last note, achievements are a good character development tool outside of all of this, they are one way for you to track your muses growing love of writing songs, or their bane of having to dance, or their growth in confidence as they learn to model. they are what you make them to be and that is just as important, if not more.

base achievements

this is where i’m going to start: base achievements page. for a short explanation, these are some of the skills your muse has when they arrive after being signed. there is only 35 points to use, that means there will be skills that you will have to not do -- this does not mean your muse doesn’t have them, but simply that the company recognises or knows. 

for example, yuta only has advanced english, but he was both taught english from kindergarten to graduation, and worked as a translator, japanese/korean/english, for seven months. in my head, he is likely more fluent in english that advanced would entail, but the company only knows he has advanced. so if this achievement decides something later on, the mods will only see advanced english. if/when yuta does achievements later on for english, he’s “proving” his skills so the company can tick off that he actually has them.

back to the base achievements, 35 points is not a lot, especially when you have to put in languages. an expert level in your muses mother-tongue is going to cost you 6 of those. so it’s important to work out what matters to your muse and use these points to their best advantage. these are some tips:

note which achievements have six levels and which do not. most have six levels of skill: novice, beginner, intermediate, advanced, master and expert. some have less and these cost different base points: ballad singing, voice acting, theatrical acting, abs and drag, all have 3-6 weeks of training and cost two points to complete them. those with levels: novice = 1 pt beginner = 2 pts intermediate = 3 pts advanced = 4 pts master = 5 pts expert = 6 pts remember you cannot put: the mandatory achievements, stamina, creative direction or solo training.

put down the languages first. yuta grew up in japan, the first language i put down was japanese and the second, korean. followed by his english and his chinese. his japanese is expert, his korean + english is advanced, and his chinese is beginner. first, determine if these will help your muse debut. and to be honest, yuta could go without english and chinese. he does not necessarily need them. in fact, he could even go without his japanese. what he does need to debut in korea? at least beginner-intermediate korean. why? if you read this page on languages, beginner lets him record music in korean and intermediate lets him participate in events/variety shows/etc in korean. both of these are almost necessary to promote as a singer. most/all people put their mother-tongue to expert. languages are one of those skills that are one, easy to explain ( since you do need to explain why your muse has a skill and level ) and two, it’s not very interesting character development for a muse to be stuck earning achievements in their mother-tongue to prove they have a skill, they should logically have already. it makes sense to put it on there and im pretty sure everyone does. as you can see, i gave yuta his japanese and korean, plus his english and chinese. then i had to decide who i was going to divide points and pick levels for them and i did that using the nifty language page again. expert level = eligible to act in dramas or movies within that language. what chance will yuta have on act in chinese or english dramas? very little to be honest. he doesn’t want to act. on the other hand, he does want to be able to translate english for his group on the chance that they promote in english, and that requires advanced level english at the very least. since there will be time before yuta debuts, and even more before he does promotions in english speaking countries, i have time to work him up higher if i want to. for his korean, i used the same thinking as i did english: yuta doesn’t have plans to act in korea at this point, advanced lets him translate if he needs to. he needs a minimum of beginner to record music in korean, and intermediate to be in korean events, but it mattered to yuta that he have a certain level. josh was different, josh had expert in english and korean, and advanced in french. why? these were skills i could explain for him to have. he doesn’t have many performance skills. in fact, he ended up with only 4 performance skills, one of which is guitar. on the other hand, his background and life grants him expert levels in two languages and an advanced in french. these skills mattered to josh, even if he’s almost completely unlikely to be singing or promoting in french speaking countries. as i said, every muse is different. but the important thing is to know what each level of skill means and you can find them on almost every achievements page.

if we continue with yuta, he has gone from 35 points available, to only 19 points. he’s used up 16 points in just languages. next, i crossed off any skill yuta was likely not to have -- instruments, melisma, theatrical acting, etc. he has no reason to have these, he hasn’t studied or learned any of them. it would be a lie to say he has.  on the other hand, he would have skills like acting, leadership, speed/lte rap, live singing, flexibility, jazz/contemporary and hip hop.  i read up on all of these pages, trying to determine what would logically be a level yuta had and how much these were going to cost me. and then i added them up. it did come to more than the 19 points he had available, that meant there would need to be some scraping down done. so i broke it down to how many weeks they meant: novice is one week of work. beginner is three more on top. intermediate is four weeks more.  advanced is another four weeks of work. but then advanced to master is six weeks. and master to expert is seven weeks.  i avoid giving my muses any base achievements of novice. with one week of training, they could get that and it feels very pointless when that 1 pt could be +3wks for any other level. the reason to get novice on a base achievements, like i have done with josh and harmonisation, is its a way around the requirements. harmonisation requires +100 singing points and +50 charisma points. its a skill josh will likely need as a main/lead vocalist, and something i would like to work on soon after he’s done his mandatory and got his +50 debut points. on the other hand, i’m not sure if he will have the requirements to get it in a normal workshop. getting him novice on the base achievements, means i don’t need these requirements and can work on it on weekly workshops sooner, rather than later. the only other way that i know of around requirements is through events and evals where you’re able to get that achievement. there is always a chance of an eval lining up well, but like josh, his latest two evals would not give him harmonisation. 

from the top of my head, most achievements at beginner to advanced is enough to do most things. expert is generally not going to come up as an idol. for example, hiphop, is a very focused skill for one and “very few idols reach advanced/expert level hip-hop, and there’s really not a lot of call for it.” expert level is something like jay park or bap’s jongup. and considering most of the trainees will be debuting in groups, the chance of that skill being shown on stage, is limited. on the other hand, it’s likely good for variety shows and a certain level is required for choreography. really, getting expert level in hiphop is for bragging rights. ( it’s not my fault yuta likes to brag and ended up with master level. ) so although the value of a 1 pt goes up as the level does, the value of that level might not mean as much as you think it does. expert sounds cool, but how often do you see idols get to show it? unless my muse values an achievement a lot, it might be better to put that expert achievement aside to work on later, and give yourself an intermediate or advanced, which leaves you that 2-3 pts to put somewhere else -- get an intermediate speed/lte rap, or beginner leadership.

probably the last things to consider with base achievements, looking at skills past their titles/levels and how they work together. i don’t think most people know but leadership at beginner level = a “moodmaker” of the group. yuta does not and has no plans for leadership, on the other hand, he does care that he can make people feel good and happy. this also is a charisma based achievement and i’d like to think yuta is pretty charismatic. it could also be seen as likeability. people like, and viewers/audiences like, someone who makes them feel good and has a good personality. whether this is how the mods see it, i’m not exactly sure. but it’s another thing to consider when deciding. and consider, especially with charisma based achievements, how they may work together. someone with an expert modelling could be looked over because they need to act in cf’s, and someone who divided their points advanced modelling and intermediate acting, might appeal more.

take your time and check out everything. and consider less about needing expert to beat someone else and more on what matters to you and to your muse. in the end, it’s literally less about competing with the other people and more about working together towards debut.

working on debut

the first page to refer to is the rookies trainee page. for the short cut on what i’m going to focus on, it’s mandatory achievements and debut points. this will be a minor section, but it’s important that i brush anyone who is unsure or confused on it.

there are three mandatory achievements.

public interaction

sns management

sex ed

these are the first achievements i suggest every trainee go for. public interaction needs to be take three times, sns management and sex ed need to be done once. it’s five weeks of workshops, but it means once your muse has +50 debut points, they are eligible for ‘experimental groups’ and the more people who are, the more likely there will be a chance of this happening. not to mention, once they’re done, as long as your muse behaves, you don’t need to really touch them again,

my system for doing the debut points and the achievements is to get my muse to 45 debut points. each week i do one of those achievements earns me +1 debut point, so five weeks is five points and then i have +50 debut points and all three achievements. some people do their achievements first, which is completely fine to do. i generally do them later because sometimes evals or events might pop-up where my muse can earn one through and it saves me one week later down the track.

deciding on achievements to work on

this is likely the hardest part for most people: what achievements matter and what don’t. and to be honest, i can’t tell anyone. i’m neither a mod or an admin, and how they decide things is a secret. i think its good to keep it a secret, as it means people can’t tailor their muses to fit the mods and instead do what is right for their muse. but it does mean people who haven’t spent hours thinking about it are very lost.

but i will try my best to give some tips for anyone who is really lost and explain a reason for why i think that.

every trainee likely* needs:

beginner/intermediate in a dance achievement: hiphop or jazz/contemporary ( unless a group is doing a band concept, every idol group dances and having basic skills is useful for every trainee. even josh with his +2 dance points will likely need to have some dance achievements and its one of the first things i will focus on for him. )

beginner in charisma achievement: modeling, acting or variety ( idols have to go on variety shows, they have to model for their albums/events/etc, and they have to act in mvs or even in interviews -- as we have seen with this latest eval. i don’t know if you need all of them, but they will help your muse. )

intermediate in korean ( it’s the language they are promoting in, singing in, and they will obviously very much need this if they do not have it )

beginner/intermediate in singing achievements: live singing and* harmonisation ( live singing is important, since its that skill of singing while dancing, and nearly every idol group does that. and harmonisation is also a versatile skill that is needed in every group. it likely doesn’t matter if you’re a rapper or dancer, having these will benefit you. )

( for rappers* ) beginner/intermediate speed/lte rap should be enough as a starting goal and you should get that as well. 

specialisations

this is probably where everything gets the most murky -- you want your muse to be a main vocal or the lead rapper, or a dancer, but you don’t know what to get them. i am as blind as everyone is on this and only trying my best to work out too. 

but for some general tips and ideas on this, i will try my best. please remember i am not a mod and am only trying to help give some guidance.

referring back to the first thing on this extremely long post, “lots of achievements =/= lots of skills.” so its best to have both skill points and some achievements in your muses focus.

to go a little nerd on you, if yuta was a dancing magician, his skill points are his stats: his stamina, his agility, etc. his achievements are his speciality: hiphop ( lets make it fire, becauses he a pyro ) my aim for his dance % is 30%, so he’s a decent dancer i would imagine, above average. from the rookies point spreadsheet, i can nail him down in the top 40 of dance %. he could kick some butt if he needed to but it’s not going to be super easy. he knows what he’s doing and he can likely get down most pop choreography well. he’s got decent stamina, he’s got decent agility, he’s got some decent spells and can use most of the scrolls he comes across to a good degree of success. my aim for his hiphop dancing is expert, so he’s very much a super cool pyro mage who could burn down entire cities if he wanted to -- but guess what happens if he has to go burn down atlantis, his fire is utterly useless underwater and is mute. he has to rely on his skill points to get him through this. in some areas, he will be advantaged by his achievements and others he wont. he’s still a super cool pyro mage underwater, but he’s soaking wet and someone with a higher skill points would do better than him. thats why its important not to value skill points or achievements over one or the other, they have different ‘effects’ and are used differently. this would work if they needed a jazz/contemporary dancer and not a hiphop dancer. the jazz/contemporary dancer is an electric or water based magician, and when they went down to atlantis, they were in their element, using the water against atlantis by electifying it, or capable of using super powerful water based skills to reign destruction.

deciding what achievements you want to focus on or if you want any achievements at all, is up to the mun and what they think their muse is going to be. there is no right or wrong way to do this, it’s very much a, ‘you do you’ situation. eventually as debut groups are made the admins will give you more direction, but for now, do what feels right for you muse and do not worry what anyone else is doing. maybe you do not care about a pyro mage and just want to be a super skilled mage who is more versatile but doesn’t specialise, you focus on skill points. 

my suggestion is, and will probably remain, focus on rounding and balancing.  focus skill: get some achievements around advanced and keep going for skill points. but don’t focus on only one achievement entirely. josh, as a singer, will likely go 4-5 of the singing achievements to bolster up his 40% of singing points but probably only go for expert in one of them. if you combine that, with the basic trainee skills above, and you have a muse who has their focus but can hold themselves in other areas needed to be an idol.

last words

if anyone has any other tips, just let me know and i will add them on here. 

the mods use different variations and ways of deciding anything, and its important to remember that they have a lot of different things to factor in, not just points or achievements or percentages, and this guide is not a cheat sheet for how to get debut or to be ‘better’, its just for those who might be a bit lost and unsure about what they’re doing. the last thing to note on achievements is this post here. this involves an explanation of how something was cast once before -- and why achievements hold value/benefit. i’m not sure how it works for dancing/singing/rapping, as the mods will change it depending on what the spot needs/requires. but basically achievements let you stand out in an area. but i did not want this guide to focus on competition. this is a starter guide to help people grasp and get into achievements.

( also sorry this is extremely long, but i want to make sure anyone who reads it, can have a better understanding of everything going on. )

a breakdown

do your base achievements, consider wisely! expert might not be worth it!

get to +45 debut points, then work on the 3 mandatory achievements

work on the basic achievements every trainee is likely to need

( if you don’t meet requirements, use evals to get around them )

then work on other achievements and earning bragging right badges

remember! you can continue doing achievements even after you debut

[impishnature]

Life Aboard The Stan’O’War

AO3

Sequel to The Light Keeper The Adventure of A Lifetime, Casper, Fisherman’s Friend

Rating: T

Summary: The Stan twins are finally setting off on the adventure of a lifetime, both ready to face whatever the sea has to throw at them. Though, sometimes…. it might not be the sea they have to worry about. At least the Stan’O’War will weather whatever storms they find themselves sailing through. Lighthouse Keeper AU.

