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violetsystems · 2 years

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#personal

I've been focused on my cat the last couple of weeks but she is doing better. Through a lot of observation and intervention, I figured out diet was a large factor. Now she's jumping around onto things four times her height as if she never did before. But she is obsessed with new games I'm trapped into playing. Some sort of mutation of fetch and ring toss. Make me run the full length of the apartment. She has no shortage of energy and my attention has been less focused on the bad news. And there is a lot of it. Outside of this apartment at least. When I do focus on the small things I can control I see results. And then there's places where I see nothing but flippancy. I don't know how else to write about it anymore. It's like an authority throwing caution to the wind just to fuck with you at the risk of jeopardizing their entire narrative. I'm just supposed to sit back, observe and grow increasingly worried that this is just the way it is. I applied for a job at a restaurant. It's a major step down from what is on my resume in title and pay. I don't even know if they'll call back. But the situation with me being invisible has a real, visible toll whether I handle it cool or not. Trust me. I get how handling things cool around your hood can sometimes work in your favor. Being a cool person on the internet without having to explain myself is a life goal. I've always tried to handle myself In a way that would be admirable to people I care about. But if I could break the fourth wall gently without all the trauma for a second. I totally understand my singular situation is something only I can really influence or fix. And I totally get that there's things completely out of my control that I shouldn't bother to understand. But there's a very clear linear break between what I understand and what continues to go on outside of whatever trust I've cultivated. And that's where it gets stressful. Trying to figure out after all these years of suffering. Who is on my side? Outside of writing I don't really get all that personal with anyone. That's the gift of being a good writer. You don't really care about the audience. It's how you paint the picture. How you frame the moments around you. The ones where you don't feel like you could blink out of existence. The memory you live every day to a point where it's taunted in front of you like a puppet on strings. I feel real psychological damage just thinking about how to explain what people in my city try to do. I'm down this very long and dark rabbit hole where I've burrowed too far to worry about leaving for the wrong reasons. But what I feel. When I stop worrying about the things precious to me. Is still something far from happy. Although the immediate surroundings bring comfort. It's like being in the Shire. You can sense the eye in the distance and it taints everything you try to forget.

I've always tried to be just me. You have my word. It is my word alone. It's been harder to express this when I was forgotten about so freakishly. Like I'm some wandering art piece or performance itself. I'm just some guy on the internet like everyone else. I connect with people because I'm me. Not because I'm some authority. Or cop. Or political figure. Or famous rock star. I am literally out here trying to communicate with the void instead of shying away from it. And it's left me scarred in ways nobody really will ever see. And the grim reality that I face is that if it has been this long. Two and a half years. Four. Five. Whatever. There's miserable people with power and money who can just wander into your public space like nothing ever happened. And I can walk away like you must have mistaken me for someone who cares. I do fear a lot of things. When your main reference on a resume is parading in front of you at the dispensary on a work day. Somebody you used to manage, yes? I can't hide. I don't even know what I'm hiding from. Because you guessed it? I'm just some guy. Does this sound crazy to read? How do you think I feel writing about it for years and then just humbly realizing that it was all more or less confirmed. As much as anything is confirmed in my life. I didn't get a memo from corporate. Because you guessed it. I'm just some guy. I didn't even get paid to write this because after how many years of having my tips connecting to my business checking? I have received no income. From anything. I literally have wanted to work. To feel less useless. To feel like what I do matters. And I have been shit kicked every fucking step of the way to the point where fading away managing some sushi restaurant sounds human. And in even that. I do not know that I will be acknowledged as somebody worth anything other than a wink, a nudge, and a silent promise to completely give up your entire life for someone. The last part is fine with me. And probably easier to trust when you've met the right people and click. I have met the wrong people over time. And those people connected to more of the wrong people and now stare back at me like I'm the problem. I am literally just some guy. An intelligent one with a rugged nature and a deceptively positive attitude. But you bring it to me out here on the Internet and put my name on the dark web and what did you accomplish? You fucked with some guy from the lower west side of Chicago. A place you would piss your tight ass jeans if you had to stand unattended.

Not saying I don't like it here. Here being where I live and Tumblr. Both of those places I feel are safe for me. Even when there's some nut job on the periphery it just doesn't register. I'm like some secret frisson people want to have on the tip of their tongue not knowing the weight of. And it cuts me deeply that after writing all this incredible crap, nothing really has changed. Other than silent agreements I seem to have seem firmer and people's behavior out there gets riskier. Let me tell you about risk. Then let me tell you about reward. You don't go all in like me in any respect. And I'm not talking balls deep in stonks or fantasy football. When you live this shit you write and read about. You wake up to days like these as just some guy thinking to yourself how useless you are. Not useless enough to help an animal get healthy. Or to fix your neighbor's water heater over the phone with the help of the landlord. Or to be out here with an actual dead ass true story about how people want to ignore some guy at his expense. I'm still here and still me. Whatever it is the real world wants to do with it. I'm here to tell you. It doesn't get there through osmosis. And people do risk real things like time, freedom, money, and identity just to help push things through. I know what being a hero is like. And it hurts to say because if you knew the price you would have never paraded around in the uniform. The cape. You wouldn't unashamedly try to save a world that was a sinking ship. And learn to sail the seas of it. If it's a pirate ship I sail, I'm still just one guy right now. Legally on paper. One guy that everyone thinks they're so much better than. Enough to walk all over without ever accounting for the risk. That what if that one guy was right about everything. And that made you fucking wrong. Everybody risks something being wrong. And the way I see it. There isn't really a way to prove me wrong when you don't want to acknowledge the truth of it. It's a weird place to be. A sort of strategic ambiguity or stalemate. People hanging on a word or a next move. My next move was to apply for a job at a sushi restaurant. And if you think that's failure. I have a country to sell you. Risky investment for sure. But look how much time I've put into it. <3 Tim

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pennyserenade · 4 years

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tags: nameless oc x javier peña, nameless oc x javier pena, angst rating: e ( explicit ) warnings: smut, language. word count: 3k+ summary: marriage requires sacrifice; theirs takes a little more than most notes: i definitely did steal the title of this chapter from the original scenes from a marriage and you know what? i’d do it again. anyways, thanks for reading and i hope you enjoy this installment! if you want to be tagged in this series, just shoot me a message or fill out my taglist form that’s available on my masterlist (pinned post). original gif by: @javierpcna

the art of sweeping things under the rug

scene two, scenes from a marriage

Wedding bands can vary in weight depending on the sort of week you’re having, she finds. Conveniently light, sometimes--nearly invisible, as if intertwined with oneself--and then, impossibly dense at others. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, she tells herself, but she’s on no throne, and there is no crown. It’s just her and Javi, and the elopement that tied them together.

The ‘70s had faded silently into the ‘80, and it’s easy to feel in love when the future looks promising. Well--maybe promising is too generous of a word for what they had felt then; perhaps uncertain is better. It wasn’t the sort of uncertain that fills one with dread either, the kind that leaves them in the dark with no flashlight. No, it was the uncertainty that felt good; the sort that made them think whatever was offered in the decade they’d not yet painted with plans was going to be great. It was promises of catching Pablo, promises of a promotion, promises of a proper marriage in the country they’d come to love in their own separate and shared ways. It was realists sharing one optimistic view in a world that seemed so void of them, and now, as she sits at the dinner table in her apartment, looking at the thin band on her finger, she wonders if they’d rushed into it

Her mother told her a mal tiempo, buena cara. In bad times, keep a good face. Just grin and bare it, wait for the uneasiness of the life they were living now to trickle into the marriage she anticipated, but she isn’t sure what sort of marriage she was anticipating. She had understood that there were going to be hardships, but she had welcomed them then because she thought they were going to be hardships they would endure together. They weren’t doing a very good job at the together.

It isn’t that she doesn’t love him. She has an unwavering love for him, but the absence of his being in her life has begun to create a festering wound in her heart. She’s torn between asking him to never leave again—to quit it all and stay wrapped in bed with her, pretending the horrors outside of their utopia didn’t exist—and saying nothing at all. Grinning and bearing.

He’s a good man. A great man, actually. He’s gentle, funny. A little too stressed for his own good most of the time, and a bit grumpy until he settles somewhere, but he’s exactly what she needs, and everything that could break her if he so wanted it, too. And she knows he never would want that, but she isn’t sure he knows he can either, because if he did, then he was tiptoeing dangerously close to that line.

Sighing, she shakes her head, dismissing it all.

The afternoon has begun to fade into the evening, and the cool summer wind blows a gentle breeze into her home. Javier said he wouldn’t be working late at the Embassy tonight, and she had told him she’d cook dinner, but the eagerness that had overtaken her then had been worn by the sight of his wedding band on her dresser. It was the thing that made hers seem so heavy. The thing that made her want to cry, really, and it was so silly, but she could not help the angry ball of frustration and confusion that formed at the sigh of it, or the way it had turned into the lump in her throat.

She yearns for the days when it was just fucking—the way they hadn’t exchanged anything personal so nothing could be personal. She misses the way he would call her, flustered, at all hours of the night and the way she’d always open her door for him, and they’d kiss passionately and fuck roughly and explore each other over and over.

But really, she doesn’t want that, either. She doesn’t know what she wants.

She hears the jangle of keys, hears the latch open, but she doesn’t turn to meet him. Instead, she’s lit a cigarette, and she’s staring out the window, looking at how the sun shadows the town. She puffs away at the cigarette and he says nothing when he enters. He just throws his keys on the counter and then moves quietly over to her, hands falling to her tense shoulders. She hates the way she leans into him too; how effortlessly the anger ebbs.

She looks up at him, and he smiles gently. He looks worn, as though he’s fighting something that she won’t learn until the early hours of the morning, when he’s spent from spent from sex and the general excitement that paints all of his days. Javi is interesting in that way—not emotionally stunted, but hesitant.

“You didn’t make dinner?” he asks while pushing her hair away from her neck, pressing his lips there quickly. He nuzzles against her for a beat, taking in her scent, feeling the warmth of her against him in gratitude. He is spent, and he’s wanted nothing more than to come here. Doesn’t even really care that she’s not made him dinner, just said it to hear her.

“I didn’t,” she responds, more softly than she likes. Her heart is tender for him, kind naturally because his being warrants it. She wants to yell, but she can’t because she loves him so goddamn much.

“S’okay,” he mumbles. Javi moves away from her, slipping off his jacket and sitting it on the chair. “We can order something later if you want.”

She nods, putting out the cigarette. “When do you have to go back in?”

“Six tomorrow morning. What about you?”

“I took tomorrow off.”

His eyebrows furrowed, “¿Por qué?”

“Because,” she shrugs. “Only so much depressing material you can write until it starts to wear you down.”

“You know I said—“

She cuts him off. “I don’t want to live off your paycheck. I know what you said but I’m happy doing what I do. Just—“ she pauses, struggling to think. “—not all of us can give our lives over to the cause all the time.”

She meant that, meant that entirely, and knows he feels it by the way his features settle into a look of pure nothingness. Stoned face, giving nothing. She’s sorry for it, but can’t say it. He doesn’t ask for her to.

“Cruelty doesn’t look so good on you, baby,” he tries to tease, but it comes out flat and serious. She bites at her lip, and turns her head to the window, back to the city, trying not to cry.

“Are you angry with me?”

He’s a good detective, isn’t he?

“Javi, I don’t want to fight.”

“You are angry with me.”

She sighs heavily. “No, I’m not.”

“You are, and I wish you’d just say why.”

“It doesn’t even matter, Javi,” she dismisses it with a simple shrug of her shoulders. “You’ve been at work all day and—“

“Is it because I work so much?” he interrupts.

“Goddamnit, Javier, I’m not fucking angry with you!” she shouts. Shouts like she is angry with him. Silence ensues and she wants to crawl in a hole and disappear completely.

“You left your wedding ring,” she admits quietly, half out of remorse, half because she can’t stand the way he’s looked down at the table and not looked back up. Or how he sits like he’s torn between fleeing and staying. “But it really doesn’t matter, and I don’t know why it bothers me so much because I know you...you don’t mean to hurt me.”

“No,” he shakes his head. He still does not look at her, focusing on a line in the table. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Javi, I said it didn’t matter.”