A series of oneshots.  

AN: Two very different personalities can sometimes collide headlong.(Warnings: Panic attacks, intrusive thoughts) The next chapter is already up on patreon here. Come check it out!

Part 4: Stay Where I Can See You

.

"What the hell were you thinking, Sixer?!"

There were times when the jokes broke away, clattered down into the dark grey waves below. When the storms brewed and the dams burst.

When the banter and jovial tones morphed into something sharp and desperate, filled with worry and fear and a myriad of other painful emotions.

Times when anger took the stage.

Of course they would have disagreements, that was to be expected. Full scale arguments ricocheting across the deck in thunder claps of biting words when things went particularly wrong. Knowing they were inevitable, didn't make them any easier to deal with, however. Fortunately, they didn't happen often, and usually the worst arguments were fuelled more by nerve wracking fear for the other than anything else. But they couldn’t go for the rest of their lives always on the same side of a debate, it just wasn't possible, try as they might to compromise where possible. They were too unique, too different, too busy being stubborn and set in their own thought processes. They saw the world through different eyes, as they should, and whilst sometimes this led to frankly astronomical feats of brilliance that they would later regale the kids with, there were other moments when they clashed as fiercely as any storm the sea tried to dash them against the rocks with.

Actually, their arguments were somehow worse than anything the sea could throw at them.

…In fact their first proper fight was the worst for Ford.

Not because it was their first, mind, not because of that nervous stomach lurching worry that things were turning south. No, that quickly became lost amidst the cacophony of other panicked voices that would soon be recognised, their ringing words crashing over and swallowing whole any wayward thoughts of their wobbly bridge of a relationship being broken once more.

No, he would take whatever the sea had to throw at them rather than ever have that happen again.

It had all started with an average adventurous morning.

At least in his eyes.

In hindsight, he had been too reckless, too ready to jump full pelt into the unknown. His enthusiasm and curiosity had gotten the better of his common sense, throwing caution to the winds and unrepentantly watching it dance across the foam.

He could see some of that now, taking a step back and watching from the sideline like his brother must have done. But even with this knowledge, he didn’t know if he would do anything differently the next time, if and when another moment presented itself. Sure, with the knowledge of where it had gotten him, if he was given the chance to go back in time to that morning, he would be more cautious, more skeptical. But if it happened again in the future? He knew the answer to that already. He just wouldn't be able to resist the siren call.

He had seen a chance to investigate and he had taken it. The whispering curiosity, his own spinning sparkling thoughts and the thirst for knowledge as always taking over his senses with little room for logic or suspicion.

Or- he had tried to take it. Stan had grown suspicious almost immediately when he found Ford with the creature on deck, having been given no warning to their uninvited guest. His gut instinct on the matter had made the decision for both of them. He had voiced his concerns as soon as the shock of seeing it had worn off but Ford had brushed the words aside with a quick flippant gesture. Stan's concerns had almost irritated him, the flare of concern and shame that the creature would be offended dampened only by the comprehension that Stan was just trying to protect them.

Not everything was untrustworthy in the sea, no matter how much Stan believed the opposite. Everything they found he gave a wary, shifty once over before he approached, fists tightening in his pockets around his knuckledusters just in case they'd be needed even against the most docile looking creatures they came across. He’d much rather doubt, be cautiously mistrustful and skeptical, and apologise later for his actions, than walk naively into a trap on the very slim chance that this time it wasn’t one.

But Ford just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t view the world that way. He had to take risks, had to take the chances.

He couldn’t miss his shot.

If he hadn’t taken his chance, they wouldn’t even be on this trip in the first place.

Stan didn’t feel the same way about the world. That was for sure.

Unfortunately for Ford, Stan was also very good at reading both people and creatures. And if he was completely honest with himself, he did know, deep down, that Stan's gut feeling was usually something to be listened to, and if the creature really was docile, he would relax within a few moments and leave Ford to it or come over to join in on the research if the creature piqued his interest enough as well.

...This was not one of those times.

He had abruptly dragged Ford away from the enthralling creature, getting only a disconcerted and frustrated sound for his efforts. The sound died fairly rapidly, caught somewhere before Ford could actually get any reproachful words out. The creature's seemingly well-tempered nature had shifted almost imperceptibly and Stan had heeded the warning, locking on to the subtle body language that something was not as it should be. And not a moment too soon, a sharp glittering rain of needled darts falling where they had both been standing only seconds before, peppering the wood with enough force to stand upright.

Ford didn't even have chance to take a breath before Stan had left his side again, landing a solid punch on the creature, raring and ready to follow up the motion with his own rain of blows in return to its attack. It took that moment before the second blow hit, to finally break away from the boat and slipped back into the sea from whence it came. Stan watched it go, lip curling viciously, snarling all the while, as if daring it to come back for another round in the ring with him.

Suffice to say, it did not return.

And when he was sure that it had received the message, he turned that anger on Ford.

Ford froze, still half sprawled across the deck where Stan had dropped him, as granite cold eyes locked onto him, pinning him to the floor with their intensity. He felt like a deer in headlights as Stan turned to him, face filled with a ferocity he'd never expected to see directed at himself.

"Well? Were you even thinking?" Stan scoffed at his own words as Ford continued to stare up at him, mouth open, his tongue made useless from shock. "No, of course you weren't! For a genius you aren't half-" His words strangled themselves as he gestured around wildly. "Why can't you just listen, Sixer? It was so obvious that that thing couldn't be trusted but no, you know exactly what you're doing at all times, don't you? Don't need anyone's help ever, now do you?"

For some reason the words snapped him back to reality, stung more than they should have as he finally straightened and stood up, dusting himself off as he did so as nonchalantly as he could muster. "Now, come on, Stan, be reasonable."

"Reasonable? Reasonable? Kind of hard when you put your life on the line for no good reason." Stan huffed, arms crossing as he tapped his foot in agitation, short sharp bursts of pent up rage and adrenaline filled fear cracking through the deck with every footfall.

"I didn't put my life on the line, you're exaggerating." Ford rolled his eyes, sighing in exasperation as he walked over to examine one of the barbs the creature had left behind. He had barely even leaned down to pull one out of the wood when he was harshly tugged back by the collar of his coat.

"Didn't- what do think those things are, Sixer? Friendliness spikes? The way whatever it was says 'hello'?" Stan's frustration was bleeding through the words, but it was the fear gleaming in his eyes that really turned Ford's stomach and caused the stream of cold, cloying shame to slide down his spine. "Come on, bro." His words came out like a concerned parents', desperate to prove his point. "You can't just take everything at face value and blindly hope that it's safe."

The shame burned away at his words, irritated offence rising up to obliterate it as he yanked himself from his grasp. "Really? And what should I do exactly? Just stay on the boat and never do any research at all?"

Stan growled, hands flexing as he tried to figure out what to do with all the emotion threatening to bubble over, especially now Ford wasn't within shaking distance. "No, you know that's not what I meant! I- Just- you need to be more careful, Sixer!"

"What? Be like you, you mean? Never giving anything the benefit of doubt before you're suspicious of it?" Before Stan could respond, his face obviously in agreement, he shook his head vehemently. "I can't do that, Stan! I don't want to do that. There are so many wonders out there and you want me to treat them all with mistrust. Can you even imagine how many chances I'd miss doing that? All the valuable research that would be lost by taking a step back?" Ford head continued to shake as he took a step back, though slower now, his gaze appraising Stan sadly, disappointment marring the words he knew in hindsight he should never have let slip out. "What happened to you, Stan? You were always up for a challenge, but now you-"

The words died almost as soon as they left his mouth, shrivelling up and falling flat in the air in front of him as he realised just what he had been saying. Stan's eyes narrowed, the fear in them sharpening back to incredulous anger and Ford couldn't help the gulp, nor the shiver that went down his spine as the tension in the air darkened tenfold. "N-now, Stan-"

"What happened to me?" Stan's voice was as cold and sharp as the North wind. Each word, hard and heavy as stones, dropped to the floor one by one to crack loudly and ricochet across the otherwise silent deck. He might as well have thrown one from the flinch that Ford gave, the rumble of thunderous rage making him instantly regret his mouth running away with him. "What happened to me? How about we talk about what happened to you?" He pointed at him, freezing him once again in place. "How about we talk about you and how that god damn thing lured you out into the water? Or how about how I lost you for thirty long years because of it, how about that?"

"Stan-"

"No? You don't want to talk about that? You don't want to talk about how that creature twisted it's way into your head and out you went in that boat of yours-" Stan's hands danced, flippant and dramatic, to the side as they mocked Ford's oblivious motions in the past. "-without a care in the world? You don't wanna talk about where that got you?"

"Hey now, that's not fair." Ford's resolve hardened, stubborn and steadfast, his own irritation brewing at the fact that he didn't really have anything to throw back at him, his mind blanking out in the face of Stan's questions. But even so in his heart he knew that there was a fundamental flaw to Stan's words, one that smothered his own quaking doubts.

"Not fair? Not fair?" Stan looked up at the sky for strength, his arms wide and open in disbelief. "I can't believe you. Not fair?" His head flopped back down to fix Ford with a bitter reproachful expression. "You know what's actually not fair? Losing you for thirty years. Me bringing it up when you're obliviously making the exact same mistakes again? I think that's damn well fair!"

"I am not making the same mistakes again!" Ford snapped back. He took vindictive pleasure in reaching down again for some of the spines, snatching them up before spinning on his heel and going towards the cabin, done with this entire exchange. "And I'll prove it! These spines were a self defence tactic in response to your actions."

"...Are you really that blind, Sixer?"

The words were quieter, more lost and vulnerable but the fire was still burning for Ford and he knew if he turned around, then that would be the end of it. He refused to turn around and give in. "No, I'm not. You're the one in the wrong here. My research is valuable! We don't get anywhere by keeping our distance and not interacting with the specimens." His hand tightened around the spines, feeling them crunch slightly at the action. "You're the one making the mistake here, Stan, not me. You can't expect me to be cautious of everything we come across."

"I can't expect you to be careful?"

Ford snorted. "This? Coming from you? Of all people?"

"God damn it, Sixer! I can't lose you again!"

The words burst out from behind a dam, laced with insidious concern and unadulterated fear that bit deep into Ford's resolve, his own sparking fire doused quickly by the wave of emotion rolling over his back.

He knew Stan's anger, his fretting and his hesitance all came from the heart, all with good intentions.

But really- what was the point in this trip if they were just going to sit quietly by the sidelines all the time?

They might as well have stayed at the lighthouse, if that was the case. Couldn't Stan see that?

Honestly, he thought they'd gotten over this hurdle before they'd even left.

"Stan, I'm going to go back to my studies now. Once you've calmed down, we can discuss this." The words came out in a disappointed sigh.

"Calmed down? No, we're talking about this now!"

"If you can't be reasonable, then there's frankly nothing to talk about."

Silence met the cold hollow remark for a few seconds, the atmosphere brewing thicker and darker with every held breath.

And then a snarl tore through it all.

"Fine, you wanna play that game? I can play that game."

Ford wasn't sure if he was relieved or nervous as he heard Stan's footsteps stomp further away, the man otherwise completely silent. Part of him was glad for the peace and quiet after the outbursts, but it was so unlike Stan to be that quiet, to give in, that it unnerved him, his gut churning that he had made a terrible mistake.

The barbed spines crunched in his hand as he worried them, dragging back his wayward thoughts. He glanced down at them with a nod, steeling himself as he ignored Stan and continued into the cabin.

He just had to prove Stan wrong and then he'd be able to argue his case.

"Why did you have to be right?"

Ford leaned back in his chair with a long suffering sigh. After running a number of tests he had determined that the barbed edge of each individual spine was covered in a viscous liquid that upon further investigation were very much venomous. This on it's own didn't give him the final conclusion but now armed with the knowledge and the other evidence he had managed to gather at the time, he was starting to suspect that even in this he didn't have a leg to stand on.

He groaned again, flopping forward to hold his head in his hands, his mind racing as he tried to piece it all together into a narrative he understood. The creature had been startled by Stan's movements, that had caused the self defence reaction. The venom on the spines was to stop them following-

But he knew that wasn't the case, deep down. He couldn't actually tell now as he cast his mind back who had moved first- the creature or Stanley. And not only that but the mannerisms, the camouflaged sea toned scales and the way it had slowly shuffled him closer and closer to the edge of the boat as if it had done the motion countless times before with curious sailors, all now pointed towards an intelligent predator instead of terrified prey.

There had been no hesitance in it's movements, no alert, nervous shifting whilst aboard the boat, nor had there been any wide eyed panic to accompany it's 'self defence' tactic.

In fact, it hadn't seemed phased by anything that had happened, not until Stan had thrown a punch at it and caught it off guard.

Only then had it deemed either of them a threat and left them alone.

Admit it, you were wrong.​

Ford whined again, frustratedly into his hands. How was he meant to prove Stan wrong if he kept being so right?

He couldn't always be right about these things! He had to be able to prove to his brother that there was actually some good to come out of the sea.