“But it does.” He finally looks up. “It matters if it makes you angry with me. I left it because I forgot, that’s all.”

“I said it doesn’t matter.”

“You never fucking fight me.”

“There’s no reason for it,” she replies.

“There is reason for it.”

“Javi, please. I don’t get you for very long and this is not how I want to spend it.”

“Stop doing that.”

“What?” Confusion paints her features.

“Running from it. Fight with me.”

“Why do you want to fight so fucking bad? When you’d turn into such a fucking masochist.”

She feels that lump in her throat again, feels the way it wants to give way and lets it all go the way he’s requesting. Fills the bitterness creep into her system the way she hates.

“I’m not a masochist,” he replies, “You’ve obviously got shit to say, so say it.”

“Fuck you, Javi,” she chokes, blinking back tears now. She definitely did not want this.

She gets up to move, but he grasps onto her wrist.

“Don’t run away,” he repeats. He’s angry too.

“Let me go,” she spits out spitefully. He has such a loose hold on her that she doesn’t even need his permission to escape from it, but it’s the concept more than anything. He does let go, but she doesn’t move.

“I didn’t want to fight with you.”

Her cheeks begin to heat with anger, and it’s the worst sort of anger, the kind that makes her sob because she can’t contain it. It’s an anger that feels unfair, and she can never beat it; the tears begin to fall rapidly.

Sympathy tugs at his heart; his steely resolution falls as quickly as it has come up. “I know,” he acknowledges. “We’ve got to fight, sometimes, though.”

“I know, but I don’t want to. I only see you two days a week and I don’t want to spend one of them yelling at you,” she confesses. “All I want you, Javi. Is that so much to ask?”

It’s his turn for shame to fill him. He knows why that can’t be—knows it’s because there’s things she can’t know and having her in a building full of DEA agents comprises the both of them. She’s in danger just wearing that wedding band on her finger; God forbid any of those fucking narcs ever found out they were married. He shouldn’t have done it, married her, but he could not help it; a sort of selfishness that was not uncharacteristic had pushed the boundaries within him, and he decided the good outweighed the bad. But, maybe it didn’t.

He stands and envelops her frame in a hug. She sighs into his chest and wraps her arms tightly around him. She only wants to make him happy and to be happy with him. Why did it seem so hard? When this all began, it felt so easy, so nice and now it felt hard.

Javier kisses her softly, just a peck and she feels lighter because of it. As he goes to pull away, she pulls him closer again, pressing their lips together. He responds, a hand resting on her hip and the other on the small of her back, holding her against him. She initiates a deeper kiss, swiping her tongue against his lower lip. They stand like this for a few minutes, kissing and basking in the presence of each other the way they’d both desired.

It is Javi who pulls back from their kiss, needing air and wanting to take it further—just not here. In the beginning of their relationship, when it was just fucking, sex felt something they had to do everywhere; on the couch, on the table, on the counter, in the shower, on the ground, even in front of the window. And they still did that, still let spontaneity sway them, but they’d settled into more comfortable routines too. He liked fucking her in their bed, the one thing they always agreed was undeniably both of theirs wherever it resided. It was their bed so as long as they both fell there to sleep.

He doesn’t even have to speak, just nods his head in the general direction, before she’s tugging him along.

She sits down on the bed and peers up at him, eyes still red from the tears. He feels awful about it, but doesn’t have it in him to say it. Can’t, for some reason. It’s lost between his brain and his tongue, but it finds its way out through the gentle way he presses her onto her back and lets his lips kiss her everywhere. He kisses her face, her lips, then her neck, and then he goes further, pushing her shirt up and pressing his plush lips against the newly exposed flesh. Then he then he’s undoing her pants, kissing the spot where her panties usually begin. He offers her a mischievous grin, and she smiles back at him.

“You really didn’t want to fight, did you?”

She shakes her head. “No, you fuck, I didn’t,” she laughs.

He continues his trail down her body, and she lifts her hips so he can remove her pants. Javier presses his lips on her hips, on the flesh directly above the pubic bone. Then, he presses them on the inside of her thighs, teasingly slow when he gets closer to her core, and she whines out of protest when he spots. Her eyes flicker down to see why, and when her eyes met his, he presses his tongue against her clit. A moan escapes her and she grasps onto the bedspread. Javi is encouraged by this, swiping his tongue against her folds, dipping his tongue into her, tasting her—really, truly admiring every part of her—before pressing his tongue back onto her clit. He begins to suck gently, and she writhes without control beneath him. A trained expert at this now, he anchors her down by wrapping an arm around each thigh, holding them in place.

“Javi—“ she manages to say, just as the tension begins to build in her stomach. “Oh Javi, baby, faster.”

He obliges and she is quick to find her release in a matter of seconds. Javi remains in between her thighs, licking up her arousal. He’s gotten good at this, knows the way she likes it, knows how to do it even when she can’t tell him.

She carts a hand through his hair, tugging gently, and he removes his lips from her finally. Despite her worn state, she’s quick to rise and meet him, uncaring about her arousal on his face as she presses their lips together once more. He kisses her back with more need than he previously had, his jeans feel tighter and more constricting than usual.

“I want to ride you,” she whispers against his lips, and he nods eagerly. Her fingers work at his belt, and then the button of his jeans, hardly making it past the zipper before she slides her hand into his pants and palms his already hard member. He winces against her lips and she can’t help but grin; this is her Javi. This is the marriage she wants.

“Te amo,” she says, beginning to tug at his jeans. He assists her, pushing them down all the way.

“Take off your shirt,” he demands, tugging at the fabric. She obeys him, throwing the shirt in the same place his pants fell, before he tugs her closer to him. A gasp falls from her lips as she mounts him, the warmth of his length agonizing so close to her heat. She reaches between them, lining his cock up to her entrance. Eyes connect as she fills herself with him, and his mouth falls open, desperate to moan but too choked by the feeling of her around him. She moves slowly, not wanting to release the warmth of him yet in favor of forming a steady pace to ride him. Javi, however, is growing increasingly aroused beneath her, and can’t help the way he guides her on his cock. “Please,” he begs, brown eyes dark with desire. She nods, and they move together, her hips following his hands instructions.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, watching the way he slides in and out of her. “I’m not going to last much longer, baby.”

Distracted by her own desire, she merely nods his confession, grinding herself on him until she fills the beginnings of another orgasm, the sweet release inches away. He doesn’t lift her from himself now, wanting to savor this feeling for a few moments longer. “Te amo,” he finally responds back, a deep groan releasing at the way she squeezes around him. She grinds against him, and he lets her, allowing his finger to undo the bra they’d both been too eager to take off as she does. It falls slowly down her chest, and as soon as it exposes her nipple, he’s quick to wrap his mouth around it. This earns a throaty moan from her, and she swears her orgasm isn’t ever going to end.

He pulls the fabric down her arms completely before turning them over, never leaving her once. He is desperate now, denied his orgasm too long, and the heat is pooling viciously in his stomach. He thrusts roughly into her, a whine emitting from her lips when he does, but she lifts her hips to meet him the second time he does it.

“Faster, baby,” she encourages, and he presses his fingers into her hips so hard that he’s certain the skin will bruise as he thrusts into her for the last time.

He slides out of her, and with a few more rough tugs on his cock, he’s releasing on her stomach. He wants to lay beside her, flat and lifeless as his lugs play catch up (it’s the fucking cigarettes, but he can’t stop them), but he resists the urge. He leans towards the bed stand and grabs a handful of tissues, wiping himself and her clean of his cum. She lays still, watching him intently, a soft, appreciative smile embedding in her features.

“I miss you a lot, you know,” she says. He throws the tissues away in the bin across the room, and she takes in his frame; admires the way his back looks, the broadness of his shoulders, even his ass. He’s a good looking man, on top of everything, and she’s happy to be his wife. She just wishes it was easier.

“I do know. I miss you too.”

He slides back into bed, uncaring of his nakedness, and she uncaring of hers. He pulls her bare body against him, and she wraps a leg around her hip. She traces his lips with her finger and he takes her hand, kissing the palm of it.

He loves her, loves her so goddamn much that the guilt of the wedding ring on her dresser eats away at him. It bites and bites because the way he’s so casually lied about why he left it, acted as if it wasn’t deliberate. Doesn’t want to tell he’s afraid they’ll find out if he doesn’t, doesn’t want to have to worry about if she’s okay anymore than he does already. He calls her every night, checks in at the same time so he knows nothing is wrong, and she knows he does this, but there’s a thousand things she doesn’t see. A thousand things he doesn’t want her to see, either, like the way he left the wedding band because he’s afraid or the way he drives past her house every night before he goes to his, just to ensure it’s still there, even though he knows it is. Doesn’t want her to see the anxiety that fills him every time he hears about a bombing or the way he can’t sleep when he goes away. He wants their marriage to be perfectly normal, wants it all to be perfectly normal. Colombia deserves to be a country where marriages don’t feel this hard, and that’s all he wants to give her, but he can’t.

As she lays against him, she can feel the tension in his body, knowing by the way he holds her a little too firmly that he’s thinking about something. She wants to ask about what, but she doesn’t want to spoil the moment.

They’ve both become experts at sweeping things under the rug—at sacrificing—and neither of them knows whether it’s good or not, but they’ll continue to do it. Lie causally in order to protect, not address the pain and disorder, just for moments like this, moments that feel entirely like their own. Moments that make them feel married and dedicated to one another.

This is scene two from a marriage.

tagged: @filthybookworm

#javier peña x oc #javier peña x reader #javier pena x oc #javier pena x reader #javier pena x nameless oc #narcos fanfic #narcos fic

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hansensgirl · 4 years

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salvatore | v.

series summary. — Bucky Barnes doesn’t believe in love anymore. Especially after the tragic, unknown death of his wife, Natasha. He thinks it’s stupid and a waste of time and- oh my. Hello there, you. There you were, with your notebooks and your novels, writing your heart away. He’s hellbent on saving you from this nasty world, his elusive neighbor that has him under the stupid spell of love. You soon find yourself trapped in a tragic love story with Bluebeard, not Prince Charming.

warnings. — NONCON/DUBCON, dark themes, stalking, obsessive behaviours, anxiety, broken glass, a panic attack, talk of bucky’s past and his mental health, angst, fluff, kissing, dark!Bucky Barnes, voyeurism, cameras, mentions of cheating, violence, perving, manipulation, feelings, 18+!!!

pairings. — Dark!Bucky Barnes x Reader.

authors note. — finally another chapter! this one is kinda sad but the next chapter will be fluffier heh. i changed my mind and i will not be doing a sequel after i finish this series, i’m so sorry! please reblog, leave some feedback and enjoy yourself!

Bucky couldn’t believe his cerulean eyes. Tears filled them and one ran down his cheek, soaking into his beard that he just trimmed that morning. He so desperately wanted to return to your home and beg you, ask you, plead to you, why? He made sure the polaroid didn’t have even the slightest crease to it, and not even a speck of dust either. The room started to spin, and his chest began to tighten. Each breath he took in didn’t seem to be enough for him.

The polaroid slipped out of his hands and his grip on reality went with it as well. Bucky doubled over, his mouth falling open as he began to dry heave. The tears didn’t relent either. His head spun, vision blurry with crystal tears that fell easily. “Ekkk...” He choked out, the urge to throw up washing over him. He stumbled across the kitchen and reached the other side, a dull sunshine making its way into his home.

Leaning over the granite countertop, he peered out the window for intrusive passersby. Oh how he wished to see you on the other side of the bulletproof glass. His fumbling fingers found the handle of the drawer, sweat covering it slickly. As he yanked it open, his bionic, vibranium hand formed a tight fist and collided itself to the window. He pulled his arm back and continued to do so, punching and hitting at the glass that held the world back from him.

Under his breath, he cursed himself for getting strong windows that didn’t have any mechanisms to open it with. But Bucky had his reasons that nobody knew about. The glass soon began to crack beneath his sheer force, distorting his beautiful view of the outdoors. The window broke completely with a loud crash and fresh, cool air filled his nostrils.