He had to make him see that the world wasn't as dark as he envisioned it.

He had to prove to him- no, to himself that the world was filled with things other than the monsters. He needed Stan to be wrong, he needed to know there was something out there, breathtakingly kind and beautiful to strive to find. He needed to know that the water held glimmering specks of light that would keep him afloat, dazzling fascinating creatures that held no malice to keep him from drowning in the darkness and taking everything with him.

He needed to know that being idealistic wasn't naive.

He needed to know that the creature in the bay, and its ice cold, silent prison, had been left far behind and the rest of the world lay ahead of them, filled with wonder and excitement. Every hit from a new creature tricking him, luring him in, was another chink in the armour that said you're wrong, the world is filled with monsters. Every time it happened, he found himself losing a little bit of the spark that kept him from hesitating, losing a little bit more of the adventurous gleam that had him rushing forwards wherever the wind and waves would take him.

Left him wondering whether any of this had been a good idea.

Left him wondering whether Stan had had a point all that time ago, high up in the lighthouse, about staying safe. That maybe there was something for them both on land that would be less harsh, less perilous than this trip upon the waves.

And every time his heart ached at the thought. And what was to say the land wasn't any less treacherous?​

No, this was on him. It didn't matter where they went, this would always happen. He just couldn't resist temptation, the thrill, the excitement, the thirst for knowledge.

Reckless. Useless. What will you do if Stan gets hurt because of your foolhardy nature?​ You always thought it'd be the other way round. That Stan would forever get you into trouble. But Stan grew up. When are you going to finally follow suit?

Ford shivered at the voice, the snarling, barbed, shameful tongues slashing through any arguments he tried to dredge up against the onslaught. In their wake they left behind images. Stan falling into the waves, Stan pushing him out of the way to receive the blow from a creature-

Stan riddled with barbed spines, dropping to his knees in front of him.

He should have left you in the water where you belonged. At least he'd be safe​.

Ford froze at the callous whisper, so familiar and yet so alien to his thoughts. That voice had filtered through his nightmares, slipped into the crevices of his thoughts to startle him awake or to whisper from the darkness of the cabin when the world was still and silent, leaving him feeling cold and clammy, his stomach roiling nauseating as he stumbled up from his bed.

But never had the voice been so clear, the words sharp and whole and far more real than in the dead of night.

He listened intently, holding his breath and waiting patiently for that glass sharp chuckle. His eyes flickered wildly for any sign of toxic yellow glittering from the dark spaces of the room, his heart beat quickened as his eyes locked to the edge of the bed, the dark space below a gaping maw where anything could be hidden but his body refused to check, locked in place as he held on white-knuckled to the edge of his chair.​ He still continued to look though, still continued to listen and wait for a sign- anything that would prove that it wasn't all in his head, that his own mind wasn't playing tricks on him.

Really though he was mostly hoping that it was his own treacherous thoughts. His own vitriolic emotions twisting his words into another creatures voice to make them ten times worse, instead of the world actually having shifted back into colder, devastating waters.

Silence met him as he continued to wait. Nothing moved, nothing glinted.

Nothing.

Yet the seed of doubt had now sprouted. The crawling, shuffling panic refused to be so easily quelled beneath logic and rationale. The breath he had been holding rushed out of him in a gasp of frost, his chest heaving beneath the sudden need for air, the sound loud and ragged to his ears even as he tried to clamp a hand over his mouth to muffle it.

After all, all he'd been all day was wrong. How could he trust his own thoughts, his own senses, when earlier he couldn't even tell the difference between predator or prey?

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as his mind swirled, anxious and unrelenting. There were still no signs of danger, yet the air around him became charged with his suspicions and doubts, fizzling and sparking with even the slightest movement. His skin crawled, small whispering trails carving goosebumps into his flesh as the gloom seemed to draw inwards, the corners of his vision blurring and darkening as his breathing quickened further. He shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself and hunching over as he tried to get his breathing back on track, the noise grating painfully to his ears and he half expected to see an icy mist stutter away from him with every exhale.

It was the damnable silence that got to him though, the echoing cavernous abyss. He choked on air as the solid wave of nothingness hit him, abruptly underwater again as he gurgled and spluttered. Water encased his ears, muffling his own clattering as he forced himself away from the desk, the water obstructing his throat, the thin tinny whistling of his own constricted airway, the only thing he could focus on as the memory took over his senses.

It was too quiet, too cold, and he couldn't trust his senses when they swayed between a dreamlike vision of a boat cabin and the steady unrelenting abyss that had been his reality for so long. Couldn't trust any of it, when his vision tunnelled, everything blurring at the edges, dark spots blinking in and out of existence as if he was staring at two water stained photos.

Move. Get out. Get to the deck. The light and the heat will help. Just. Move.​

The sharp crack of the chair falling to the floor brought some marginal sense back to him, eyes pulled unwittingly towards it as he took a deep lungful of air, his throat free from water once more as the brackish abyss fizzled in his peripheral instead of engulfing him entirely. He took the needed push the sound granted him, fumbling towards the door in a rush of shaking steps and throwing it open in a quick burst of adrenaline.

The light engulfed him, blinded him and suddenly he could breathe freely again as the ice thawed from his veins and reality became sharp and tangible once more.

Ford blinked rapidly, eyes watering, but he couldn't allow himself to close them for any long period of time, the darkness behind his eyelids too much to bear. He knew this wasn't the end of it, knew the insidious thoughts were buzzing away behind the stinging light, just waiting to drag him back down below the surface if he gave them chance.

Unlike his vision, his ears were still clogged with phantom water that he couldn't seem to shake away, giving every sound a muffled, ringing quality. The sea was there, he could see it, smell it but the slapping waves were nothing more than a tinny mumble to him, so close and yet so far all at once and he knew it wasn't enough to focus on. He could feel himself slipping, feel the whispers beginning to seep back through to drown him once more and there was nothing he could do-

A much louder, more commanding sound broke through the glaze in a short sharp burst of energy. It tore the stuffing from his ears as the sound continued, a piercing painful melody to drag him back to Earth with.

Or as much of a melody as the angry sound could physically muster. But as awful as Ford would normally find it, he couldn't help but think, in that moment, that it was the most perfect thing he'd ever heard.

His breaths came more easily after a moment, the tight constricting band around his chest easing as the loud ruckus ripped through the fog in his head. It cut the swirling, spiralling strands of thought into ribbons that fell away to nothingness and left his mind blissfully blank as he stumbled across the deck. The giddy hysterical notion that his body was acting like he no longer had sea legs just managed to slip past the high pitch cacophony that had made itself at home in his head as he made his way over to his brother's back, the offending harmonica tight in his hands as he blasted his anger out across the waves. He could see it in his tense shoulders, in his straight back and gritted jaw- all that fear, all that frustration billowing out of him and although a flicker of shame rooted itself inside him at the sight, it fell short of the thrum of pure boneless relief that flowed across his skin and washed away the crawling sensation that had been there before.

He blinked, and in that instant found himself abruptly beside Stan, the short trek it had taken to get to him a mystery, in the heady daze he had found himself in. He hesitated for a second at the realisation, hands gripping the railing tightly. He didn't like how bewildered and lost he felt. His skin was not his own, tingling and fizzling like something sat below the surface, every movement felt sluggish and strange, as if the route between his brain and muscles had become a winding maze without him noticing. He was trapped, both inside and outside his own head, fighting for some semblance of normality, as his thoughts refused to co-operate and let him logically think, too caught up in the nauseating sensation of just how wrong everything felt..

The sharp short whistle of the instrument in his brother's hands caught him again before the the panic could really set, dragging his focus away from the disconcerting feeling of not being there entirely.

He continued to move his hands across the metal rail, letting it soothe him, letting himself tap out a soft beat in the hopes his heart would follow suit even as he continued to listen intently. He closed his eyes for a second, basking in the warmth of the sun, the last dregs of the cold mist evaporating before he finally turned to his brother. He opened his mouth to say anything, hesitating only then when he belatedly remembered that the last time they had spoken had been in the midst of a full blown argument.

Ford didn't know what to say.

"Hey Stan, turns out you were right?"   "Hey Stan, I know I was wrong but I can justify it-" "Hey Stan, so- I'm sorry?"

None of them sounded quite right.

But he knew he had to start somewhere as his brother continued to stare resolutely out towards the sea, the heat of his ire practically pulsing out of him, hotter than the sun.

Ford winced but stood up straight, steeling himself up for the moment.

At least Stan's anger was warm and real and ever so loud.

As much as he didn't want Stan to be angry with him or upset in any way, shape, or form, Ford couldn't deny that his pure, unadulterated presence did wonders for the damp nothingness that had started to leach into his skull.

"Hey, Stan?"

Stan purposefully ignored him, eyes still locked on the horizon as he played his harmonica, the sound viciously loud as it echoed out across the water.

Ford gulped at the stark coldness of his response against the burning heat of his body language. The crawling itch resumed, running down his spine once more.

Maybe he should have started with the 'I'm sorry' after all.

He just knew that the next words that would come after would be 'I'm sorry, really I am, but you need to understand-'.

And from experience with not only Stan but his old friend and assistant Fiddleford, he had learnt long ago that that was a terrible way to apologise and usually ended with, at the very least, another argument if not worse.

The itch spread further, tingling into his extremities, the feeling that something was watching them both, eyes burning ice cold into the back of his skull.

"Come on, Stan."

The words came out unbidden, tumbling out as the force of his unsettled nerves set things into motion.

He needed Stan to acknowledge him, even if it was just to shout at him again. Anything to confirm that the darkness wasn't looming over him again and tugging him back down into it's gaping maw.

Anything to stop him from drowning in the depths of the panic that was ebbing and flowing through him like the tides, crashing waves hitting him from every angle as the currents of his fears tried to drag him down with them. It crept up and up, the waters rising through his windpipe, slowly pushing onward until he was sure it would soon submerge him completely, suffocate him- and there was nothing he could do, not on his own, his mind struggling against the currents fruitlessly as they dashed him against the rocks. He was captured entirely in their sway as his heartbeat pulsed in his ears, his throat constricting painfully-

The music beside him came to a sudden, sharp halt.

Ford blinked, his breath whistling out of him in a warbling hiss as he turned to his brother. He watched him inhale deeply, twisting the harmonica in his hands a few times as he gazed at the light hitting the silver surface with rapt attention. He breathed in tandem with his twin's even breaths, smiling softly as the sudden shifts in noise brought him back to reality over and over again.

And now with the harmonica away from Stan's lips, perhaps he was ready to talk to him again.

"Thanks, Stan."

Ford frowned as Stan continued his scrutiny of the instrument without so much as glancing up at his words.

There was nothing between them now, no way he couldn't have heard him through the small breeze fluttering around them.

"I- are you waiting for me to say 'sorry' because I can do that if you want-"

Stan sighed deeply, cutting him off before raising the harmonica back to his lips and starting on another tune, one more melodic and less filled with irritation but another song all the same.

And the world fell around Ford's ears, crashing into the waves below and leaving him completely hollow and weightless.

Is he- Can he not hear me?​

His breathing started to quicken again as Stan turned away from him, walking across the deck as if he'd never seen him beside him. The fuzzy darkness returned at the edges of his vision, the looming cold crawling across every expanse of skin as the wind cut through him. A voice in his mind told him none of it was real, it was just a breeze, a warm one at best, and yet he couldn't stop the shivers, shuddering as it danced across his flesh over and over again.

None of it mattered, Stan hadn't heard him, Stan hadn't seen him.

You're invisible. You're just a ghost.​ You're all alone again.​

Well... not entirely alone.

The voice re-emerged. Sickly sweet and soothing in the worst kind of way. It set his teeth on edge, every fibre of his being telling him to flee, not to trust it, not to let it in, not to let it trick him or calm him down again. It's peace was a lie, one that stripped him of his mind, his memories- everything that made him him.

It had made him forget Stan.

The thought send another flood of panic through him, his throat constricting further and refusing to co-operate as he sunk to his knees, his hands clawing as his neck, expecting to find some kind of resistance there that was stopping him from breathing, his eyes still locked to his brother's retreating back.

A ringing started to sound through his ears, muffling Stan's tune, the real world becoming a blurring mass behind his own heavy breathing and the constant tinny ring that quickly morphed into a dark twisted chuckle.

Stan couldn't see him, couldn't hear him and the creature was back and it was going to make him forget everything again, all that they had done together in the time that he had escaped. He didn't know what to do, he didn't know why it was happening this time and he couldn't seem to get his body to respond to his own thoughts, the panic too all-consuming for him to fight through. And every layer added a new fresh wave of hysteria, his legs refusing to hold his weight, his vision fading in and out, all pointing him towards the dizzying, terrifying conclusion that his body was already lost below the waves again and he hadn't even known it.

You're not really here. He's already got you and Stan doesn't even know. He doesn't know you need help this time. And soon enough you're going to forget he even exists, forget he would ever come looking for you if he could.

​​The fear rose to a crescendo and suddenly broke the dam, the water flooding out of him along with a panicked trail of choked words as air rushed in.

"Stan! Stan, please! I'm sorry- so- sorry. Please-"

Stan was already beside him after the first 'please' but the words kept rushing out even as his brother knelt before him.

"I can't do this alone- not again- Stan, please. I'll apologise forever if you can just hear me-"

"Hey, Sixer, I'm here. I'm right here."

"I think I'm there again, I don't want to forget- please don't let it make me forget-"

"Sixer!" A large hand engulfed his shoulder, cutting his panicked thoughts and words short. The solid presence let him breathe in again, gasping for air as his eyes found Stan looming above him, eyes wide with concern and swimming with guilt though he couldn't quite fathom why. "You're not there, Sixer, I promise. I've got you, you're safe, you're right here on the Stan'O'War II just like you're meant to be." His eyes steeled into something darker, his other hand coming to cover his other shoulder, the harmonica clattering carelessly to the floor as Ford's eyes followed the movement listlessly before zoning back into Stan's eye contact, dazed and boneless, exhausted with relief. "That thing's never getting hold of you again, do you hear me? I won't let anything hurt you, Sixer."

A small traitorous voice in his head reminded him that's all he was trying to do this morning.

But in that instant the voice fell on deaf ears as Ford's shaking hands went to latch around Stan's wrists, taking so much comfort in the feel of his pulse, in the knowledge that this was real and he wasn't floating into nothingness. It took a lot of effort for the movement, his entire body feeling worn out, as if the adrenaline had left him in one fell swoop to puddle on the deck listlessly. The words slipped out again, much quieter and in a warble of pure exhausted emotion as he stared at Stan with watery eyes. "You- you can hear me."

Stan blinked at him a few times, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly before a surging stream of vehement expletives left him. He glanced up towards the sky, as if gathering his thoughts, and then back to Ford, giving his shoulders a tight squeeze, eyes once again brimming with heated frustration and behind that, a deep set self-disgust.

"Jesus, I should have realised. I am so sorry- You said to- But I still shouldn't have- I was just so-" He closed his eyes again, taking a deep breath before he opened them once more, reproach welling within them but Ford didn't know who for. "You told me to leave you alone until I could be reasonable, Poindexter. I may have taken that a bit more literally than you actually meant, it seems."

Ford stared at him owlishly, the argument from that morning slowly trickling back into his skull in drips and drabs, his mind sluggish from the upheavals that had happened since. The morning felt like it could have been a week ago, not mere hours. Until suddenly it clicked.

"If you can't be reasonable, there's nothing to talk about."

And the first thing he said to Stan as soon as he gave him a moment to was-

"I- are you waiting for me to say 'sorry' because I can do that if you want-"

It was little wonder really that Stan had irritatedly turned away from him without a word. Natural even. Stan wasn't ready to be reasonable when he thought he was in the right and Ford had shown that he hadn't actually come to see him to apologise.

It made sense, it really did.

It just hadn't at the time, with paranoia creeping up on him and the dreadful twisted thought that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't even here to begin with. He could still feel the tremors running through him at the mere suggestion, could feel Stan periodically tightening his hold in pulses to ground him in reality, his face twisting with a myriad of emotions that made it clear he regretted his actions entirely.

Stan was mad at him, of course he was, but he never wanted to hurt him.

He hadn't meant to give him the silent treatment for any other reason than the fact that Ford had actually suggested the action from the beginning.

So if he hadn't thought that through himself, how could he have expected Stan to?

"Oh."

Stan winced at the sound, flinching ever so slightly back as he waited for a more visceral response, waited for Ford to snap at him or throw a punch for scaring him like that, but Ford didn't have it in him to be angry through the relief, nor could he really blame Stan's actions. Especially not when even whilst waiting for some kind of backlash his brother was still carefully maintaining contact, his hands now running up and down Ford's arms as if to keep him warm.

"Oh."

Stan turned back to him skeptically as he continued to just make small noises of understanding, his eyebrows furrowing together as he hesitantly spoke up again. "I mean- you did tell me not to talk to you."

Ford gave a wobbly half-hearted smile as he sagged in towards Stan, letting him engulf him in a hug. "I- it appears my calculations on the matter were rather incorrect."

"Yeah, I can see that." Stan ran a hand up and down his back, continuing the soothing pressure as Ford finally let his body relax entirely, his eyes shutting as another shuddering breath tore through him and left him wearier but far more reassured than before.

There was something nagging him though, a small snippet of a voice that told him he should make things better before he fell asleep.

"Hey, Stan?"

"Yeah?"

"You were right, that creature wasn't acting in self-defence."

"Self-de- you really thought it might be- damn it, Sixer." Stan sighed, a long deep suffering sound that made Ford wince.

"I just- I wanted to prove to you that some things aren't as bad as you think they are."

Stan sighed again, more of a disappointed understanding groan, but gripped him tighter at the same time. "I know. I know that you can't help it and you want to see the good in the world but it just- it terrifies me, Sixer, how easily you'd walk into danger."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I know. I'm just scared one day I won't be able to help you."

Ford gave a dark hollow laugh that had Stan clutching him tighter. "I- I think I learnt that today."

"I wish you hadn't. I'm sorry." Stan propped his head on top of Ford's. "I- I've got to get used to you running headfirst into things. I'm not used to it being that way round. It was always me who did that, cause I could take it." He ignored the disapproving noise muffled into his coat. "But- what matters is the fact that, I'll always be here, you know? For moments like this morning when I had to drag you away from that- whatever it was-" He again ignored the muffled response that said Ford had decided to try and educate him on the matter. "No matter how angry I am at you, or how much you tell me not to get involved. I'm always going to be there, right beside you to pull you out of harms way, OK?"

Ford nodded against him, hands pushing him away so that he could lean beside him instead, resting his head on his shoulder as Stan shifted to give him a one armed hug, the pair of them staring out to sea. "Yeah." He gave another shuddering breath, relaxing into the hug. "Yeah, OK."

There was quiet for a while after that, though a much more peaceful lull than the one before, the pair of them basking in the warm presence of an argument finally breaking like a storm and leaving them back on familiar ground. Or more of a semi-quiet, punctuated by soft hums, questioning and concerned, and steady movements as Stan kept checking up on Ford and on making sure he knew he was right there beside him. Not that it was strictly necessary, the constant pressure of his arm around him was doing wonders for that sentiment.

Ford wasn't complaining though, warmed by the comforting gestures.

And then Stan gave a soft chuckle, a vibration of strange amusement that rattled Ford where he sat.

Ford's eyebrows furrowed, though his mouth twitched upwards slightly at the change in atmosphere as he shuffled to look up at Stan curiously, nudging him when he didn't get the hint.

"Sorry, just-" Stan looked down at him, a mischievous grin on his face. "Guess you'll have to deal with all my complaining from now on, won't you?" He prodded Ford in the side, tickling him slightly and making him squirm. "No running away from an argument next time, we're gonna have to talk it through like adults."

"You?" Ford swiped at his hands half-heartedly, smiling himself as he raised an eyebrow. "An adult?"

"...Fair. But if you think I'm letting you out of my sight next time, you've got another thing coming."

Ford gave a relieved sound, one that sobered the moment slightly as the mischief vanished from Stan's gaze. "I'm fine with that. Absolutely fine with that." The words came out slightly more desperate than he had intended, Stan's quick nod a show of how seriously he was taking it, even if he was trying to joke around the subject.

"Don't you worry bro, there won't be no more silent treatment on this boat."

"Thanks, Stan."

Stan laughed, turning round to him fully, cheeky grin back in place. "Oh, I wouldn't thank me yet. We still haven't sat down and been reasonable about what happened earlier, so how about we start with that?"

Ford gave a deep groan, rolling his eyes, though a similar smile marred his features. This really was far preferable to the gloomy fog that had engulfed him on his own, the silent, cold, darkness that his mind had presented him with when an argument loomed so heavily Stan wasn't ready to speak to him.

He would take whatever Stan could throw at him rather than ever have that happen again.

Thankfully, if Stan had anything to say about it, it never would.

.

AN: I feel so mean. Boys need to communicate ;A;

Random little bit of trivia - was gonna write only a few oneshots and this was one of them. Then I read all my notes and ended up with 8 XD

[snufflesmajor]

@extremelyxshabby replied to your post “what is your character’s ideology? what beliefs and values are most...”

i want to hear your thoughts on the prank

   right, well, the first thing anyone needs to know about my Thoughts on The Prank is that i absolutely, 100% believe that sirius is to blame. i don’t think he was provoked any more than usual by snape, and i don’t think there was any grand plan. in fact, i don’t even believe there to have been a prank initially involved—i believe that came later, in an effort to sort of lessen the blow of what sirius had done.

   also, more importantly, i don’t think sirius understood the gravity of what he’d done until moonrise, and i wholeheartedly believe he told james in a fit of panic (read: laughing about it because sirius does not react normally to panic, fear, or worry).

    [sneaky edit: this is a very, very long post]

   to explain this, i suppose we have to go all the way back to the beginning. i’m also going to explain why i think this, which involves a bit of history on myself and my family as well. If you’d like to skip this, go to where it says but i digress in bold below.

   Right, so first, a very brief and not at all comprehensive history on me. I was raised in a household very similar to the Black household, only we didn’t have very much money. My grandparents were (and still are) quite famous in some circles for their beliefs, and they’re incredibly bigoted. This spread throughout that half of the family, so all in all, you could sum them up by saying they’re exceedingly racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, and all sorts of other -ists and -ics.

   This would be easy to cope with, but there was also all sorts of… other things occurring because of their aforementioned beliefs. As the eldest of my father’s children, I was expected to toe the line, recite what was told to me, and be everything The Family™ wanted me to be. It wasn’t anything like being heir apparent (we truly didn’t have enough money for any of that), but there was a great deal of emphasis placed on Family, Loyalty, and Honour. When I was around 12, my father actually tried to have me promise to never marry someone who isn’t white, lest their impurity blind me and prevent me from stopping them kidnap my future children. It’s almost comical, actually.

   In any case, I bailed out as often as I could until it finally stuck (when i was 15/16), fled the state, then fled the next state. Eventually, I went to a new school in a new place where no one knew me or recognised my surname, and i became absorbed into a very unique group of friends. Unfortunately, they weren’t the loveliest of people, but it certainly was an experience.

   So, there’s the quick recap. For the sake of it, I’ll also throw out that I have a younger brother (two years younger) who stayed and dealt with the family nonsense, as he felt Family was more important and he wanted to protect them.

   To be honest, it isn’t almost comical; it is comical.

   But I digress.

   So, in a nutshell (and you’ll have to take my word for it), there are some parallels between my own life and that of the life of Sirius Black. I don’t presume to say they’re the same (they aren’t—it isn’t even close), but I always found a lot of comfort when reading the books because of it (often in bathrooms after smuggling them home under my shirt, as Harry Potter was the devil trying to trick me). I also feel as though I can almost understand some things that might be overlooked by people who come from healthy (or at least happy) homes, simply by virtue of mine being absolutely awful.

   So, one thing to remember when looking at characters who come from (at minimum) emotionally abusive homes is that their entire perception is skewed. They see things at an angle, because their whole lives have been at an angle. They make decisions based on things that aren’t necessarily logical to others, but seem totally fine to them. It’s also important to note that these characters do not realise their perception is skewed, and for a long time, they believe their treatment at home to be somewhat normal. Even at times when they see some behaviour as abnormal and awful (when compared to the treatment of another person, for instance), there’s still this baseline of terrible that they believe to be normal.

   Unless, of course, they’re removed from the situation totally and plonked down in, say, a boarding school, where they’re accepted by their peers for themselves and not for their name or their family values. While that sounds fantastic (and it is), it’s also terrible. Suddenly, their entire world is off-centre. The realisation that your own family is awful, that you aren’t the problem, and that they’re the problem—it sends you off balance. You have nothing to cling to, and you begin to act out.

   Why? Because you get that sweet, sweet validation.

   “You’re better than this,” is a good example, but so is “What are you doing?!” Someone suddenly cares enough to call you out, explain where you fucked up, and—most importantly—forgive you.

   It’s addictive. You start to seek out that validation in everything. The constant reassurance that no matter what you do, you’ll be accepted. Now, if you’re unlucky enough to fall into a friend group like the one I did, this leads to a lot of underage drinking and generally reckless (and, frankly, life threatening) behaviour. If, by some chance, you fall into a group of mischievous friends who are more interested in not-being-bored than dulling-all-the-pain, then… well, you get Sirius Black.

   This might be a good place for me to mention that I don’t believe he was hugely into drinking, smoking, or anything like that. Wizarding culture is different to muggle culture after all, and he was dangerously clever. He was (in my opinion) more interested in flexing his magical muscles than dulling his senses. For the first time in his life, he was able to express himself and not be chastised for it. He could set someone on fire, or he could grow flowers, and it would all be the same. He could explore himself, and magic, without being told it was silly or not the right kind of magic.

   For a long time, Sirius was truly free.

   But freedom and acceptance are terribly scary things when you aren’t used to them. You start to push and pull at boundaries, trying to see whether the love you’re feeling is as unconditional as people say it is. It’s a bad joke at a friend’s expense, or giving your best friend warts when he tries for the eighteenth time to ask out the girl he has a thing for. Little things for the most part, but when they’re forgiven, they begin to escalate.

   Which is how we get to The Prank, which wasn’t a prank at all.