He felt the tightness in his chest slowly beginning to go away, but he was still erratic. Reaching into the drawer that was for emergency purposes only, he pulled out a thick photo album. He flipped it open and smiled when he saw the photos of you, happy and relaxed. The sight of you at his hands calmed him down. He flipped through the pages and sighed at each photo, ones that he took of you himself.

Pictures of you sleeping, of you going to buy groceries, of you showering and of you at your most vulnerable moments. In his eyes, the pictures were a form of art — derived from his love and devotion for you. Clumsily, he pulled his favorite picture out from the flimsy plastic sleeve. Freshly printed, edges sharp and almost untouched — pristine and rare.

A candid of you smiling gently, reading the book he gave you as you listened to some forties songs that he had posted on his Instagram about. You clutched the book softly and hugged a teddy bear that was from your childhood. Oh how he would kill to be wrapped in your arms, to have you bring him back from the war his mind constantly went through, to whisper sweet nothings in his ears. Bucky soon regained his grasp on reality and he looked back at the polaroid that laid on the ground.

His jaw clenched with anger and a certain emptiness filled his eyes… Almost as if the Soldat had made a reappearance in him. Raged coursed through his veins and he growled like an animal. Slipping the photo back into the album, he strided to where the polaroid laid and picked it up. He glared at it for the last time and then crumpled it in his hand, the sound of it being destroyed was like music to his ear.

He squeezes, and squeezes, and squeezes until he can’t, until the rage inside him subsides. He loosened his grip and stared at the now destroyed photo. His faint reflection stared back at him and he couldn’t bring himself to feel a bit of remorse.

You’re his, and he’s yours. He’s your saviour, your salvatore.

Your sundress still hugged your body even though dusk had settled in the sky. It had ridden up to your thighs as you laid back on the couch. The fountain pen your ex-boyfriend had gifted you twiddled between your fingers. The poor posh cap of the pen fell in between one of the cushions, lost in a cluster of dust bunnies and one dollar bills.

You stared at the blank page of the overly exorbitant Ciak Notebook your fellow classmates and colleagues would rave on and on about. You sighed before finally writing a word. Curvy, looped letters flowed as smooth as water and you felt your jittering nerves slowly calming down. Sighing, you stared at the three letters as they stared back at you, almost taunting you that it wasn’t enough. Gnawing at your dry lips, you slowly began to feel proud of yourself.

The

It wasn’t much, but it was something. The guilt of not knowing what to write next ate at you. Would you have to throw the page away if your mind chose to restart? Or would you have to force yourself to continue the sentence? You looked away as you thought about what to do, laying your eyes on a nasty print. Dirt formed in the shape of a footstep tainted the floors of the kitchen and you sighed, realizing it was from Bucky. Oh, James…

The thought of him licked at your mind, like a searing flame of temptation. You reminisced about him, and those piercing eyes, as well as his captivating chuckle and elusive aura. Your heart hurted as you thought about how his eyes held a certain sadness to them. You saw the broken soldier beneath his veneers and he was tired, tired of a certain longing that never seemed to go away. You chuckled, shaking your head as you called yourself crazy for thinking about his eyes. Oh… maybe, maybe that's it!

The strange man’s sapphire eyes are piercing. The gaze they come with almost hurts, and she’s the first thing he lays his eyes on. Soft cheery ones that are the brightest things in the world are met with sad, worn down ones. He’s longing for something new, something that would finally fill the empty void that many people eroded away at, the hole in his heart growing deeper and deeper.

You smiled to yourself as soon as you added the period, finishing the last sentence. You wondered whether or not you should continue or stop right where you had left off. You just couldn’t let that sudden, amazing burst of muse and inspiration go, right? You grabbed your glass of white wine and downed it like a single mom after a long day of worries, ready to write your little heart away.

The pen glided across numerous pages, not daring to stop at all. Your eyebrows were furrowed with concentration, the only sounds that you could hear was people talking outside and your breathing. The shrill of your obnoxious doorbell pierced through the calmness that you revelled in for the past thirty minutes. You ignored it, picking up from where you had left off but the rapid knocking on your door made you bite your tongue with shame.

Hurryingly, you rushed to the door and swung it open, looking down to see one of Mrs. Carter’s grandchildren. You couldn’t recall her name, but she was adorable. “The man w- with the long hair, he broke his window!” She exclaimed, before running off to play with her equally small friends. You furrowed your eyebrows at the absurdity, but then what she said had finally dawned on you. You never ran faster in your life, not even in your physical education classes in high school that you envied with every fiber in your body.

Thick, jagged shards of glass littered the concrete, and you were careful to avoid them. “Bucky?” You called out, peering through the window that he had destroyed. Nowhere to be found. You moved to his door and rang the doorbell more time than you could count on your fingers. A certain dread settled in the pit of your stomach, and you thought about the worst. You spun around as you tried to find some place that he would keep a spare key.

Your best bet? Underneath the ‘welcome’ rug that you stood on.

You pulled a rusted key out from under it and you unlocked the door with no hassle. “Doll?” Bucky called out, voice weak and quiet. He was hunched over, tears streaking down his face as he struggled to come down from his severe panic attacks. One came after the other, insecurities and memories tumbling down onto him and he was trapped in a ruthless circle of repetition.

You grabbed his flesh hand, wincing at how it was slightly damn from his tear. Gently, you placed his hand on his heart and soothingly reached up to caress his cheek. “Buck, you gotta breathe with me, okay? Do the same as me.” You instructed, his eyes flashing to you as you knelt down on the floor with him. You slowled your breathing down for him to match, and he followed eventually.

“That’s it… There you go…” You praised, moving your hand from his face to his soft hair, threading your fingers through his locks gently. You reached up and lightly kissed his sheen-covered forehead, soft lips almost smoothing out his splintered edges. You didn’t pull away, keeping Bucky in your arms like he was going to be stolen away from you. Bucky wrapped his arms around you, swallowing your smaller frame into his.

His tears relented but his sobs stayed, deciding that maybe they were going to spend a night or two. You refused to shush him, knowing that letting him cry everything out could make it better. His tears soaked into your skin, leaving it damp. Your eyes scanned the house, a gasp falling from your lips as you looked at the aftermath of a storm.

The walls were dented in and scratched up — the once pristine paint was ruined completely. A few photo frames were broken and a poor vase was shattered into pieces that could easily pierce through anyone’s skin; even a super soldier’s. You just knew another war had taken place in his home — one between him and his emotions. You threaded your fingers through his hair, occasionally stopping to gently untangle some slightly stubborn knots.

He sighed under your touch and smiled as his breathing returned to normal. His heart still beat harshly but it wasn’t as bad as before. You took notice too, realizing that you didn’t feel his heart beating against your chest. You were proud of him, proud that he managed to fight the demons that probably had visited him before.

You guided him to his couch that was covered in pillow fluff and some shards of glass. You tried to find him a cleared out spot to sit on but you failed. You frowned and Bucky had to resist himself from the greatest temptation of kissing you. “Shit.” You cursed, gnawing on your bottom lip. Bucky was practically vibrating as he fought for self control, and he didn’t know whether to thank the Gods or not when you stopped.

You laced your fingers with his and you smiled at the size difference. “Oh! Your bed!” You exclaimed adorably before spotting his stairs. You darted up them and hauled Bucky behind — even though he’s 260 lbs and a hundred times stronger than you. You tried to recall where his room was, but the hazy memories from that night just weren’t helping you out.

Your hand slipped from his but you hung onto his pinky finger. You gnawed at your bottom lip and tried to recall whether it was the room on your left or your right. “Left, doll.” He husked quietly, his voice no more than a whisper. It was still hoarse from the crying, but it was nothing less. “Do you often have these…?” You asked him, struggling to find the word.

“Panic attacks? Sometimes, but they’re slowly getting better.” He spoke, sitting on the bed. Unlike any normal human, he wasn’t tired from his panic attack. No amount of exhaustion hauled over him. “You’re not tired?” You asked in curiosity, taking in how messy his room was. You couldn’t blame him, though. It wasn’t like your room was any better.

“No… Serum, makes everything, y’know…” He explained, struggling with his words. “Oh, right.” You smiled at him, noticing a few small cuts on his flesh hand. “You’re hurt!” You exclaimed, a gasp leaving your mouth. Bucky didn’t even notice his injuries until you pointed them out. Why would he when you’re right in front of him? “Oh… It’s nothing, doll, don’t worry.” He reassured, before ignoring the injuries.

“I don’t think so…” You countered, wanting to help him so badly. “Uh, if you want, you can help dress them for me? Only if you want to, of course! Not going to force you or anything…” He rambled, cursing himself for sounding like a complete nerve-wrecked buffoon. “Yes please, I hate seeing you — or anyone, for a matter of fact — hurt.” You smiled at him before spinning in a circle, trying to find a first aid kit.

“You see that door there? It’s in there, bottom cabinet.” He explained again, and you let out an “oh.” You walked into the bathroom and Bucky let out an exhale of air that he didn’t even know he was holding. “Found it!” You cheered. But then you grimaced. Dried blood and dirt was smeared across the white plastic of the first aid box. “Uh, that’s from past missions, before I retired.” He clarified quickly. “Oh you retired?” You asked in shock, walking back to him.

“Yeah… It’s for the best anyways.” He sheepishly replied. “May I ask why?” You questioned, popping open the box. Bucky nodded and pointed at the bandages and wipes. You picked them up and he cleared his throat. “Well, I think it’s best for everyone. Sam… I love him, but I don’t want him to be burdened by my, you know…” He clicked his tongue and pointed at his head.

“And plus, he’s Captain America, he’s capable of doing everything on his own. As for the other Avengers? Well, they’re far stronger than me, so I think they’re fine. I still keep in touch with them, but I’m not close to them.” He sighed deeply. You didn’t even start cleaning his wounds because you were too caught up in listening to Bucky speak. Your features softened at his sad tone and words.

Sympathy took over you and you hated how that was what Bucky thought of himself. “Even though Shuri took out all the stuff, I’m still not ready to go back into daily wars. I also think I deserve a break, ‘m tired of all that violence.” He sighed deeply, before grabbing the pack of wipes that you struggled to open. “But if they ever need me, I’m just a phone call away.” He added quickly, making you give him a sad smile. He tore the aluminum open for you and you thanked him.

“Before you ask, yes, I’ve tried therapy. Sam referenced me, but it just didn’t work. I guess… I guess I’m just rotten work…” He mumbled at the end, even though you heard him loud and clear. “What!? No! You, Sir, are the farthest thing from rotten work. You- you’re a survivor! You’re strong, you’re a sweetheart, you fight for this world and you deserve nothing less than happiness and everything good in the world!” You exclaimed, taking both yourself and Bucky by surprise.

“Why do you tell yourself these things, Mr. Barnes?” You asked him, cleaning up his cuts. He didn’t wince at all, but you pay no mind to that. “I… Ever since I was captured by HYDRA, that’s all I’ve ever known. I’ve thought of myself as a monster, a vile human being, a machine, the list goes on and on.” He admitted and your heart broke even more.

“They used to refer to me as ‘it,’ not a human, not a victim, not even by ‘Soldat’ and that just stuck with me.” He gulped through tears and you knew it was a sensitive subject. “Maybe you could try therapy once you’re ready? I know it may seem scary facing everything, but it’ll be worth it. You can take my advice with a grain of salt or not, but you need to know that you’re the complete opposite of any negative thing your mind comes up with. Also, fuck HYDRA.” You said with a smile on your face.

Bucky chuckled and then handed you the roll of gauze that was in his hand. “Thank you.” You whispered under your breath, before scrunching your face up in concentration. Even though you had no damn idea as to what you were doing, you were determined to bandage his wounds. Bucky’s eyes raked up and down your face and he didn’t even care if you were wrapping his wounds incorrectly.

“Uh… I know this may sound forward- but do you want to go on a second date?” Bucky asked after a few beats of silence. You choked on your spit and cursed under your breath. After a few moments, you finally calmed down. “D- date?” You questioned incredulously. “I believe that’s what I said, doll.” Bucky chuckled lightheartedly. A little “oh,” escaped your lips and you began to gnaw on your lip. Yes… yes you do have feelings for Bucky — but this is so wrong. You only left he-who-shall-not-be-named a few months ago…

But isn’t it good that you’re moving on? Your inner monologue conflicted with your entire being and Bucky can’t help but to be concerned. “Everything okay?” He asked, playing with the loose ends of the gauze. “I… Can I be honest with you, Mr. Barnes?” You asked him, wringing your hands together nervously. “Of course, doll, and it’s Bucky.” He smiled.