   Remus was, as a student, very quiet and accepting. He didn’t rock the boat too much (lest his friend’s decide he was too much trouble), and often let them away with things he wouldn’t usually (see: Snape’s memory, wherein Remus feigns reading a book instead of joining in or stopping the bullying).

   It isn’t that Remus was more accepting (though I do believe he tried to be) or unnaturally kind, but that he forgave more easily out of his own fears. I truly believe he was more willing to look the other way, and to only call Sirius on his shit when he needed to do so.

   Because of this, Sirius likely felt quite safe with Remus, but he would have also felt quite uneasy. He would have (again, this is just my opinion) pushed and pulled at those boundaries, testing them to see when they’d break. It’s important to mention that Sirius wouldn’t have even realised he was doing this; it would have been totally subconscious. He likely did the same with the other Marauders, but neither James nor Peter were quite as… well, Remus as Remus was.

   By the time the Prank came to be, Sirius would have pushed and pulled and pushed and pulled, always being scolded and ultimately forgiven, until he did the one thing he couldn’t undo to test the boundaries: He told Snape.

   Now, there likely was a catalyst to this. I don’t imagine he simply walked over to Snape and said Remus was a werewolf. It wouldn’t have been planned at all, but it wouldn’t have been totally sporadic, either.

   Snape had been watching the Marauders, constantly on their collective tail, trying to catch up and get enough evidence to have them expelled. This by itself would have threatened the freedom Sirius felt, and he likely would have been the most affected by it. It would have annoyed him more, frustrated him more, and simply angered him more. He would have wanted nothing more than to be left in peace with his found family, but this kid just would not let up.

   So, I imagine he caught him one day, on the Full Moon, and simply let it slip. Snape would have slunk off, as Snape did, and Sirius would have spent the rest of the afternoon trying to justify it. He’d come up with a thousand justifications, each more ridiculous than the last, until he finally realised what he’d done and what it meant, and done the only thing he could think to do:

   Tell James Potter, who wouldn’t find it funny at all, and who would find a way to stop it. Because to Sirius, that’s what James was: a beacon, a problem solver, and everything he wanted to be. He was brave, loved, together, and not nearly as impulsive. James would fix things, and Sirius would save face.

   And so, James would rush off to save Snape, and Sirius would tell himself everything was fine, everything was as it was meant to be, and he’d hear his mother’s voice telling him how useless he is.

   And he’d reach the turning point, realise how much he had to lose, and hate himself for it. He’d never say he’d done the wrong thing, would offer no real explanation, and when he was forgiven… instead of feeling validated as he used to, he’d feel dirty, unworthy, and disgusting. Undeserving.

   Which leads us to our next (unplanned) stop: Why Sirius Thought Remus Was The Spy.

   It was because Remus forgave him for something Sirius himself couldn’t forgive. How could anyone be so wonderful and understanding? How could anyone set aside their life (because that’s what was at risk, should Remus have attacked Snape) for their friend? Their friend who had hurt them, had risked everything they’d worked so hard for, and had done it for no discernible reason?

   While Sirius is incredibly loyal, he couldn’t truly look at Remus the same way. He could, but… if they’d had more time, then it wouldn’t have been an issue. If they’d talked to each other properly, they could have worked around it.

   But Sirius, I think, found his own life to mean very little. He didn’t see himself as being very much, and he literally lived for his friends. He wasn’t as confident as he seemed when it came to the finer things, and couldn’t reconcile the idea that he was worth enough to have something so heinous easily (in his opinion) forgiven.

   So when they learn there’s a spy, and that the spy is one of them… it doesn’t take much for Sirius to point the finger at Remus. Remus, who forgives too easily and who must absolutely still be angry with Sirius. Remus, who couldn’t possibly care for him enough to simply forget. Remus who was spending a lot of time with awful people, being secretive, and who had kept a secret his entire life.

   Remus, who was just far too good to be true, and therefore mustn’t be very genuine at all.

   Sirius projected his own insecurities and fears onto Remus (with some help from Peter), and as he could never forgive himself (as he had no reason, in his opinion, to betray Remus initially), couldn’t see a better reason for Remus wanting to betray them.

   Because no one other than Remus Lupin would forgive Sirius for that, which meant Remus must be the spy.

   It’s all a bit convoluted really, and I feel I haven’t really expressed My Thoughts™ as clearly as I really could have. I have so many of them that it’s hard to keep up lmao. Anyway, I hope this makes at least a little sense!

   (oh, but if you’re wondering why Sirius thought Peter was trustworthy: It’s because Sirius was willing to die for his friends. He couldn’t envision Peter being anything less than willing to do the same, because Sirius couldn’t not want to. He totally projected, again, and it led to, well, we all know what happened. I should actually write a proper post on this sometime because I have the distinct feeling this doesn’t make sense)

   TL;DR: Sirius gets forgiven and likes it, so he continues to act out because he likes the validation of being scolded and forgiven. Then, whoops, he goes too far. It wasn’t a prank at all, but the Marauders called it that because it was the nice way of saying Sirius was an arsehole for absolutely no visible reason.

[averyxadeline]

I once saw a shirt that said “If you’re reading this, raise girls and boys the same way”. I googled that sentence today and all of the above were the only results I found.

If you’re reading this wear black or wear nothing. If you’re reading this I fucked your girl for some honeybuns. If you’re reading this you look like a muhfuckin uuuuuuuh. If you’re reading this give me head. If youre reading this thick thighs r life. If you’re reading this fuck you. 

if youre reading this wear black or wear nothing if youre reading this I fucked your girl for some honeybuns if you’re reading this you look like a muhfuckin uuuuuuuh if you’re reading this give me head if youre reading this thick thighs r life if youre reading this fuck you 

ifyourereadingthiswearblackorwearnothingIfyourereadingthisIfuckedyourgirlforsomehoneybunsIfyourereadingthisyoulooklikeamuhfuckinuuuuuuuhIfyourereadingthisgivemeheadIfyourereadingthisthickthighsrlifeIfyourereadingthisfuckyou

–

IFYOUREREADINGTHISWEARBLACKORWEARNOTHING

The girl is an idealistic, one that thrives in the atmosphere of the insulated and secure. Black is her soul but she has embraced it; dark lipstick, brazen hair, nose rings and brave words, sisters chant the war cry of a new era of gender triumph. But is there really equality on an island only populated by girls? The island is buried in a thick fog of ignorance of the mainland. Our cries are loud unto ourselves but are we really heard? If we do a rain dance and the storm does not hit, do we really suffer? Perhaps the world I’ve lived in thus far has been a utopia because I’ve surrounded myself with boys and girls alike who’ve shared my world views and my voice against a very hypothetical form of bigotry. When I am only hearing these loud cries, it is easy to assume everyone is shouting in unison, but in the dead of silence, the nefarious whispers begin to creep down your spin and flood into your veins like an old heart attack. Maybe I’ve overestimated boys I thought were my friends, boys who I assumed saw me as their equal, boys that I thought respected me. Because no friend tells another that she is any less because of her gender, because of her looks, because the course of study she has embarked on is all “floozy” and “feminized”. “What’s the point of studying Literature and the arts? You can’t fix anything!” I study Literature precisely because I am self-aware that I live in a world that is ignorant to the nuanced sphere of human emotions, I and many others am attempting to fix what you do not see. Yes, engineering, sciences, mathematics and computing have their value in fixing society, but the arts do not fix, they reconcile, they heal and they protect, specifically from the brutality of a mechanical world where everything has become entirely utilitarian (cue locomotive noise and let this aural discordance upset musical souls!). The thing is, yes, we won’t earn much and maybe we won’t even be employed easily, but that is not our agenda, we don’t have an agenda, it’s not about the money but a wholesome livid life. Yes, let’s laugh about how the FASS student cannot fix a sink,  or call her a “scrub” for not being able to understand mathematics well. But darling, I’d like to see you patch up those little holes of emptiness in your chest with a hammer and nails.

IFYOUREREADINGTHISIFUCKEDYOURGIRLFORSOMEHONEYBUNS

There is a humming in my ears and red strings bind my hands to his, but neither of us tied them. Ownership is a funny concept; I own this shirt because I bought it, I own this dog because I adopted her, I own this person because I love him/her. Because I love a boy, and because he loves me, the stars have aligned and we implicitly owe certain things to each other! The glittery pigments on my eyes are there akin to worship of him, the glorious tears that fall do so in his name, the slickness between my thighs are nothing but an ode to him. My body nothing but enslaved to him my idol? When he kisses my cheek, should it feel like a branding mark or love? Or both? Because I know in his eyes, it is love, but he has become the unknowing owner of this empty house and it is the world that deconstructs love with the politics of ownership that continues to build up walls. “How does your man let you out of the house wearing that? What does he think of that top? Did you dress of for him?” My body is no longer my own not because he demanded it, but because by the World’s gaze, love has become the defining mechanism of consent. That’s why marital rape isn’t “a real thing”, that why girls/boys who are raped by their significant other are assumed to have wanted it because they have before. So when I splurge my money on a 100 different lipsticks, it is so he might notice each and every colour. When I choose a pair of shoes, it’s not about convenience but whether they will risk making me taller than him. And when I wax it’s fully because he must believe that I am a hairless cat with the innocence unknown to all forms of natural female sexuality! Razors and too many variations of smudged red lipsticks have become the aesthetic of feminine ownership and I know that he does not expect me to shave for him or dress up for him, but what does is that everyone else does. “Your girl” has had her honeybuns stolen in the name of love and all its irony!

IFYOUREREADINGTHISYOULOOKLIKEAMUTHFUCKINUUUUUUUH

I look in the mirror, the depth of self-reflection spits back at me in horror. This face has become unknown territory; the nose ring I thought would express an edgy part of myself has deemed me a “bad girl”, the makeup caked on my face as an empowering attempt of feeling myself has labelled me as insecure, my natural chest and cleavage should not be exposed, and yet I am also not ‘womanly’ without it. The male gaze tastes like metal; the angry sort of tang you get from licking a rusty spoon, it spoils the flavor of anything you eat. I am the most stereotypical girl; I am everything you’d expect. I love clothes, makeup and arts, but most importantly I loved that I was comfortable loving these things. But when a boy insists that, “all girls only dress up for boys” and my own mother tells me that I shouldn’t wear certain things because I’ll, “scare boys off and look ugly to them“, I start tasting metal. The new metallic highlighter that I bought to compliment my skin tone disgusts me with its new ironized significance, I’m subtly afraid of wearing culottes in front of a guy who likes girls who wear them because I don’t want him to assume that I’m doing so for him and when I feel more self-conscious than confident when wearing red lipstick because I know someone is going to sexualize my libertarian choices and assume that I’m “trying hard”. Don’t get me wrong, boys are not the singular villain in this treachery, girls too ingest this patriarchal logic; they swallow it and spit it out at each other in the brazen tussle of femininity until it consumes everyone. Wave upon wave, femininity has indeed become a competition of who adheres most the hegemonic master text of what a girl must be. I look in the mirror and light pink is so drab against my lips but maybe boys will think I’m innocent! I look in the mirror and see a neon sign that screams, “YES” where my cleavage used to be. I look in the mirror and I realize that my eyes don’t work anymore, I am looking through someone else’s. I look in the mirror and I do not recognize myself.

IFYOUREREADINGTHISGIVEMEHEAD

Let me tell you a story about a young 14-year-old girl who did not understand love and suffered for it. A girl who just wanted to be loved by a boy at the wrong time and place and suffered because no one taught her better. A girl who liked a boy who convinced her that sending nudes was the only way he’d like her back. A girl who figured that this must be the natural path that romance takes because not one, but two boys demanded this from her. A girl who recognised harassment as a romantic pursuit because that’s what happens in movies. A girl who felt ashamed of her own body and responsible for a violation she had no control over. A girl who was afraid of talking to boys until she was 17 because at the back of her head, she assumed that this was the main agenda of all boys who befriended her. A girl who was wrong because someone set the wrong precedent. A girl who was given a second chance at love and realized that not all boys are sexual animals, but they still exist and sometimes we fall prey. I am an example, but I am not the whole story. Girls are getting touched and raped before they’re old enough to make sense of their own bodies, and it’s not just about rape but sexual harassment that has become normalized within a pop culture that begs one to, “send nudes” and makes memes out of it instead of addressing its travesty. America is seeing an epidemic of rape culture across college campuses and they’re still asking why. The infamous Dehli rape of Jyoti Singh was successful in raising awareness against rape culture but only because she was elevated as the “Nirbhaya”, the pure and fearless, only because her body was worthy in purity. But what about every other body? What every body from young rape victims to sex workers who face violence in the industry? The thing is, to not be seen as a sexual object, a girl has to be pure. But when she’s too pure, she’s a prude. The spaces that liberate female sexuality are growing smaller and smaller alongside the proliferation of this culture and these mindsets. A girl, like me, cannot survive a world like this.