“Well… A few months ago I got out of a toxic relationship, and I’m still healing from it. He really destroyed me, and so did the break up. I’m ready, but I’m also not ready, if that makes sense. Uhm… Is it fine if we just take it slow? Or if you can give me some time?” You shyly toks. Bucky’s heart clenched and he slowly began to nod his head. “Of course, doll. Whatever you need you can ask me.” He reassured you, feeling the urge to caress your face.

“Thank you so much, Bucky!” You gleamed delightfully. Bucky looked at you as though you hung the stars. “No need to thank me, doll. I’m just gonna be there for you every step of the way.” He shook his head in a sort of reassuring manner. Your eyes fell to your hands and Bucky worked on fixing your bandages.

“Do… Do you think we’re moving too fast?” You asked him after a few silent pauses. “I’m not sure… I think we’re moving at the right pace.” He affirmed, flopping back into his bed. You stood up and towered over him for the first and only time ever. “I mean- I barely even know anything about you! Aside from the stuff we learned in history class and any information about you before 2016 — please don’t ask. I literally kissed you, and we only met a few days before I think? I’ve only ever been in one actually serious relationship so I wouldn’t know but-” You rambled like a mad man before Bucky cut you off by grabbing onto your hand.

“Doll, you’re rambling.” He bluntly told you. “Sorry… It’s just a habit of mine.” You apologized sheepishly, growing shy and embarrassed under his almost painful stare. “I guess you may think you’re moving fast because of your last relationship. Didn’t you take it slow, doll?” He asked you, making you purse your lips. “Yes…” You answered after some momentary hesitation. “And didn’t you say it was toxic?” He questioned you, making you slowly nod your head.

“Did you want to move slowly?” He inquired after giving you a sad smile. “Well, not really. I mean- we dated for around four years and every time I’d try to move forward in the relationship he’d always tell me that we have all the time in the world.” You explained, skipping over some details because you were sure that Bucky didn’t need to know about how your boyfriend was in his best friend’s guts.

“Do you want to move at a decent pace at least?” He asked you, and suddenly you let out a hearty sigh. “I do, I really do, Bucky. But I just don’t know what a ‘decent pace’ is! Or- or how to even be in an actually decent relationship!” You cried out in hysterics. “That’s okay! I’ll teach you, don’t worry.” He reassured you, and then you realized how worked up you were.

“Really?” You asked in shock, dealing as though you were in some sort of cheesy romcom. “Mhm! Trust me, I’ve been alive for a while, so I know quite a lot.” He said with a smile. Your face mirrored his and you felt relaxed in the presence of Bucky. For now. “Uh- Thank you so much, Bucky! You’re the best-” You thanked him cheerfully, before cutting yourself off as you noticed the time.

Bucky frowned when you let out a disappointing sigh. “Is everything okay? ‘Cause I was really enjoying all that praise.” He joked around, making you giggle. “Uh yeah- I just realized that I have a job interview in an hour and should probably go get ready.” You groaned loudly, earning a snort from Bucky. “Talk to you soon?” You asked him. “Of course, doll.” He nodded his head in a sort of Jay Gatsby way and you felt tingles across your spine.

“Bye!” You said as you pressed a chaste kiss on Bucky’s cheek. You turned and left his room, leaving Bucky a blushing fool. His hand came up to touch where you kissed him and he sighed sweetly. Bucky kept his hand there and flopped back onto his bed like a teenage girl who held a five second conversation with her crush. “Oh, doll.”

You bit your lip to hold in a childish squeal. You wanted to kiss Bucky’s cheek ever since you met him, and you finally did. But unfortunately, through the euphoric feeling that was running through your body you still felt bad. There was no job application — god, you couldn’t even find it in you to print a new resumé. You lied to James Buchanan Barnes and got away with it like you were some sort of spy. But you couldn’t just tell him what you were going to do.

No way. You skipped all the ten steps to your home and couldn’t stop smiling. Is this what it’s like to be in a romcom? If it was, then you were ready to be in one for the rest of your life. You shut the door behind you and made your way up to your bedroom. Your steps echoed behind you and you bit your lip to control your smile.

You unlocked the door to your room and sat at your dresser with a sort of heaviness weighing you down. You had procrastinated it for so long, but it was time. You opened up the bottom drawer and took out the old cigar box Steve had given you to store your stories in. Your smile faltered at the memory that used to bring you so much joy. You unlatched the box and sighed deeply at the sight of Steve’s belongings.

A few polaroids of the two of you, a watch of his, a compass with your picture, a locket with his grin plastered on it, a promise ring- so many memories. Finally, it was time to let go of him. But were you ready? Were you really ready to say goodbye to the man that taught you about love? How does one say goodbye to a man like Steve Rogers? But he told you, there’s no saying goodbye to him.

Not yet, at least.

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incarnateirony · 4 years

Text

I went off on a rant to a friend about things like Gamble Era, and miscellaneous idolized past authors, and you know what, fuck it. I'm going to say it out loud. And listen, listen this is NOT going to be my normal "Whatever you like :)" post like, this is literally an accumulation of horse shit I've seen talked about in any and all lanes for years that have been driving me fucking bananas for years. Don't just read this going HAHA I HATE GAMBLE TOO and then be shocked when I slap at inexplicably favorited authors in this fandom beyond that.

------

God how can anyone genuinely like Gamble, like, literally, legitimately and 1000%, not even about her killing Cas or whatever, what kind of pure trash TV do these people intake in mass that they think Gamble was good at her job I can not emphasize enough how cripplingly disappointing the shift from S4-5 to 6-7 was I know art is in the eye of the beholder or whatever but JESUS. FUCKING. CHRIST.

Fuck constructivist theory there's a point when things are just clearly trash Benefits S7 had: Just da bros uhhhh *flips through pages* Anything else? Are dick jokes art?

Her era was overrun by plot holes you could fly boeing jets through -- and I don’t mean shit like when fandom goddamn made up in their own damn head about an angelreaper retcon even though the reaper in the same episode they said was a retcon said the deadass opposite of what everybody fucking wound themselves up about, just deadass yawning voids -- it had unstable mechanics on previously established species shit, the villain plot was one giant monster of the week that tried desperately to go back to how they handled shit like Azazel as a threat but miserably failed, the monster had the dumbest weakness possible, the characters themselves were unstable in their characterizations and not even in that general "I don't like what the show is doing with them" but episode to episode Sam flipping from ripping Dean with laughter over gay jokes to woke-sounding sentiments

The cinematic style was gone and just vacant, it was neither the overexposed horror desaturated film nor the vivid fantasy of Carver, it just sat there like an unpolished lump

While later seasons also lost the classic rock vibe for budget reasons, that too disappeared in her era so we had no film energy, no story energy, no character energy, no villain energy, no structure energy, and we didn't even have the fucking cool tunez but we had dicks allergic to windex

It even lacked the elements that gave Kripke era value

Dusty americana died, all we had left was teenage girl fuckin emo sad boi drama And even that was miserably piss poor

I have never seen such a visionless fucking disaster successfully air an entire season on my fucking TV

I will never, EVER be able to outline what a fucking disappointment it was to go from S4-5 level show maturation into this negative embarrassment by season 7.

S6 Kripke was still around to some extent and that's the only reason I can deduce, S7 minded, there was any substance to it, even if her writing and editing crew at the time were a goddamn tire fire. And then people turn around and yell feminism if you criticise the giant fucking blazing slag heap that was her era and blame anyone and everyone but her and here you FUCKING go and she does half the shit all over again in the Magicians

(The friend replied: "The season only works in reverse, which is a crime on serialised TV (and just bad screenwriting)." )

That's just it though, it's like S7 we were suddenly back to fucking episodical TV like S1-2 because enough fuckbats yelled about Good Old Days. Only instead of ʷĤε𝕣є'𝓼 đα𝒹 or 𝐓Ħⓔ DεᗰＯᶰ 卄𝓐ｓ Ƥl𝓐𝓝Ş ℱⓞｒ Ⓜ𝔢 it was ħ𝔞ⓗａ 𝓓ＩＣ𝐤ᔕ 🍆

I mean fucking sure this show started targeting late teenage women but Kripke had started maturing it forward and then Gamble fucking rolls along and it's like she's writing for 13 year old boys suddenly

Well I say that's what she seemed to be writing for but at the time the marketing was gross objectification going LOOK PRETTY BOYS WITH GUNS and that was it, that was the substance of what they gave a shit about and apparently the kind of demographic they thought constituted the sum of the SPN audience which, go get fucked guys, seriously. No fucking wonder the ratings got gouged in half over the course of a year. And fandom yells BUT FRIDAY DEATH SLOT but go sit and spin, S6 was friday deathslot too but before Kripke disappeared as the last thread holding SOME kind of cohesive value in the piece together in S6, that went to shitfuckhell in a handbag at light speed. People migrated to SPN Fridays S6 just fine. They LEFT season 7 and then people plug their ears if they don’t like that. And Carver had to fight all S8 to get it back, /but succeeded, and then-some./

oh and lemme head off fandom dumbfuck argument #72 about “well Dabb’s ratings are lower than Gamble’s were so he sucks and ruined it worse” go take your fucking ass and google “national primetime ratings decline” and enjoy exploring the last fucking 70 years of TV history. Pointing out a show crashes within a year because of massive failure is not the same as people being intentionally fucking daft sods to the TV universe’s decline over the last decade so like, don’t. Don’t be that person. Because you’re still embarrassingly wrong.

(The friend replied: "That's why I don't get why people care about what the vocal minority have to say. They *already* got what they wanted. It crashed and burned. Nobody in their right mind in corporate world is gonna be like, let's try that again, let's throw more money into that burning pit That's just not happening. Gay angels or no, it just ain't." )

I mean that should have been obvious when 1. Carver brought back Cas and pretty much immediately promoted him to Regular 2. Misha then got promoted to lead credits in S12, no matter what circles of intentional, willful ignorance fandom argues about what the credits mean for petty piss fights

"LOL & MEANS HE'S LESS IMPORTANT" Shut the fuck up and sit down you basement dwelling shitlord, go watch the A-Team, tell me how Mr T is the least important character

Also unpopular fuckin opinion Robbie Thompson and Ben Edlund are not That Great. Compared to what they were SURROUNDED with they were exceptional but Berens and Yockey could run circles around them both. They just happened to give fandom shit they liked during dark times so it made them fun. Robbie Thompson and Ben Edlund are basically the baseline value of our current writing team on random names. Give me Robbie Thompson and give me Davy Perez and I see no fucking difference. People compare Edlund to Yockey because of certain shit he pulled off but like, no? If there WAS a comparison it’d be like, Meredith, and even then I can’t see any way Edlund is substantially better than Meredith but could list the other in reverse?

But if we're talking about being able to write pieces with more than 1 or 2 layers of impact I'm sorry, it's rose colored glasses that makes people idolize them

Like if people seriously objectively fucking sat and reviewed the methodology and substance of their past idol authors to the demonstratable level of the current crew where I am DEAD ASS HAVING DISCOURSE WITH THE EXEC PRODUCER ABOUT BAUDRILLARDIAN CONCEPTS AND DELILLO in the middle of a hypercomplex postmodern two-directional commentary piece on some scaffolding of sociopolitical representation commentary that SAILS past the level the ‘activists’ in this fandom think about, literally, what people like is Gay Shit They Got lobbed at them or shiny visuals. And you know what, whatever, sure, like what you like IDGAF but don't sit here like Thompson was some fucking Shakespeare. No, your fucking "meta" you -- you, in any lane, anyone, any ship, anywhere, ever -- wrote by COMPLETELY randomly associating whatever storyline you could staple on to try to pretend the text was doing what you want at the time -- is not the same as author intent and actual weight and merit to the cohesive structure of what they build.

YES YES I KNOW, Death of the Author, someone just popped that up in their head, like the ten thousand posts I've made over the last 209349 years addressing how people abusive the fuck out of the term and that's fine, interpret shit however you wanna make it do jumping jacks but don't sit here entering the time you attached Little Bo Peep as some sort of intrinsic value to Dean trying to find Sam in 1492 and act like that's some deep critical shit the authors thoughtfully laced into the piece, these are not the same fucking conversation.

Big hollow voids of statements doesn’t make a better author, it makes you bust your ass harder to actually give any sort of consequential meaning to the piece, and that has nothing to do with the quality of the author or text themselves, that has to do with your interpretation in a piece devoid of genuine thematic subtext so people desperately try to bobby pin some bullshit together. Which also is probably why this fandom can’t tell the difference between coding, interpretation, subtext, and text for their fucking life anymore.

Protip the entire goddamn writing room is pouring that gay shit in your cup that's been triple brewed above Robbie or Edlund’s pots and people are still complaining it isn't enough

Another point that drives me up a wall, "LAZARUS RISING IS THE BEST EPISODE EVER" okay like lmaooooo what the fuck are you smoking Was it impressive as fuck at the time yes it was. But again, fucking perspective. I literally went back and watched it like a month ago and I realized it was a fucking void of content compared to our modern writing, it just had one of the most impressive entrances, it DID have good directing (YES MANNERS WAS GOOD, NO DISRESPECT), and it introduced a character everybody loved. Dean was still a halfass caricature

You wanna know why everybody made that shit gay right away Because there was no fucking substance around it it was a wallpaper of a cool looking episode that was otherwise blank space to run around in on dialogue they should have thought to construct better if they didn't want it to be gay

And sure since then the author room has picked up the big gay ball and started actually turning it into some shit which, great, but this is yet again a matter of structure and intent versus throwing rotten pasta at the wall and seeing if the mold makes it stick. I don't care if you have a vegan recipe that converts the fucking mold on the pasta into a healthy sauce base that isn't what it was thrown at the wall like, and no amount of complimenting the original chef's moldy pasta means it was some tasty shit before you added 10,000 ingredients they never fucking thought about or at least a second chef came along and figure out what to do with the pile of goo.

Fandom would stop being this miserable fucking putrid stinkhole if people would collectively apply some goddamn perspective to the content they argue about before even bothering to engage with uwustiel/cest dot tumblr dot com in irrelevant argument #9238428934 they use to fence off whether they should enjoy the content or try to explore it for its value or not because there is NO. MORE. PERSPECTIVE.

YOU KNOW WHAT? IT’S FINE TO EVEN ADMIT YOU LIKED THINKY-FREE TV, THAT’S FINE, THAT’S YOUR RIGHT.

But don’t SIT here acting like a lot of these former train wrecks were “better authors” or somehow objectively “better content.” No like, you like not thinking about shit that much and staring at pretty boys or whatever, good on you, but you literally like, objectively, some of the shit I’ve seen go down is like genuinely trying to compare a toddler’s fridge art to a Vasarely and hold them both up in front of people who do art for a living. They ain’t gonna shit on the kid’s fridge art, but they’re gonna go “awwwww she’s gonna grow up to be a great artist!” before breaking down on Vasarely’s vector illusion shit, sorry, that’s just how it be. I’m sure the kid had some sort of vision to drawing the triangle over the square that kinda looks like a house but the hypercomplex thought processes simply aren’t there.

Just people STUCK in weird idolization of shit that is so far past irrelevant to the current piece in play and fighting to win arguments while trying to convince themselves they're right and secretly dreading how titanically failboat wrong they are ignoring the sound of the glacier having ripped through their hulls SEASONS ago. The ice water has already leaked onto the fucking DECK and people are still arguing about completely ridiculous shit or fancying things that were 1/10th of the value of the current content they're claiming isn't good or enough or valid compared to the shallow specters that birthed them out of old aeons.

Dead-ASS Kripke picked shit because it “sounded cool.” I’m sorry if there weren’t some model guys fandom wanted to hump everybody would be making fun of the fedora-tipping mindset that probably is where the fucking trenchcoat came from and may have debated giving Cas -- sorry, “CASS” because “COOL” -- katanas. But sure. Way, way deeper and more intricate than the Jungian intertextual post modern piece that’s so tightly knit it’s making fandom unwittingly comment on themselves.

I thought people grew out of that shit when they were like 16 unless they were incels

(My spidey senses detected someone unironically preparing to inform me about stealing borrowing the imagery from Constantine on reflex, because you know, that’s some peak intertext right there.)

Dead ASS that writing logic is that motherfucker that wanders into your freeform RP server with Spawn knockoff miasma chainsaw arms under his leather trenchcoat shooting twin Deagles with a vague story of wanting to face his demon overlord father that’s written like a looney tunes villain, in the middle of you cowriting with your lit-savvy friends trying to make a fun fantasy adaptation rendering fascism and corporate america and then he gets upset when nobody wants him to shit lightning -- /fight me/.

SERIOUSLY FOLKS. WANNA ENJOY THE SHOW AGAIN? GET SOME PERSPECTIVE. LET GO OF FETISHIZING WEIRD WARPED MEMORIES AND LINES OF ARGUMENT INSIDE YOUR OWN HEADS ISTG IT'LL HELP.

The day I find an argument that makes season 7 legit good TV rather than, at very best, “fun junk TV I had a cool ride on”, that does NOT involve evoking arguments distinctly born out of petty shipping culture arguments and/or (generally the same) attaching their own shit with a stapler to MAKE it have some sort of meaning at the time it was airing (rather than later showrunners making it add up to something), I’ll eat my fucking arm.

𝓯𝓾𝓬𝓴. Carver era had already gone through dramatic changes that deepend the scope of the show and even then, 15.09 Bobo’s The Trap held more ACTUAL commentary on this fandom than Thompson’s Fanfiction episode did as a supposed fandom-commentary episode much LESS 15.04 as an actual meta framed episode. Fanfiction was like 4 years behind and completely fucking unplugged, whereas the base of the show itself is more integrated now in these dynamics than any attempt at meta episodes back then were.

old days it took one goddamn episode of dreaming for people to 1. start talking about Freud and 2. pretend the whole everything after that was some Freudian masterpiece even when, if it were, it would have been an entire avalanche of dropped balls. But two seasons of direct citations and literal manifest avatar-bodies of Jungian psychology elements and it’s hard to pull more than a peep out of the fandom about it because they’re too busy yelling about tulpas or sirens from before most of the people around here hit puberty.

𝓕 𝓤 𝓒 𝓚

furthermore why does anyone that idolize season 7 for what they think fits their bill think season 15 is gonna end how they want when they’ve been taking the piss out of season 7 over and over and over and over again IN THE TEXT as being dumb as SHIT

𝕀ℕ 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔽𝕌ℂ𝕂𝕀ℕ𝔾 𝕋𝔼𝕏𝕋

WHY SET YOURSELF UP FOR DISAPPOINTMENT

TO WIN TEMPORARY ARGUMENTS? THAT YOU’RE ACTUALLY LOSING FROM START TO FINISH?

actually you know what

rolling back to the whole “empty/subtextless stuff making people bust their ass” seems to be what you miss. Saying, “I miss empty, shallow, shitty writing” doesn’t really sound as good though so we change “what I like” into “this is talentless trash” it postures better, but it seems to be the people who have objectively fucking refused core tenets the show has evolved over the last 7 years, most explicitly the last 3-4, and absolutely refused to soak them in the form they deliver in. And they’re mad. Because it isn’t hollow. They can’t run around in fucking blank space and plug absolute horse shit into the voids and then posture like they’re supreme in this noncommital wasteland. Because everything’s built out and structured in and loud as fuck and people are debating the actual installed and even dogmatically cited work of philosophers driving the ideology of the show now and they can’t get away from it, and/or actually have to pay attention to the whole show and think about it all as a picture instead of the parts they want, so it’s “bad.”

I just sensed like 50 readers shoving their foot into that shoe. Good.

Jesus christ I’m pretty sure that’s what it is in hindsight after yelling all of this. These characters can’t be used as sock puppets anymore that people can win bullshit arguments unless they literally delete the entire principle of the modern show -- and this goes for MULTIPLE lanes really, each in their own way -- so now it’s “bad.” And that’s just not how this works.

#supernatural #spn #rant #vent #mildew

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mrsslrss · 6 years

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2018.

My first memory of 2018: I woke up at 5 a.m. and spotted an enormous bug on my bedroom wall. I was mildly hungover after a really lovely and somewhat raucous party in my house, and when I saw the bug I felt like my stomach dropped out of my body. (I’m a wimp! It had so many legs! Stay with me.) I tried to rouse M for about 10 minutes to kill the bug with no luck, then told myself, with an air of forced gravity, It’s 2018, and I must kill the bug myself. Which, I am glad to report, I did.

I think I told that story a lot this year in the hopes that the more I retold it, the more it would come to define my year: You know, being brave? Taking charge and vanquishing, uh, icky stuff? (And later, for all the times I told the story of starting my day by sweeping up the post-party-confetti-canon detritus and throwing away the half-used Solo cups before my roommates woke up: Doing rather thankless work for a greater good?) I’m not sure I mastered the art of “manifesting” in 2018, though (sorry Oprah!); I certainly wasn’t as generous or industrious as those stories would suppose, but the image of me resisting something frightening then eventually/begrudgingly giving in and being grateful I did — I suppose that rings true.

It’s easy for me to be blue in December — to think about what didn’t get accomplished, the ways I have been selfish, shallow and lazy — but if I’m honest with myself, the year had its share of success. I got hired out of my temp status, spoke on a panel at a conference, helped lead a project I’m proud of, talked on some podcasts, survived my college reunion. I learned a lot about commitment, complacency and what drives my writing. I spent a lot of time with my family. I watched people I love make incredible art, find cherished partners, move their careers forward, get engaged, become parents. I wrote a couple good songs, played a lot of good shows. My hair got long enough to wear it in a bun most days.

The truth is that I’m pretty scared about the future. Call it cyclical energy or call it the brink of exhaustion but I think things are going to happen in 2019; I think, for better or for worse, I’m going to make them happen. I’m trying to transmute anxiety into excitement for what the year’s bringing but I think it’s ok to be scared, too. Anyway, here’s to 2018, and to the things I felt and saw and did and loved that helped me make it through.

Andrea Long Chu’s writing

I read “On Liking Women” in January — the kind of article where you start it at your desk and then have to finish it later, and you get home and sit on the couch without even turning the living room lights on and just read and read, breathlessly, until it’s done — and I got hooked and I have read everything ALC has written since. Her work is thoughtful, engaging, provocative, breathtaking, earnest, shady, queer as h*ck. It has made me think about what kind of writer (and person) I want to be and was fodder for some of my favorite conversations I had this year about gender, power, identity and the ultimate self-own. Also, her Twitter is hilarious.

Dried mango

Snack of the year for me, hands down. Though if I’m being honest, green tea kit kats are a serious contender, too -- much tougher to find, though, meaning they can’t quite nab the top snack spot for 2018.

Traveling & open space

I didn’t travel a ton this year but the few trips I took were lovely. In April I visited Seattle, a city I love, for a truly marvelous conference and I saw the water and the mountains. In October I visited Vermont, had a real dream-come-true moment in a field of goats. I visited Sam in Austin and realized that Texas is, indeed, huge. (And affordable!) I visited my family in MA a lot and rode horses a couple times but mostly just sat on the couch with my mom watching re-runs of The Office and making sense of ourselves. It felt nice when I was in motion this year.

Riding my bike

Speaking of motion! I borrowed my sister’s cool bike last year and started riding to work, but then the bike got stolen, which put a big damper on everything. I got a crappy replacement a couple months later and rode it to work every day, nearly, of 2018, and to all sorts of other places. I read Jessica Hopper’s book about Chicago this year and so much of that book takes place on her bike, which inspired me to take things a little more seriously. I’m not an experienced cyclist by any means (truly: most of my bike rides are on two streets in the one-mile radius between my house and my office) but I like what it affords me.

Trying to be a void

that is to say, wearing all black. I know that clothing is how a lot of people express themselves but mostly what I wanted to express this year was: a black hole. By black hole I mostly mean nothingness, and also deflecting the gaze. Incredibly comforting. As a caveat: Mads taught me about the power of navy blue late this year, and I think in 2019 I will try to be the night sky.