IFYOUREREADINGTHISTHICKTHIGHSRLIFE

Dear boy who once tried to come off as the ‘nice guy’ by telling me you dance with fat girls in the club out of pity, did you think you owed her anything? Did you assume that her body that you deemed inferior was meant to be denigrated? Did you think that you did her a favour with your attention? Did you think she was in a club to validate her body? When the lights go down and the music is turned up, I bet you inched across that dance floor looking for someone to impress and you assumed that the fat girls would give you the time of the day because they have no better option? Check yourself. The girl is abundant, she is a blossom through which life flows, her body is a vessel to be celebrated for every curve and inch that is not yours to explore. It is not your place to deconstruct her colors and shapes. She is not yours to dismantle. The shape of her body does not define her self-worth, confidence and ability until it ‘becomes’ so in your eyes! The Kardashians will go on about thick thighs and body positivity, until anyone has thicker thighs than them. Rappers will sing of a woman’s curves unless they are on her waist and not her chest or butt. And boys will say that they’re accepting or any body shape until she threatens their ideal of beauty. Don’t get me wrong, yes some boys are perfectly accepting of a curvier woman, but that’s because their beauty ideals aren’t as narrow. But the real problem is not what men’s ideal women look like, but the fact that men still think it’s their place to validate a woman’s body or deconstruct it. Beauty can no longer be in the eyes of the beholder when that beholder is not worthy. When the lights go down and the music is turned up, let it be a celebration of every body on that dance floor in the perfect amalgamation of size, colour and gender.

IFYOUREREADINGTHISFUCKYOU

I have described at least 5 instances of sexism, some more personal than others but all of equal exigency. But the final instance is the most potent and deadly. It is the instance that has yet to come. It is the rebirth of all the above even after being educated and made aware of the very real genderized travesties that still exist today. The last instance is the ignorance of now. It is the blind eye that scoffs at this as another extremist liberal irrationality and continues to deny the silence the voice that they are screaming for. It is when we assume that in our own peaceful and idyllic contexts, we are untouchable and share no part in this fight. Don’t get me wrong, tis a battle but not one of a gender binary. It is not about boys against girls and vice versa, but collective humanity against a toxic mindset and culture. We can no longer be impartial; you have read this, you are reading this, now you know. Now you have no excuse. So I suppose that the real slogan of the t-shirt should be, “IF YOU’RE READING THIS AND YOU STILL DON’T CARE,

FUCK YOU.“

If You’re Reading This I once saw a shirt that said "If you're reading this, raise girls and boys the same way".

[tumblingout]

Rowley Isn’t Wrong. Our Culture Is.

On Monday 6th February, Dr Keith Rowley, Honourable Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, made a slew of comments that divided the country. For those of us who recognise the inherent issues with his statement, his comments rang with a sense of reckless abandon and flagrant misogyny. For those of us who don’t, his comments echoed the sage advice a father might offer his daughter. 

The issue with the latter view, however, is that he is not a father speaking to his children, but the leader of this country. Had the innumerable victims of domestic and other forms of violence in this country been listening, I am not convinced they would have felt at all reassured by his capacity to offer dynamic, helpful solutions to the violence epidemic. 

However, Dr. Rowley’s comments do not stand in solitude. They are instead sucked into the vortex of inappropriate comments made by supposedly upstanding members of our community. 

On February 15th, a doctor of some ilk, who is bewilderingly employed in the Queenspark Counselling Centre, is reported as essentially saying that children who are infected with HIV/AIDS and other STIs often consent to their own rape. 

Prior to this, during the parliamentary debate on whether children should be allowed to get married, temporary independent senator, Dr Waffie Mohammed stated that “a girl beginning to experience her period at the age of 12 becomes qualified theologically to become married instead of causing hardships”. 

Among the myriad other disturbing comments to escape the lips of our politicians, those like the ones above are evidence of the broken and dysfunctional culture that informs Dr. Rowley, in which victims are seen as being guilty—possibly even more so than the perpetrator. With how comfortably each offender was able to speak into existence words as repulsive, abhorrent, erroneous, and infuriating as the aforementioned, we are shown how our culture is what is wrong. That is the virus that is pervading all facets of our existence and precluding us as a people from being able to express logical thought. 

For this reason, I will not blame Dr. Rowley, as is his proclivity. Instead, I will deconstruct his words. 

Rowley Deconstructed

“I am not in your bedroom! I am not in your choice of men! You have a responsibility to determine who you associate with and know when to get out, and the state will try to help.” – Dr. Keith Rowley

Rowley in Context

Taking his comment in isolation may seem unfair, so I will give it context. Prior to saying this, he allegedly engaged in what could be described as an aggravated dialogue with a woman who attempted to express her frustrations with the system. The night before his public discourse, a woman was brutally slain in the Movie Towne PoS carpark, allegedly at the hands of a former lover. Her bloodied body became another spectacle for the Trini consumer to gawk at, as images of her lying prostrate and lifeless were circulated on social media. For the year, there have already been several murders of women and girls at the hands of men, some of whom were not the partners of their victims. 

So, these insensitive words uttered by the Prime Minister were said immediately following awfully tragic realities being played out right before his eyes, and even then, he did not think twice before spilling them like a celebratory libation in veneration of the ancestors.

Dr. Rowley quite blatantly says that it is our responsibility as citizens to determine who we associate with and to know when to get out (i.e. victim blaming). But why mention this? In making this statement with an air of malignant confidence and flippancy, he casually redirects the responsibility of better judgement from the perpetrator and towards the victim—who should have known better than to choose a wutless man. 

He also offensively redirects his responsibility by laying blame on everyone else: the victim needs to do more to protect themselves; the provision of Protection Orders coupled with the low detection rate is encouraging criminality; and the TTPS needs to work harder when these crimes occur—over whom he apparently has no control. 

In short: the victim isn’t doing enough, but there are also a lot of criminals being encouraged by the TTPS’ ineptitude, which makes them have to actually do their job when crimes occur. But none of this has anything to do with him, though. 

How Dr Rowley Misses The Point

In his words, Dr. Rowley also didn’t say what he should have. 

The biggest thing he failed to tackle is the predominant issue of male violence. The ugly truth is that the majority of crime internationally is committed by men. When we look at violent crime statistics, such as homicide, men take the lead still. 

It should be accepted that this as a reality that needs attending to, rather than viewing it as just a tool to shame men. Had Dr. Rowley taken that moment to discuss how this is an issue, he would have refrained from making violence against women a women-only issue, in which female victims should do better to help themselves. 

Which brings us to the other issue: men are also victims! Though it is true that intimate partner violence is something that disproportionately affects women, this does not immunise men against violence. 

Had the Prime Minister not resorted to sexist rhetoric that problematically ignores the plight of male victimhood, he could have acknowledged that violence is not a problem that affects only women. But, since we have issues with accepting male vulnerability, we reject the very existence of male victims, thereby negating his need to address them. Which is unfortunate, since many abusive men have themselves been victims of abuse. If we help the men who abuse, we could help to break the cycle that generates future abusers. 

But moving past just his words, there are some extraordinarily important facts that need to be considered when discussing violence against women.

 The Data

First, we all need to understand that no one wants to be abused. No woman (or person for that matter) goes out searching desperately for someone who doesn’t appreciate their value. Looking to statistics for answers, there are obvious trends that paint very troubling stories about just how easily a woman can become a victim.

According to the WHO 2014 report on sexual violence, 1 in 3 women has been a ‘victim of physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner at some point in her lifetime’. 

Approximately 38% of all female murder victims globally were killed by a male intimate partner, with this rate reaching as much as 70% in some countries, particularly the Global South. 

One in 3 adolescent girls reported that their first sexual encounter was forced. This alone is terrifying, but also, more troublingly, it’s likely to impact how they relate to men who rely on force in future interactions. 

Women are also more likely than men to have had more than one stalker in their lifetime, most of which happens between the ages of 18-34, with more than half occurring before the age of 25. 

Domestic violence also affects women from all walks of society, and is committed by all types of men. In the emergency room, women from various backgrounds are treated for abuse, the majority of whom have had a previous incident of abuse. 

This data is compounded by findings that show how commonplace it is for men to harbour violent attitudes. Generally, men who engage in acquaintance rape, for example, are unlikely to recognise their actions as rape. 

In one study of 1,882 men, 120 men admitted to having had non-consensual sexual encounters with women (aka rape), but did not admit to rape. These 120 men alone had committed over 1,200 acts of sexual violence. Another study similarly reported that 31.7% of 73 participants admitted to having intentions to use force on women during sexual encounters, but did not admit to having intentions to rape.

Women, especially young women, are thus vulnerable regardless of any individual choices they might make around their safety. Combine the data on the risks of being a woman with the fact that everyday men appear to be blithely unaware of the violent implications of their behaviour and you can already see how “choosing your man wisely” may not protect you.

The Psycho Social Impact

Second, no one wants to be abused! If we don ourselves in our empathy caps for a few moments, we could insert our high and mighty feet into the shoes of the victim and consider why they might stay. 

Sarah M. Buel lists 50 reasons why a victim might stay. Among those are reasons that allude to the psychological and financial capacity of the victim to leave. For many, their abuser has isolated them from family and friends, and/or their family, friends, and even their children advise them to stay. Some may even insist.

The abuser also often makes their victim dependent on them, which creates a psychological conundrum that makes leaving almost impossible for the victim. If the victim is financially dependent upon their abuser, or their abuser is someone with power and prestige, seeking redress particularly within the legal system becomes significantly more difficult.

Victims also stay because of their will to live. Being afraid of their abuser makes many people stay in abusive relationships, and for good reason. Research has shown that people are more likely to be murdered in a period of estrangement than during their cohabitation. For psychologists and other professionals working with victims, there is an insistence upon the development of a safety plan since it is well known that victims are significantly more likely to be murdered immediately after they escape their abuser’s grip. 

…and this is where Dr. Rowley himself gets to share in the blame…

Of course, these specific reasons might conceivably be beyond the control of the Prime Minister, but the severe systemic and infrastructural deficiencies that often force victims to stay with their abusers aren’t. 

First, the Protection Orders that Dr. Rowley so assertively referred to cannot be obtained by any and every one. In fact, one can only apply for a protection order if they are the spouse of the abuser, or cohabitate with the abuser. A cohabitant is defined as someone who “has lived with or is living with a person of the opposite sex as a husband or wife although not legally married to that person”.  

With a definition as ambiguous and unhelpful as that, we can see how someone might run into problems. We also see how entire segments of the population who are in non-traditional and/or non-heterosexual relationships are just automatically disregarded and subsequently cannot even apply to be protected. Problematic moralities aside, this is something that he could immediately resolve if he wanted to.

Second, the TTPS is inept. Even Dr Rowley seems to think so in his mentioning that there is an “absence of proper detection”. Which makes his saying that the police have to “go the extra mile” for victims of domestic violence simply untrue. I mean, if we consider that our detection rate has reached a maximum of only about 45% in any single jurisdiction (a statistic we cannot verify), we can tell our police are either disinterested in or incapable of dealing with just about anything. But apparently, according to the Police Commissioner, this statistic will only improve with an increase in “divine intervention”. 

But worse than that, the TTPS has clearly not fostered a supportive environment for victims of any type of crime, worse yet victims of abuse. Internationally, reporting of domestic violence is as low as 7%. Though there is no similar statistic locally, the UN has reported that we have “low confidence in the police, low rate of reporting, a general sense of hopelessness, high fear of crime, and limited community cohesion…”. With the hostility that is meted out by police in the most mundane situations, victims are at risk of being further traumatised in their interactions with police. Simply put, victims do not feel protected by our system. And rightfully so, since victims have been murdered and attacked by abusers even after their orders are in place. 

Granted, victims may return even after the crime is reported, but this has more to do with the ineptitude of the systems that are meant to support and protect victims and the difficulty associated with leaving (see above) than their desire to remain in an abusive relationship. 

And finally, there is nothing in place in this country to rehabilitate men. Our justice system is failing on many levels, and it is especially failing to prevent violence. The justice system only seeks to further traumatise and dehumanise already troubled men. With the inhumane and hostile living conditions that offenders are forced to endure, and the lack of provision of superior mental health services, our violent men are never being taught the coping mechanisms to improve. Instead, they are at best punished for their crimes and left to their own devices to figure out how to avoid reoffending—all whilst fathering children who will model their behaviour in many instances. 

Moving Forward With ‘Better Decisions’

With all of this said I can understand how easy it is to blame someone for the negative circumstances they might endure. Psychologists refer to this as the Fundamental Attribution Error. This basically means that we have a tendency to evaluate behaviour based on internal rather than situational factors—ie the victim is a victim because they didn’t choose their partner wisely versus all the contributing factors discussed earlier. However, when you are the Prime Minister of a country, it is your responsibility to avoid making basic evaluations of complex socio-cultural phenomena. 

Better dan dat Rowley! For starters, The PM should take a shot at making a genuine apology. We cannot rewind the hands of time and extract his foot from his mouth, but we can accept his repentance if he could accept how damaging his words were. It should include an acknowledgment that more needs to be done for victims and their families in this country and the number of violent crimes committed against women and children is alarming and requires a systematic state resppnse. He can also admit that the atmosphere of violence looms above each of our heads like a formidable storm cloud, constricting all of our movements, and forcing us to be hyper-vigilant in ways that his position protects him from. This must also be followed by a commitment from the government to employ strategic plans that address citizen’s most urgent vulnerabilities to violent crime.