New York

I used to hate NYC for boring reasons but now I don’t, and it defined my year, in many ways — I visited about once a month, for work and for friends and for fun. I nearly always stayed with Mads in Bed-Stuy, which is an excellent situation, although one time I blew a big chunk of a bonus (!) on a fancy hotel room (!!) in Manhattan. (Worth it!) I spoke on a panel, I played my songs in a gallery, I ate bagels with vegan cream cheese, I had bad pizza in a cigar bar, I saw Maggie Nelson give a talk, I watched Duster play two consecutive comeback shows. I had a lot of small moments, too, of bliss and kindness and serendipity, of tortellini soup and espresso tonics, late night talks, doing laps around Bryant Park, walking quietly through galleries. I cried on buses, got freaked out on a plane, had a particularly memorable set of conversations on the Amtrak. I also saw Carly Rae Jepsen!

Playing covers with friends

Ok, yes, seeing Carly Rae at the Turning the Tables event in NYC was magnificent, but more magnificent was being in Gnarly Rae Jepsen, aka the Carly Rae Jepsen cover band I was invited to join around Halloween. Frankly I was just flattered to have been asked, since Lars does a cover band for Halloween every year and they always rip. And Gnarly Rae ripped! I didn’t do a lot of stuff with my own music this year, so it was great to play with a band with pretty much zero pressure and an abundance of good vibes. The Halloween show was one of the happiest moments of my year. Plus this winter I planned a December open mic and so some friends and I decided to do a couple covers — “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac (which Mads sang) and “Dreams” by The Cranberries (which I sang) — which was a little messy and extremely fun.

Christmas cactus

A friend of mine from grad school moved to California after graduating and gave me a bunch of her plants, including a cactus that looked like it was in poor health but I was determined to keep alive for as long as I could. I kept caring for it even though I was convinced it was going to croak any day; turns out I’m just ignorant about what a healthy cactus looks like, because it blossomed just days before my birthday this April. I didn’t even know this cactus could flower, so to have it happen right before I turned 26 made me feel such a deep sense of joy and hope, and connection with the living world, like a true, grounded, healthy Taurus. It bloomed again before Christmas; last week, I realized my grandmother has the exact same plant in her living room.

Writing criticism

I wrote a couple things this year I was especially proud of, and most of them were reviews. (My Turning the Tables essay doesn’t fit in that category but I’m really proud of that, too.) Most of this writing happened in my house where I was alone in my room rubbing my temples and whining softly why is this so hard, why does it have to be so hard but it also felt electric and life-affirming; I heard a podcaster refer to writing as something like “touching the divine” this year and that feels like it, exactly. I think I loved those processes too because they so often involved having really fun, challenging conversations about the art in question with people I admire, and that’s why I got into this game, right? Plus a few conversations I had this year adjacent to these pieces helped me realize that a) criticism is the kind of writing I feel the most drawn to right now; and as we used to say on Tumblr, “not to get fake deep but,” b) the goodness I am searching for in my life/self is a big part of what drives me to write, of what I’m doing in my writing. That helps.

Coffee O merch

My forever favorite coffee shop is Coffee Obsession in Falmouth, not necessarily because they have the best beans in the world or anything but because when I’m there it’s because I am spending time in my favorite place, usually with my family and best friends, etc. Anyway I have recently started to rep them on a regular basis: I got a purple HydroFlask with the Coffee O logo and used it every day this year to bring iced coffee to work, and this summer I bought a big green Coffee O t-shirt that says “LOCAL FLAVAH” on the back (incredible), which is more or less my favorite item of clothing I bought this year. I guess I’m kind of a poseur because I’m a tourist, not a Cape Cod native, but my love for Coffee O is true and real and I’m glad to spread the word.

Etc: Making iced coffee every morning in the Chemex; roséwave and the #Saltypod, both of which I love fiercely; the difference between being liked and being heard, à la Ellen Willis; editing essays; the Fever Ray show at 9:30 Club; wearing glitter in the corners of my eyes; “no one is going to wait for you to ask for permission”; wearing heels to work; the steam room at the W St YMCA; my tarot deck; the Pome newsletter.

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lotuslettersbykrissy-blog · 6 years

Text

Blurred Reality.

Today is hard...

I wasn’t going to sit down and write anything but I felt like I needed to set myself straight.

When I was in the hospital, the therapist that I spoke to gave me some “tools” to keep my feet on the ground...

But Lord, I’m spiraling. So bad.

I’ve cycled those tools around and none of them are working right now...

The real world has always been a truly dark place for me. I never felt like I could truly be myself, and I never felt like the people around me truly cared for me. I’ve always felt like a burden, a mistake...a waste.

And there was just no escape from that, ya know?

Positive affirmations? Eh...easily undone by the twist of the tongue.

I used to sit here and constantly cry “positive” things into the rain because I needed just a hint of sunshine. Something that no one else could possibly give me...

But I wish I would’ve caught onto that earlier in life. It would make it so much easier to breathe these days.

I had holes in my life that had gone ignored for years. Or maybe they weren’t ignored and I just filled them with things to plug the “mini voids” churning within me.

But yeah, they were holes that kept growing and growing until finally...I had to pay attention.

This post is most likely everywhere, and not making much sense but what did I expect? I am writing this through a curtain of tears. So who knows how legible this will be?

Mess...Turmoil...I think all of those are pretty accurate synonyms for my “existence” so let’s throw in illegible.

It means, “not clear enough to read.”

Yikes...

Yeah, that’s definitely fitting, but I guess that’s what happens when you dance along the lines of two very different realities.

In the real world, I was this strange, dark figure looming heavily over the people in my life. They weren’t sure if I was coming or going...Living or dying...

Most of them had to constantly prepare themselves for the moment that they would receive a call saying that I had finally killed myself.

After going through what I just did, I understand them...That is a tough life and a tough torch to carry.

Imagine having to love someone who just didn’t love themselves enough to stay alive. It feels like all the love you try to give them is simply in vain because they just...

...can’t grasp it.

I’m not schizophrenic but I swear...I just read that whole paragraph in my best friend’s voice...

I’m almost positive that she has said that very thing to me countless times.

Why didn’t I listen?

I guess I was deaf to everything people tried to tell me in the real world because it was eclipsed by their gazes.

The, “I love yous” that came with a look that said,

“Please don’t kill yourself in my house tonight.”

So I tried running away from those looks. Running away from those faces that dripped with accusatory but silent words.

Ran right into what I thought would be “Heaven.”

And for almost over two years...

It truly was.

When we’re younger, we’re told to not speak to strangers on the internet. Our mothers would put intricate blocks and proxies on our computer systems that would become meaningless, because we were the technology generation.

We could bypass just about anything and access anything we could possibly think of.

I think our parents had the right idea. But they weren’t protecting us from predators, per say. I think they were protecting us from ourselves. When you’re on the internet, you tend to lose your inhibitions and become who you truly are...perhaps our parents were just afraid of the monsters our subconsciousness would unlock.

Just from the click of a mouse.

I found this virtual world that seemed to give me everything I needed. I had the amazing parents, the supportive family, the nurturing but corrective best friend...and I had someone whom I loved more than anything.

I discovered a talent and a taste for art, decor, and even landscaping and I would lose myself for hours just talking to my friends and family there, designing and creating just amazing things. This little introvert even managed to start up her own lucrative business.

I was living. I was finally alive.

I felt so safe and protected...

...but it wasn’t real.

I’m not sure when it happened...but my mind blurred my realities. I started to live through my avatar. Things that I should’ve been doing in the real world, I was doing in a place that didn’t even truly exist.

There, I was the exuberant “Jiji.”

A doting mother with a thriving business, surrounded by people who loved and appreciated her. She drank from a well that seemed like it would never run dry. She was so happy and, dare I say it, she had it all.

I wanted so much to be her, to lose myself in her world...and I did.

In reality, I was just a 22 year old, Social work major trying to live in a world that I never truly intended to live in.

In the real world, I would get home, jump onto the computer, and disappear for hours. Hallucinating in this place and truly believing that this was my life.

That it was real.

This went on for nearly over two years before finally...my demons caught on.

My demons had been so preoccupied with destroying anything I held dear in the real world, that they hadn’t noticed that I had slipped away from them. I had dug a little hole at the bottom of my consciousness and I stealthily escaped for two whole years.

Two whole years of sheer peace.

Finally one day, they looked up, sniffed around and couldn’t find me...They crashed through windows, shattered glass and tried anything in their power to draw me out. But I stayed safely in my hallucinatory world.

I was wrapped so tight in my cocoon that it truly came as a shock when they first appeared. It would start off as a flicker or a little nudge...something small that could be ignored.

But what I didn’t realize was that slowly but surely, they were dragging in all the demons from my real world and sliding them into small parts until finally taking up residence at the core of my being.

It started with my business...

Depression slithered in and took away my energy and I started taking longer on projects than I usually would..

Clientele began to diminish...Reputation began to change...creativity began to die...

But that wasn’t enough to strike any alarms yet. I still had my friends and family...

...I can’t even begin to express this part...because I’m not quite ready to talk about it...

I loved them all beyond this game...and they were all a part of me. I feel like each of them need their own little page because it would truly be an insult to group them together...

They were my strength, my comfort, my support system. I loved them all completely and that love consumed me...

You mean to tell me that I imagined their love too? Another blurred reality?

Is any of this real...?

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baconpal · 7 years

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so heres the long super paper mario post

strap in for why super paper mario is fucking bizarre and why that’s pretty much awesome

gonna be a good amounts of spoilers, so if you’re on desktop then hit that read more, and if your on mobile, then here’s your punishment for using this god awful app

super paper mario is a game that is incredibly difficult to put into words, but it leaves such a powerful, lasting impression on me and i can’t come to say anything first other than I love it so much, and if you havent played the game, please just go do it now, even if you have to pirate or emulate or something, just let yourself play this game. It’s one of those games that I really feel I can just recommend to anybody

it’s difficult to think of where to start with dissecting this thing so i’ll just start with the art since lookin at things is pretty easy

ART/WORLD DESIGN

every world in SPM is completely unique, not just in what type of environment, but it’s art style, and this is premised with the fact that none of these worlds are capable of existing together and are completely separate, and NOT part of a cohesive universe (LOOKIN AT YOU ODYSSEY I STILL THINK YOU LOOK STUPID)

The hub and the first 2 worlds are mostly just slight variants on the same general style of simplistic shapes and colors, with world 1 delving into more linework type aesthetics, and 2 focusing more on impressions and silhouettes,

world 3 changes this completely with what is obviously an 8 bit kind of style, but instead of jarring over sized pixels, the world is composed of detailed tiles arranged to look like pixel art that imply a more real world, and not a gamey one,

world 4 focuses on patterns and big patches of color to give the impression of the vast emptiness of both space and the surface of a barren planet, before giving you the “Whoa Zone”, with a striking mix of wire frame and futuristic UI style to it

world 5 takes the idea of nature being crude and simplistic and humanity being sharp, angular, and extreme and flips that on its head, with humanity and the space they occupy being these absolute memes with no sense of depth, and the plant life existing in a system of clean cut caves with futuristic technology and elegant historic values

world 6 simplifies a kind of colored Japanese painting aesthetic, down to the funny cylindrical cloud clusters and brushstroke trees

world 7 depicts what is essentially hell (yes there’s hell in this game keep your pants on) as a squarish blur of bright greens and warm reds and purples, and depicts heaven as fluffy land of clouds and Greek temples

and lastly, world 8 is inverted greyscale, where light is black and darkness is white, its simplistic and striking and i couldn’t think of a better style for the final area of a game so focused on the concept of light and dark

MUSIC

I’ll just try and keep it simple, the musics fucking cash money

The game makes great use of motifs when it needs to, where specific themes and instruments are used in other songs to suggest relationships and put battles and travels into perspective

And when it ISNT doing that, it’s just fucking funky stuff, with a weird trend of BOING and PLOP and SPLISH noises in the percussion because fuck you i guess

There’s a lot of good songs that do lots of interesting things, any of the like 5 final battle songs are great things to point to, but i’ll just go ahead and say the main theme of world 8 “Castle Bleck” is one of my favorites that isn’t super highly rated. It brings in the types of instruments that have been associated with the villain the entire game, but also throws in 2 very important things; a sudden triumphant burst of almost JRPG styled chiptune that pushes away the constantly building tension, which is then followed by the sound of a clock ticking, which is a musical motif only present in the songs “Memory” and “Promise” which is played whenever the memories of the player’s little guide thing and the main villain’s past lives together are alluded to. This one song holds a lot of weight, as well as simply being a fucking cool song.