The government should consult with relevant stakeholders, including civil society, in an attempt to formulate comprehensive approaches to tackle the country’s spate of rising violence. Better research is needed to understand the complex dynamics of the problem, the available solutions, and the best steps forward (I can send you my business card if you want, Doc). And, most of all, he can get serious.

But, one thing I will say in accordance with Dr. Rowley’s Words: We must, of course, all take responsibility for our actions. If our Prime Minister and other State actors begin to take responsibility for their missteps instead of explaining them away, it would be a powerful example for the rest of us to acknowledge our own responsibility and what is required from all of us in building a community that is so broken. 

If not…we can simply accept responsibility for the choices we make to support and elect less than exemplary leaders. 

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The Elephants in our Classroom

After two years living in Barcelona I thought it was about time that I seriously studied Catalan. I signed up for the first course of the Normalització Lingüística. I joined up and looked forwards to my new venture. But in spite of the efforts and energy of the teacher I soon found myself struggling to motivate myself to attend; the teacher seemed ambivalent to my presence, the rest of the group seemed entirely made up of Bolivian housewives, and, as they already seemed to have Castellano nailed (mine was still pretty shaky), they seemed able to pick stuff up (like conjugations and genders) much, much quicker. Suffice it to say, I dropped out after just a few months and sadly never returned.

I mention this small chapter of my life to illustrate that, although as a teacher we can put a lot of effort into preparing and presenting our classes, the amount our students learn (or fail to learn) is governed just as much by other factors that can lead to serious demotivation which if not dealt with can have devastating results.

In my presentation at APAC 2016 I pointed out that in his book ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’ Jonathan Haidt compared the task of trying to consciously inhibit our basic urges and emotions to a rider sitting on top of an elephant. The rider represents our executive brain (the rational decision making bit) and the elephant represents our limbic system (the bit in charge of making us feel angry, frightened or elated). We all have our own emotional, irrational elephants which cause us to have negative as well as positive feelings. In my presentation I identified and outlined 8 key factors that can cause our pupils (and in fact all of us) to get upset and thus demotivated. These 8 factors can be used as a 'demotivation check' not only for our classes but for any aspect of our lives. The first 6 are universal whereas the last 2 I feel are more for secondary students and adults although I'm perfectly happy to be proved wrong. If these 6(8) factors are not addressed and dealt with properly then your students are going to be demotivated in your classes even if you stand on the desk and start dancing while giving out free sweets.

To be succinct, these 8 factors I call

Status

Fairness

Certainty

Novelty

Autonomy

Tribism

Progress

Altruism

 It is important to get a reasonable score for each of these factors with every child in your class. If one factor is found lacking then this could hinder learning, if two or more are lacking, then the student will be substantially demotivated and their grades are likely to seriously suffer as a result.

 Let's clarify and briefly consider each one

 Status

By Status I mean recognition, acknowledgement, being valued, being viewed as worthwhile. Nothing hurts quite like being ignored, overlooked or forgotten. Prisoners in solitary confinement cause havoc just to get any sort of human attention. We give recognition when we go around the class while pupils are engaged in some activity observing, nodding and making positive noises of approval to each child in turn. Praise is another obvious example of increasing an elephants feeling of status. When we mark homework, although correcting mistakes seems like the rational thing to do, it rarely motivates the pupil whereas acknowledging what the child got right, recognising any extra effort the child has made and praising it (e.g.. "excellent choice of vocabulary") even if it was misspelled, is much more likely to get the child to take pride in his or her work. There are many, many ways that we can reinforce our pupils’ feelings of status, especially with the weaker ones. How many are you doing. How many are you overlooking?

 Fairness

Life is not fair. It's true - but it still hurts. Injustice is a major cause of unrest and resentment in the world. How many people have killed themselves (and others) in the name of justice? The problem with justice is that what might seem fair and reasonable to one person might seem completely unfair and unreasonable to another. If this weren't the case, then the divorce settlement courts would disappear overnight. For example, giving a test in class where the pass level is 60% for everyone might seem fair to you, but for little Johnny who always comes last, 60% might seem completely unattainable and so not fair at all. However, if the test was to simply beat the result that each child got in last month's test then that might be considered fairer by the weaker kids: the challenge is more within their capabilities and it would also give the more able kids reason to stretch themselves instead of just coasting along without making too much effort. What do your pupils say is unfair? Could they have a point?

 Certainty

Super nanny constantly repeats ad nauseam the importance of rules and boundaries: we all like to know where we stand. The older your pupils are, the more useful it is to make it crystal clear the who-what-whys of what they are learning: What are they expected to learn? What are the reasons for learning it? How much time will be spent on each topic? When will the exams be held? How often will tests be set? How are they graded? The more information about what is expected of them, the more they will understand the importance of the lessons and the more certainty they will have.

 Novelty

It may seem contradictory after pointing out the importance of certainty, but once the certainty framework has been clearly established then the content within that framework has to vary as much as is healthy to keep everyone interested and motivated. In my experience, novelty is the topic where teachers score highest. Variety is important to all of us, isn't it? Just following the textbook is simple and scores well on the certainty but it's also predictable and uninspiring. But of course you don't do that, do you?

 Autonomy

It's been clearly shown that patients in hospitals recover quicker if they have a certain control over their surroundings: choice of food, choice of TV channel, room temperature etc. Similarly, if children have some control over their studies they will be more likely to be interested in it. A clear example of this is project work where each child can decide what context they want to apply their learnings. But autonomy doesn't just mean project work. Could your pupils each have a choice (options) for what homework to do? Could they choose what chapter to study? Could they choose how to study? How many minutes they have to carry out a task in class? Individually or in pairs? What material is used in class? To have a choice, or at least to feel that you have a choice, strengthens our feeling of autonomy and thus our motivation.

 Tribism

By Tribism I'm referring to the old 'us and them' syndrome. It is in our genes to want to be part of the right group, 'our' group and we yearn to be accepted. Peer pressure, fashion, groupthink are all manifestations of this same factor. As you probably already know, this desire can be leveraged by using popular or ‘trending’ public figures. I'd give examples but as I'm over 50 most kids just roll their eyes and say 'Huh, Justin Bieber? He's soooo out of date!'. Your kids know whose tribe they want to be in. But it doesn’t just exist outside school. You, as the teacher, are one of the most important figures in your pupils’ lives; your pupils crave your attention and praise (see Status above) but this means they are competing against each other. They most likely have divided up into mini-tribes within your class and some pupils will even have been rejected and isolated by the rest of the class. These pupils will struggle in class. How many of the activities done during lessons encourage teamwork rather than rivalry? Not just carrying out an exercise in pairs but work where cooperation leads to success and lack of cooperation leads to failure? Cultivating a sense of acceptance and belonging increases the feeling of belonging, the feeling of being accepted.

 Progress

I have a friend who has a great job, with great conditions and a great salary. She hates it. Why? Because she's been doing exactly the same thing for 22 years. Although there is constant variety and challenges in her job she is not making any progress. Lack of progress, or to be more specific, the sensation of a lack of progress can be a killer. Think of sitting in agonisingly slow moving traffic or unsuccessfully trying to lose weight. Not only do we need to progress in our fields of endeavour, but we need to perceive our progress, too. If students are able to recognise their progress, then they will respond accordingly. Assuming that your pupils are progressing, how can you actually tell? How can they tell? What can they do today that they couldn't do last month? How much of the syllabus have they covered to date? How much new vocabulary have they acquired? And above all, how can you demonstrate this to be true?

 Altruism

Helping others. We all like to be of service, after all, that's why most of us went into teaching in the first place, wasn't it? We like to know that what we are doing can be of help to others. Pointing out that ‘English is a useful language because it can help get a job’ might seem logical but it's not a here-and-now concept. Pupils can realise English is really useful right now if you frame it accordingly. The school my children go to has a mentor system where older kids help younger ones in their studies. That's an example of direct help. It strengthens our self-esteem and self-confidence which are both great motivators. But Catalonia is full of English speaking tourists. Keep your ears out for any examples of students who have used their English to help real people in real life. These stories also serve to show that English is not some abstract concept limited to Hollywood and MTV. It's a useful skill not only for ourselves but useful for helping others, too.

 So, going back to my abysmal attempt to learn Catalan all those years ago what could the teacher have done to pacify my elephant? Well, firstly it would have been nice for her to have paid as much attention to her students as she did to her lesson plans by getting to know them a little and at least pretending that she was concerned about us and happy to see us. Secondly, any sort of activity where I could have got to bond a little with the rest of the class would have been nice; the interactions were almost entirely student-teacher or simple pair-work reading stuff. Finally, if she had acknowledged that as an Anglophone I might need a bit of extra support regarding bizarre conjugations and the illogical gender of inanimate objects (why is a ‘llibre’ male but ‘llibreta’ female, anyway?), then I might have felt that things were a little bit fairer and I’d have been a little more motivated to stick it out. I know that these comments might seem rather egocentric, but they are undisputedly real and we are all egocentric deep down, aren’t we?

These 8 factors aren’t just limited to our students. Consider how they might apply to you and the rest of the staff at your school. How might they apply to your social groups or to your family or even your marriage? Identifying and addressing weak spots that we might not have thought important can help keep our elephants happy in all aspects of our lives, and that is a very good thing… isn’t it?

 If you are interested in this article and would like to explore, discover or vehemently argue to the contrary the points I have raised here, I will be running a workshop on this subject on Friday 17th of February at the 2017 APAC Annual Conference where I’ll be getting attendees to share their experiences and look at what we can do to keep the little elephants in our classrooms happier. Hope to see you there!

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It’s Unrealistic To Expect Fast Confirmation Of ‘No Red Flags’

Say goodbye to emotional unavailability & hello to loving relationships.

One of the reasons why so many people find dating daunting is because dates are treated like a gamble where we’ve extended a level of trust and are waiting to see how much return we get back. The more dates we feel that we’ve ‘lost’ too much to, is the twitchier we get about dating, prompting anxiety due to falling for the sunk cost fallacy–believing that we’re supposed to at least ‘get back’ what we put in and as a result, trying to recoup costs that are in actuality, the cost of getting involved and are already ‘done’.

What’s injecting much of the anxiety along as well as a good judgment of individual nearly human being ‘duped’ if a date or few doesn’t development, is this underlying instinct that if somebody isn’t relationship material , that this is something that we admit that we should familiar with approximately at once then again yet that a date should illustrate their hand .

There may well be proofs that a personality isn’t relationship material or that they don’t allocation central values (demonstrated finished action) , or that we quite certainly aren’t into each other, fancy nice looking presently into the court cases, then again it takes out instance along with understanding in spite of of any impressions , brought up intentions , or thoughts responded to, to recognize whether somebody actually is loving relationship material or the person for the reason that us .

We can obtain a logic of it , excluding kinsmen with love affairs unfold in addition to as a result to a certain extent than creating a snap judgement and rigidly sticking to it despite of anything happens then, we withstand to be open to getting to recognize in addition to find out masses, in addition to the caveat someone that sundry won’t however class it past a date or few , in spite of of how fine a instant we believe we’ve responded to in addition to them.

It won’t engagement only thing that makes any individual ‘it’; it will engagement a episodes of topics. Still if we spot anything we think is an indicator of potential early on , for the relationship unfolds , we won’t meet up with to keep on as if it was a Unidentified flying object detection that we’re at the moment trying to draw one another to explore by struggling to product them reveal the behaviour or intentions that we haven’t noticed once more.

If our intuitive feeling was on lead, it will be move into a the whole story answerable to it someone unfailingly explained more than spell.

Accepting with that we ‘should’ understand right now is a bait for the reason that ultimately, we’re existing by a [faux] rule that has no raison dêtre.

It’s unrealistic to anticipate us to suffer globe type secret agent shrewdness, able to enlighten at a glance or positively indoor the phase it removes to taste a gulp as well as perhaps a meal , whether somebody is Mr or Skip Accurate. It’s not a skill that we need to acquire as there is no reaching close to the specific that we hunger to troth vulnerable and notify unsleeping if we desire to acquire to discern others with to engagement pointed out.

We’re simply putting the strain on us to fiddle Columbo for the reason that we’re on different level scared of accomplishing subjects ill-timed in addition to attachment.

It’s additionally unfair to find berserk at ourselves and others for the reason that they didn’t spin on the subject of as well as say to us derive pleasure the outset, ‘Baby, I’m gonna yield you X aggregate of tryst as well as we’re pouring to suffer a good period with after that you’re not gonna find out savours me all over again / it’s gonna fizzle out / I’m gonna go off back to my old flame / I’m surging to whirl into an assclown’ . Not gonna turn up.

Making a pleasing instance on a date isn’t an automation precursor to added appointments nor achieves it mean that we’re inside it for the reason that the same reasons or that we might pat ourselves on the back , sheltered in the understanding that if any hitches were surging to enlighten each other, that it might taste by at present.

Running on the primarily or a few blind dates searching for the reason that crimson flags or whatever I ask cryptogram amber in addition to red alerts and not getting any , doesn’t suggest that there won’t be lot. It doesn’t mean that there will then again anything it accomplishes mean is that until you tolerate a habit of crossing your own boundaries in addition to entering into questionable situations relishes the starting where you push aside response that you’re reaching bask in your own body , mentality, as well as emotions or delight in that person’s actions (or lack of them) , you crave to frost out and let your common sense of self coupled with your boundaries , do the operate.