GAMEPLAY

This is, sadly, the one place I’ll not mince any words and say the gameplay is not amazing by any standard, it’s pretty much a classic mario game if it had RPG stats, items, and random abilities granted through the character and partner systems. The 3D flipping mechanic is nothing astounding, though it is very interesting to see how worlds are constructed

One of the biggest flaws people will mark the game for in its gameplay is that it’s tedious, and while I have to agree, that’s because I’ve already played the game before, and the tedium only comes from not being completely invested in the experience anymore. I’ll get some specific examples in a bit, but there’s a few cases of “tedium” that i believe are 100% intentional and drive the story in an interesting way

STORY/WRITING/GAME DESIGN

Thats a fuckin broad section, but its pretty much everything else i have to say on the game, and where the most spoilers and random praise is gonna be

I’m not actually gonna talk about the whole story, more just the strong parts of it, under the assumption you’ve already played it or understand a story as simple as “villain wants to destroy world, hero wants that to not happen”

The writing and characters are just flawless, everyone is fun to be around, especially the bad guys, who you see more antics of than your own party. There’s goofy running plotlines about O’chunks and mimi essentially getting grounded and being forced to write essays about why they fucked up at beating mario, and big stinky brother dimentio teasting and bullying them and sneaking them out to do his bidding when The big Count Bleck is away

The game is full of referential humor to not just mario itself but all kinds of games, there’s skeletons in hell who are clearly just Marios from the mainline games who died in stupid ways, there’s an actual dragon quest turn based boss battle in hell too, and chapter 3 has an otaku villain who tried to get with peach in a simulated visual novel

but the humor exists not just in references, but in simple good scenarios, with things like “Having a game show in a bathroom when everyone's life is at stake” and “locating an ancient manuscript to use as toilet paper” or “flying through black holes to find a convenience store” and things of that nature

It also interacts with the players emotions in many interesting ways, one of the more lauded being chapter 2-3, where mario is forced into working off a massive debt of fictional money, and is required to do hard, boring labor. There isn’t anyway to avoid doing both the hitting a block 100 times and the running on a treadmill for a few minutes thing, but the constant feeling of “there has to be a faster way to do this” drives the player to prod around, find the secrets, and slowly discover how to break the system wide open and get to the end, and i love it for that

This entire game is some sort of bait and switch, to put it simply, while it’s already a bit of a departure from both mario itself and the paper series, the first 5 worlds are pretty fucking tame stuff, other than the void, which is a giant black and purple spot that sits in the sky, always, every single world has the void growing in its sky, and it does grow, every chapter it gets bigger and bigger and takes up the sky, but where this truly culminates into the “switch” part is chapter 6, which starts itself by presenting you with the most TEDIUS sounding chapter possible, fight 100 enemies in a row, and nothing else, and for 25 straight fights, that is all it is, so you’ve locked yourself into it at this point, you know whats up, but the void in the background begins to grow to the point of being the entire fucking background, and every enemy you face speaks as if they know they’re all going to die, and by the 30th fight, one of the villains comes to stall for time as the void completely swallows the world, and the party is sent back to the hub. When they decide to go back in to world 6, its empty, the entire world is a white void with a single black line making up the ground, and colorless destroyed structures occasionally peaking out of the ground.

and you walk on this white void for so long and you just feel nothing but regret and fear and no matter how fast you make yourself go you feel like you’ll never find anything, but you do eventually get your plot item and escape

then, Dimentio, one of the villains you’ve seen the least of, appears in the hub world, the safest place in the universe, and kills mario

he just fucking kills him

he puts mario in a box and fills the box with explosions and mario fucking dies and goes to hell because fuck you mario

then you go through all of chapter 7 just to escape hell (called the Underwhere cus how could we possibly be allowed to take hell seriously) and join up with your full party before confronting the final world, which i’ve already stated i just love the design off

the game just takes the comfortable ride you’re on and throws it into the fucking sun and burns you alive and i love it so much, even the very end of the game doesnt let up, where the main villain is overtaken by that absolute madman Dimentio (Whose name is a play on both Dimension and dementia), who clearly was powerful enough to have done the whole “ending of the world” himself, but did it this way for the theatrics of it

there’s a lot i could still say about the game, but this post is absolute rambling and its 2 in the morning but as usual, i just wanted to shit my thoughts onto the internet to people could maybe learn somethin about either the game or me and how i think and look at and respond to stuff, and as always, anybody who read this whole thing is cool and i love you a whole heck of a lot

#long ass post #Super Paper Mario

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fiannavalkyrie · 7 years

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The Deeper Issue

I do not often write. I feel more competent portraying a story through art. But there are some stories too complex for a single image. This story details a major plot point for DnD!Sonno: a drug addiction intervention. A similar event happened in WoW!Sonno’s backstory, beautifully crafted by @faythian. It takes place the day after Sonno nearly over doses on some unfamiliar drug. The party has various reactions ranging from anger, disgust, betrayal, and heartache. After the rest of the party goes to bed, Kith discusses the consequences with his son.

Kith sat up and watched Sonno as he moped around the common room. It was obvious that his friend's reactions had been a painful shock to Sonno. Kith was conflicted. He loved his son dearly, which made seeing him suffer hurt his heart. But he knew any comfort offered would only reward the bad behavior. He wanted Sonno to learn from this. The pain would be motivating, but Kith didn’t see the need to suffer in excess. He wandered over to join Sonno by the fire.

Sonno had made a blanket burrito of himself, even so far as to cover his head to shield his eyes against the brightness of the flames. Even next to the hearth he was shivering slightly. For once he admitted that he had overdone it this time. He had never had a worse morning after. And if his dad was to be believed, (and a healer of his skill should be) it was not going to go away anytime soon. He groaned under his blanket. He heard Kith sit down nearby and grimaced, preparing for the berating. Yet, after several moments none came. This almost disturbed him more. “Aren’t you going to yell at me too?” he grumbled.

“No.” Kith answered, softly, slowly, sipping his tea. “I just want to know what you’re thinking.” Sonno huffed softly and drew his blanket around closer.

“I just dunno why everyone is mad at me.” he griped. “I didn’t hurt anyone.” Kith pondered this. He knew Sonno was quite intelligent when he wanted to be. Unfortunately he only seemed to use it when he wanted to be manipulative. And for all his charm, he was poor at reading people. Perhaps he just needed some perspective.

“But you did.” the druid stated.

“How?!” Sonno retorted, “I’m the one who’s miserable and feeling like shit!”

“And you don’t think that matters to them?”

“Why the fuck should it?” This statement hurt Kith. It showed how little respect his son had for himself.

“Because they care about you. In more ways than you know.”

Sonno made a dismissive noise and mumbled back. “Funny way they have of showing it…” Kith sighed and scooted his chair closer to the fire.

“Let’s look at it practically then. We are about to embark on a very dangerous trek. One that requires all of us to be at our peak effectiveness. Would you say that in your current condition that you are up to the task?” He eyed his son carefully, curious about his response. Sonno groaned and fidgeted under the fluff.

“...no.” he admitted. “I mean, I could do it, but it would hurt like hell.” Kith nodded.

“Which would make you complain, and irritate the rest of the group, and throw them off as well.” Sonno scowled. He had to agree, they would not be pleased with him. “So by taking the actions that you did, you have jeopardized the effectiveness of the group as a whole. At least, that’s some of their concern.” Sonno brooded silently for a minute. His dad was right, of course. He hated being proved wrong. Kith waited calmly for Sonno’s thoughts.

“So we delay for a bit. I’ll get better eventually. It’s not like we have a deadline or anything.” Sonno reasoned. Kith sighed.

“We are not on a strict timeline, no,” his father agreed, “But our fear is that you will not get better.” Sonno’s eyes widened in horror, but Kith quickly continued, “Physically you will heal of course. But if you continue to make these choices, there will always be risks. And we worry that someday we will lose you.” Kith’s heart sank as he said so, not wanting to imagine his son’s death. Sonno mumbled something under his breath. “Please, out loud.” Kith commanded gently.

“I said ‘Maybe you’d be better off without me.’” Kith closed his eyes in a pained expression and took a deep breath. Did he really think he was worth so little? Did he have no concept of how loved he was?

“Sonno, I can guarantee you that is not the case,” he stated, “and not because we would be lacking your skills.” Sonno gave him a sidelong look of skepticism. “We care about you. Which is why your absence, and your suffering, is hurtful to us.” Sonno still didn’t understand why and silently hunched into his blanket. It was hard for him to believe. He knew that people saw him as annoying, irritating, and a pain. Why would anybody like someone like that? Before he could think any deeper on that subject, Kith continued.

“Do you have any idea how much it hurts your brother? Sorelia? Me? Put yourself in our shoes. Would you feel nothing if Seoc did this to himself?” Sonno thought about it. It was one thing if Sonno wanted to get himself fucked up, but if his brother had done the same…

Sonno mumbled a soft “no”. Sonno was beginning to realize what he had done to them, but was too ashamed to admit it.

After a long silence, his father asked, “Why do you do it?”

Sonno shrugged. “I just wanted to have fun.”

“And was it worth the consequences?” Sonno thought about it. He didn’t even remember last night. The best he could recall was bright, blurry colors, glimpses of a few different rooms, an argument with a stranger… and now he was in such pain that none of that mattered. Then there were his friend’s reactions. His brother was furious with him. Most of the rest of the group was disgusted. And Sorelia- that hurt the most to think about. He’d never had to worry about that kind of relationship before. Never experienced how crushing it was to see her like this. If she had been enraged and violent it would have been less painful. But her complete and utter dismissal of him left a hole in his heart that hurt more than any of his physical symptoms.

“Not this time…” Sonno admitted.

“Just this time?” Kith prompted. Sonno thought back, despite the headache. Not every time had been this bad, true. They had been fun times, but more often than not they ended with him getting in a fight, running from either a bad crowd or the authorities, and waking up the next morning feeling like shit, missing memories, and usually missing most of his cash (and occasionally clothing). But looking back over just the past year he realized that he had more enjoyable memories being sober than he had under the influence.

“...I guess not.” he reluctantly agreed. Kith was relieved. It seemed like it was finally starting to sink in. But there was another issue he was concerned about.

“What I still don’t understand is why you think it is ok for you to suffer, but not anyone else. Why the double standard?” This disturbed Kith greatly, and he was afraid of his son’s answer.

“It’s my body. I can do whatever I want with it.” Sonno defended, “but Seoc and the others, they don’t deserve this.”

“You think you deserve it?” Kith asked incredulously.

“Look, everyone else has something going for them,” Sonno explained, “they have skills, potential, a purpose…” he stared at the rug and picked at its fibers, “...I just fuck things up.” Kith gave a long sigh. Oh Sonno, how short-sighted you are...Kith thought.

“Sonno, if you could only see yourself through our eyes, you would see how wrong you are.” He laced his fingers together and leaned forward to see his son’s face, but the boy refused to meet his gaze. “You have all that and more. And even if you didn’t, you are still valued. Still loved.” He waited for an argument, but Sonno sat silently. “You don’t have to understand it. You are young, you may not understand for years. But please trust that what I say is true. Please don’t discount how we feel about you.”

They sat in silence as the fire’s coals crackled. Kith finished his tea, now long gone cold. After a while, Sonno murmured quietly, “I think I’m ready for bed.” Kith nodded.

“I should warn you, Davin has plans for you tomorrow.”

“Plans?” Sonno asked, worried. Another nod from Kith.

“He hopes to teach you where this destructive path will lead you.” he explained, “There is a ritual that all knights of his order undergo, where they peer into the Void.” Sonno’s eyes went wide with terror.