It’s unrealistic to expect promptly evidence of there human being no cherry flags or to guess that whatsoever we’ve got wind so far-flung should be a permanent statement of the destiny.

People in general and amorous affairs unfold .

If you are appropriately certain on the subject of who you are , are not investing your consummate self-esteem into every date a do-or-die make, furthermore you’re a person who is eager to recognise that dating is added with reference to streaming out moment effecting enjoyable along the means than it is on the subject of attempting to brand a relationship fly plus every someone who expresses awareness or who you feel attraction to , you will take your instance reaching invested .

You will likewise undoutedly believe a level of letdowns if somebody who you more matured for if you got on and, not at all order once more or it fizzles out , nonetheless owing to your boundaries , you won’t labor under been united to the upshot nor will you be thumping you up since producing ‘screwed up’ , for if you botched the job of a generation along furthermore an employer .

Consider is a gamble. We labor under to bet on ourselves in addition to we in addition undergo to bet on others in make a request to right to use benefits also capital that we couldn’t on our own . For we don’t grasp someone we go away on a date along furthermore furthermore we’re simply reaching to identify one another, it’s exceedingly a lot of to carry on for the reason that if we’re taking this huge peril although still for if our absolute being is on the queue if we ‘get it wrong’ . This is anything creates ache and makes dating as a result demanding.

If we grip healthy boundaries for us , we don’t hunger to troth hypervigilant as we can loosen up also like our relationships with occurrences, secure the knowledge that when we withstand soreness, we’ll act, in addition to that when how we envision topics isn’t how they flip out to troth, we’ll adapt plus determine loves it .

Your beliefs?

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The timing of this is therefore ideal, and I thank you ! I delicately got wind of back into the dating competition behind a three once a year hiatus . I withstand been therefore over excited almost about attaining dreadful choices, that I go through been effecting a firm spell relaxing knowing that I may perhaps trust myself because topics unfold . In addition, red flags were recognizable early on on as well as all the guys I went out also, although I got wind of myself doubting my own conclusion. Turns out I was area on every occasion. I’ve moreover rang one another out , ended stuffs, also at that time created myself impression bad almost about it afterward. I’m unquestionably having various evolving headaches inside attaining back out there . Thank you again for all you do !

Behaviours such because ghosting or catfishing , notwithstanding deeply disappointing/frustrating/hurtful , no longer upsets me akin to it cast off to . I treasure that there are a bunch of messed wide awake human beings inside the world with not the whole lot of one another behave similar to me or labor under the same appearance to dating or life, for I do . That’s fine. I may own up to that , although I don’t pass through to entertain it , or live plus the instinct that this is the practice at the same time as dating . It’s certainly simple discourteous.

What on earth irks me the most with reference to it is the disrespectfulness of the deeds. It takes out a special breed of person to mislead/deceive/lie to you since several weeks exclusively to pluck a Houdini out of nowhere . Dreadfully guy¸ man? That inside itself tells me he’s not the perfect lone because me , as any human I tranquil plus involves to suffer a duo a balls as starters .

You may possibly give in addition to provide as well as grant furthermore furnish along with this gentleman will cleanly hold on seizing. You are not needy to anticipate something back return and the just only who concerns physiological counselling may troth him !!! Do not go off going back when he concerns analysis plus his muscular disease, if you hold on the manners you are running at the moment you will be the one who becomes sick liable to difficulty. This is not a healthy two method relationship at the entirety, it is one and only manners – and that systems is his . It is certainly not you in addition to you should stay no articulation as this relationship is never flowing to engagement correct as you .

Sorry (I’m not really) to any individual who sees this kind of crap since the ‘new normal’ the dating universe these existence, I only don’t get hold of that at everything. We’re the whole lot presupposed to engagement grown-ups (and should be accountable for our own actions) .

Only of the Prime instruction I experienced in 2016 was that folks do not think cherish me . I can not “ghost” somebody succeeding 5 appointments admire this chap more responsible through. Yet, that is me with how I pick to cope with situations . Whatever this guy has ready is most likely whatever he has frequently completed. It is not intimate to you . This is how he goes. Yes, it is rude along with disrespectful . Then again I am positive he will stock behaving this outlook.

I do feel the “landscape of dating” has shifted plus technology in addition to social media . Then again I in addition believe rudeness furthermore disrespectfulness have all the time been give. Cleanly examine the blog as personalities treat their upbringing inside the segment without technology also social media . I imagine this style of conduct is only more “in our face” as well as easier to depict.

Yes, we are grownups and should works accordingly . But it is not our vocation to contain abundant grownups to blame. We hunger to house ourselves in charge.

Oh, I’m slightly certain this is his modus operandi as well as that I am not the originally (and won’t engagement the last) woman he’s through this separate of obsession to . Failing miscelanneous range of ‘epiphany’ I don’t imagine him to correct either . It’s unfortunate that it accepted given that prolonged for the reason that it completed since his right colours to engagement opened, I won’t troth achieving that wasted period back… .. On the radiant closest, for the reason that I sent off my example I am no longer thinking around him or striving to discern his behaviour . Yes, inconsistency , lack of conversation and lack of respect are everything ‘deal breakers’ as me . Don’t imagine I gave him the notion that I might engagement calm as well as any of that , nothing regarding me says ‘doormat’ or ‘disposable’ consequently distant as I grasp. And yet………

If I’ve been dating any person along with I come to a decision beyond 3-4 get-together, that I’m not that into one another, I will indicate to one another either face-to-face , via phone invite or work given that, since a large amount of given that it may perhaps mar one another to hear/read it , at least I’m human being frank in addition to not fiddling exercise or petered out anyone’s season (especially if he is keen) . As soon as a male refutes you that opportunity to experience closure , or seeks to keep the entrance open by without problems disappearing , it’s bare discourteous, furthermore says a horde added about the chap than it pulls off with regards to me .

CLR, at the same time as it would not engagement our jobs to house others answerable since their crummy behaviour , it IS my post to make confident that while I’m showed with a gentleman who exhibits such flaky/cowardly behaviour , I type convinced I firmly within reach that exit door behind his ghosting arse , plus admit him familiar with that his presence/attention is unwelcome here in future. If (like they everything do) he chooses to disregard this , and decides to pop up 3-6 months soon, at the moment I know he’s a bonafide psychopath plus I am well indoors my rights to spell him out since not heeding my initial example. Will it discontinue one another relishes doing it again? Possibly not . But I will trust superior knowing that I’ve enforced my boundaries with prevented another EUM relishes f***ing with my chi . 🙂

‘F**king along furthermore my chi’ . Warmth that .

Guys akin to him (and there are depressingly legion supplementary where he got here from) are ‘professional’ wasters of instant as well as force. We do desire to stage wakeful since our self-esteem whilst attaining an ‘exit’. It is given that OURSELVES we do this , not inside the futile trust of changing ‘Mr Two-Faced’ into a decent , caring male being. That’s really ‘Mission Impossible’.

I suffer set up that I on the whole mechanically draw fixed while I relax with someone (cause I usually exclusively rest in addition to people at large I feel psychologically involved to – possibly also prior to the valid “dating” development begins) . Nonetheless as expected three dates in is not everyplace in depth knowledge about long-lasting ample to discern any individual in any case.

Ideally, I’d sole doze also someone one time I am inside a relationship plus a person. On the other hand I don’t feel this is potential? I’m not religious nonetheless it’s numerous how “I roll” . As well it seems that if you’re dating a guy also don’t sleep and him in 3-4 appointments, they are off to greener pastures .

In any case probable that they aren’t “the honest ones” since me afterward anyway excluding – are there any guys who aren’t religious who are eager to kill time – without shagging concerning on the nearby?

I don’t assume I’ve ever actually met a gentleman admire that . :/

I admit there are for I go through more established a three month rule since myself as well as many suffer waited . Yet, those that haven’t labor under assisted me to choose they aren’t that into me for a individual basically because a shag . Its mirthful to me , if truth be told. Not that I haven’t flouted my own rule furthermore gone faster then again its is almost forever expenditure the pass the time given that it reveals consequently a large amount of.

I pass through been got married to given that 19 existence, furthermore my globe is falling apart ! I started out my better half more established two romances, one and only stern one being moment I was pregnant with our third teenager 13 years ago . The difficulty is I more matured the cherry flags and absolutely went into denial along with attention my spouse may well never troth “that man” . Anyways, I went furthermore designed the drawback worse! I started envisioning a male at exert four days ago . (my wife moreover completes not get hold of as well as he refuses to chatter with regards to his affair) Evoking an problem was really nerve-racking and filled me plus guilt…until I could think close to what my better half felt finished to me . I seemed to incessantly justify it , plus I thought I capable fallen love with the human from execute. Extensive narrative short…he was a cheater overly. I broke it off plus him; however, we in addition worked collectively. He became thus weird and wonderful also in addition calming to be almost about. We worked our way back to someone friends , NOT LOVERS, done precisely open verbal exchange. On the subject of a once a year ago my truck broke gulp along with a GPS machine was came upon inside it by the machinic . The man I worked in addition to confessed to planting it in my truck furthermore I labor under in no way been the similar as! I walk almost about acquiring bother of my tykes, getting bother of my house contain, pretending to meet up with a matrimony given that the sake of my three tykes (even even if I have not been exhaustive knowledge about with my wife over three years) , also I trust similar to I undergo sundry screen out of PTSD. I sense frenzied from time to time also trust appreciate reverberating out of my own skin , except realize I can’t for the reason that my children sake . I thinking doing something for myself may well succor, hence I went back to school along with found out my masters degree , nonetheless the entirety I may feel on the subject of is accomplishing out of this nuptial along with finding out miscelanneous sort of normal life. I think corresponding to I will in no way accept as true with an extra man…and in truth wish to engagement gone by myself. But, I imagine that I may perhaps not depart owing to my adolescents and not effecting the poise I would analysis myself financially . I am easily as a result mislaid! I consider that I live in a planet where I easily push aside all apart from my children necessitate. Is this desperate plus I should certainly acknowledge it ???? I believe such as I am faded an marvelous existence and since what on earth??? Any counsel may be extra than welcome…even if it’s harsh… .I familiar with I am without difficulty since to blame as my spouse, cleanly don’t identify where to go from here .

Little bit you’re getting the economic aspects locked drink, realizing counselling may possibly troth vastly beneficial excessively.

Also after that run towards your wonderful continuation, the only that is personality ignored at the moment. Survival is excessively brusquest to go through it suffering all the time. And if you similarly can’t cope with to seize the step given that yourself , do it for your children. They discern you’re unhappy–yes they do–and that has a hugely negative ending on one another.

They are moreover picking up on the subject of relationships fancy you in addition to your wife. Is this the fortune you desire one another to live ? For the reason that they will . They won’t appreciate whatever also is possible, for this is what on earth they are finding out. It is their average, also they will repeat the actions of their parents , not their vocabulary.

It sounds for if you are at a crossroads . I was conjugal (with kids) for competently given that long-lasting. Not anymore . A bulky step to seize is educating yourself by conversing with solitary or extra commend estrangement attorneys to notice the laws of your insistence ( if you’re in the US). Recognize no matter what to look forward to financially plus acquaint with what teenager custody preparations will more or less possible engagement. This step might support cause with attentiveness you given that you will get your hands on information. You hunger to put your liveliness into YOU. Transfer a reliable friend if you pass through one. My tykes tolerate by no means remarked they wished we spent time together. They are cheerful in addition to prolific teens-20’s . In existence cherish a zombie inside anxiety with drudgery aka faking it given that the kids simply delays getting your survival back . Sacrificing the whole thing of you in truth is doing Nil constructive for your teenagers. Undertake to envisage that usher of see. You may possibly type adapt Also care furthermore psychotherapy your kids. It’s not one or the abundant.

The manners she went about hiring you was a jot dismal if I’m candid. She sounds reminiscent of she has a few features she imply to toil prepared – why can she troth dating you if she prior to now knows the male she wishes to undergo kids with??? There’s a end messy backstory here which she hasn’t well-advised you around, furthermore in anticipation of she’s dealt with her baggage , the top craze you could’ve ended was walk elsewhere.

On the plus side, you at the present know that you are more matured of attaining connections in addition to opposite sex! You are able to maintain a romantic courtship and a woman folk. You additionally came across to undergo sex in addition to enjoyed it by the sounds of topics! Try to have room for onto the fruitful aspects of you arrangement this woman, also engagement thankful you didn’t get hold of numerous psychologically entangled.

Because infuriating given that it may be, this is the whole lot a share of the route I’m petrified. You saw only opposite sex who you more experienced a deep connection , you’ll meet up several along the method overly. Only remain open to it and don’t allow history failures scare you into hiding . 🙂

She sounds like Especially tough function really, imagine you’ve if truth be told ‘dodged a bullet’ there . You restrained it a grown-up means, communicating your worries to her (not basically disappearing) . Well ended.

I doubt why if a person has significant continuing issues resembling that they may well choose they’re equipped as dating . For sure more proficient to screen your boss out a scrap ahead of discovering any person novel, no ?

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