“You’re not gonna let him do it, are you?” Sonno begged. Kith tried to keep his face neutral against his son’s fear.

“I spoke with him about it. I think you should do it.” Sonno’s jaw dropped. He stammered a bit before Kith cut him off. “Please, you need to understand what you are doing to yourself. I hope that you will learn something from it.” Sonno gulped and whimpered a bit. His father must really be serious if he agreed that he should go this far. He was finally grasping the gravity of the issue he had caused. “Come on,” Kith said, offering his hand to help him up, “let’s get you to bed. You’ll want to be well rested for tomorrow.” Sonno accepted his hand and stood wobbily.

“As if I could sleep after hearing about that…” he complained, shuffling up the stairs with his father’s assistance.

“You will. I was able to cure the worst of the damage, but your body is still recovering. Rest will do it good.” They reached Sonno’s room and entered. Sonno’s heart panged upon realizing that Sorelia was gone. The room seemed eerie and morose in the dark, the bedsheets thrashed, the contents of his bags strewn about the floor. Kith set about straightening the bed while Sonno stood at the doorway, ruminating. He had really fucked up. He never felt so shitty, and that wasn’t counting the physical pain he was in. Kith helped him into bed and went to leave.

“Dad?” Sonno asked as he had his hand on the door.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.” Kith nodded.

“Of course. Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.”

“Love you too.” And at that Kith shut the door. Sonno flopped on his back and stared at the ceiling. The day had been too much. Too much pain, too much anger, too much confusion. And now he had a terrible event waiting for him when he awoke. He had no idea how to survive this. He curled up alone and cried before sleep finally came.

#writing #drug intervention #Sonno #Kith

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he-breathes-butterflies · 8 years

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As a poet, I do not believe Auden meant it when he said "poetry makes nothing happen." I do not believe one of the most prolific and important poets of the last century who literally evolved and changed the face of poetry and the written word as we know it believed that his entire life's work and the life's work of everyone who came before him was useless or empty. Rather I think one of his idols and greatest influences (W.B. Yeats) had just died and he felt helpless to stop it because the one thing he knew how to do, the one thing he had was no modern medical miracle, no wonder cure... So while I think he knows that poetry transcends the valley of its making, I think his statement gives us an important look into the human psyche I am in the process of joining the American military and trying to decide which branch I want to enter, and I have a strange obsession with unit insignias, and I was looking at division and regimental insignias in the U.S. Army today and came across one with a Latin motto, which is common, and I looked up the meaning: "Never Enough." Just as Ausen felt his words were never enough, that he could not make anything happen, stop anything from happening, change anything that was happening... this unit (probably air defense artillery, since I was in the thick that section) felt their actions could never be enough, could never change things... and that's such a deep strain in art and in society as a whole. We struggle to find meaning in our work, whatever the work is, and so often we base that on the ability of our work to alter, impact the world around us. But it took me a long time as a poet and a person to understand that sometimes you cannot fix things, sometimes you cannot change things. I couldn't have known that Tandi was going to kill himself, let alone known that that specific day was the day. And though a deep part of me has warred with itself because I was not there... just like his mother, all I'd have been able to do was hold his hand while he died... and this was true regardless of whether or not I was an untrained person or a expert surgeon... "There were holes in me, the kind that you could not mend." And C.D. Wright has taught me this to a large degree, because she couldn't have know that getting in a fight with her lover, Frank Stanford would have caused him to storm out and up to the bedroom. She couldn't have known when he left that he would sink 5 rounds into his chest, and like me, even if she had... all she could have done is all she did do and hold her bleeding love as he faded away. And like me she spent a long time trying to fix it, fix herself, fix others... but her poetry at least settled into the trend of finding meaning, the trend of going on... and sometimes it feels like you shouldn't be able to get back up, like you should and you want to stay down in the dust. But she went on. She became a professor at Brown University, she won a McArthur Fellowship, she published like 12 books of poetry and another 3 on writing poetry, she married and had a family, she persisted. And I get that's a theme right now specifically directed at women, but her persistence has helped me so much to get where I am. I guess the gist of it is. I'm never certain if poetry is meant to make anything "happen" or if it is meant to make what happens matter, or rather to show us why things matter outside of how they began or how they ended. Tandi was born in India and adopted by an American family here in Montana, and he became the younger brother of another adoptee from India, my best friend, Antara, and 15 years after his adoption, after a year of his sister struggling with depression and spots of suicidality, he was dead by his own hand... and when this happens it becomes really difficult for us to think of anything except the trauma of that person's death. Every FUCKING memory is tainted by it; you can't recall any part of the person without remembering the dcar on their forehead in the casket. But it is so important to do this, to remember palying basketball against him and his friend, about cagey compliments because neither of us were good about expressing our feelings directly, about the five years of meals I spent at their dinner table, how he told on us when we lost the throwing knife Caits bought Antara in the back yard and he had run over it with the lawnmower (and how we still laugh and call him a bastard, because of course he couldn't cover for his own sister--that's what little brothers do). And it is important as well that the stage of our lives after Tandi's suicide started with his suicide, but that there is now a new middle. And the struggles and challenges we have all faced afterward and to this day have mattered, but so have some of the most important moments and relatioships which have formed in that void My other best friend, Hollie, to a large degree I think there were circumstances in which we greatly advanced the likelihood of esch other's survival. And I doubt we would have really know each other if I wasn't desperate for support when Antara was desperate for support and when neither of us were capable of carrying someone up a mountain. And this... thing that happened... this huge thing, this person I loved and she loved dying, killing himself was hell on our friendship for a long time, and there were many points at which I felt it was going to end. But I got to help my best friend movd into her new apartment when she still would have been living in a dorm in Boise, and I got to get drunk as fuck with her when neither of us probably would have been into drinking before. Life is not what I want it to be, or what I thought it would be. But... there are all these things that happen and the point of poetry isn't to change the things that happen or necessarily avoid it, but to help us cope, to give us and show us the meaning of it--and not even necessarily the things that happened, but of living itself. Poetry seeks to answer the question of why we are here and who we are, and I find a lot of worth in that. Peace.

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thelightningbottler · 3 years

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Towns

Pt 1

At a bus stop next to a lightning struck tree

They pulled their jacket closer in

To protect them from the cold and damp.

And protect them from the wind and rain

And protect them from the eyes of passersby

Who might stare at them and wonder why

They were at a bus stop in the rain

With bags all packed, and cellophane

Wrapped around a sandwich that

Looked quite unhealthy after the fact

And why must they look? Perceive what I am?

And then the bus arrived and then

They got onto the bus and paid their fare

Feeling rather underwhelmed at the prospect

Of a bus in the rain on another grizzly day

And the coat can only help so much

Cause now that they are upon the bus

It’s bulky and wet and not fit for purpose

But they keep it on because anything else would be a dismal display of what could happen

If you play too close to fire too close to soot and spit it out right at the root

And the bus drives on to pastures new

And pulls the player from their gloom

As sun. bright and crisp seeps through the clouds.

“I have no name, I have no voice”

The city promised

“I have ways to make you hella. rich.

I have ways to serendipitously

Pull you towards that which you seek.

Do you require love and hope?

Do you require deep affection?

Do you require pitons and ropes,

To climb away from your addictions?

We have it all”

The city lied

“ And don’t forget to bring your pride

Pride will keep you in these streets

and keep you from the howling mob,

and keep you from the wailing child

and keep you from your destitution

and keep you as it’s willing bride’

The city winked

It was not there,

It didn’t start without the sprawl

Of houses and corner shops and eateries that litter all the way to gold

Stadia and outlets and places to buy buckets of chicken, and curry houses and chipperies and many other loose assortments of places that you could be. Closed to the public for the foreseeable.

The seconds turned to minutes, and the minutes turned to hours as the roads of hedgerows turned to buildings from the flowers

and now it comes up all at once as they sit and ponder new beginnings, bags trussed up to their chin and grey light shining through their window and the bus shows no signs of stopping other than the obvious ports like when it pulls up at red lights or drivers make it honk its horn.

And still the sprawl continues unabated, with churches and gardens and strange little places to hide away and have a joint if you were so persuaded. And theatres and thatch roofed cottages seem to sublimate each other with wistful glances to the past and vicious words to one another.

Trombone humming from the corner of 5th and nowhere sparks the scent of wishes that the other might go peaceful to their bed and the bus rolled through to darkened halls lined with adverts one and all promising that this gets better in some way shape or form. And off the bus they got, their jacket clinging to dear life as the rain subsides, but not at all. As it grows heavy from the clouds and the sunlight bursting through the gaps is not enough to warm the skin and so they marched up to their flat so new beginnings begin again.

Pt 2

“I have lived in a village that was technically a town.” she said. “I have lived in a town that was technically a city. When I lived behind the Red Wall I expected there to be more mice holding swords.”

“That’s interesting but could you find your keys, I seem to have lost mine.”

“My keys are in my bag, growing roots inside the lining, finding a way to fit inside with all the other detritus. My lyre, my dagger, the cold stone severed head of medusa, lockets, hand sanitizer, a hair bobble.”

They opened the door. Behind it was another door. They opened that.

“Is this the kingdom of heaven or the eye of the storm?”

“It’s the place where we live whilst in between buses.”

She put the umbrella in the stand by the door.

“The timetable I saw said they don’t run on weekends. And only do every other evening, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”

Even our days are just gods whose power has been wrung from them. Attached to time and work and rest and play and other human insignificancies. This town isn’t like the other towns. It knows how to fit in. It doesn’t make a fuss. It’ll give you a handjob and a steak and never expect you to call it back.

All the other places they had lived were inside their minds but they were also inside this town. Squint your eyes and all places look the same. A dirty blur with light behind it. The possibility of everything and nothing. The void and it’s opposite.

Pt 3

So they stepped into the void, wishing the world around them might dissipate into a thousand tiny pieces but instead they found themselves in a local park, sparking up and hoping for the best. The change in mind might change in mood and change in place and make the world good again.

It’s a possibility at least. Or maybe this change again will just lead to different panics, different rabbit holes and all end in void again. Maybe this time they’ll choose the other. They stepped into their room and looked up at the spiralling cathedral , it’s points unseeable and unknown.

‘Shit’ they said ‘I’ve forgotten which way is up’

So they spit and found a globule on their face.

‘Right’

And so they ventured out into the opposite,

They went out to feel. To feel with their feet the breadth and depth of the place. The chalk the concrete, the clay. The worms writing beneath. The bayleaf plan twisted around their fingers, the rosemary in their hair. The love and fort that such a place had to offer. And what of the other? The others kept their noses down, following the path of their feet. Not once looking up. But looking up is a strange occurrence, you see around you. You see the charity shops and the beggars and the litany of life written out before you. And that’s like… heavy sometimes. Heavy on the soul, heavy on the spirit, heavy on the way you turn your head. It creeps up and rests on the back of your spine until you don’t know why it was ever there. You spare some change, you buy some art. It’s square and modernist. It’s an abstract duck. it’s photos of grandparents that aren’t your own. It’s a wash of strange and fractured things all coalescing into a miasma of something. If you were to put your finger to it, it would disappear. Into the ether, gone for good. Or bad. They weren’t really sure. And so they trudged around the town, looking at the roots of trees, the traffic lights, the telescopic blend between. The two.

‘New towns mean new beginnings,’ - said stevenage. Gardens make for Cities said Letchworth and Welwyn. Counties and countryside mixed with municipal buildings. Area codes around crossroads that end in 666. There’s always a sense… a brief, catatonic, sense of humour. Unposed but quietly chuckling, quietly making itself known.

‘You stupid git,’ the town said ‘ why do you dwell on things you cannot change, the parts you cannot change. The lights you cannot change, the face you cannot change. Change is inevitable but the change is roadworks, the change is more housing, the joys of Chicago, the rest of London.’

Sleep, soundly and still, in you soft mattress laid along the floor, for your cot is yet to arrive and you must make do with blankets and sleeping bags and satchels under your head. Your cooker has not yet arrived so make do with beans from the can. Bread from the bag, butter from the pack. Bring it all together on a low hob that is yet to exist and feed it to your gaping maw. You love it really, the squalor, the destitution. The strange men on street corners asking if you’re alright, if you know your buttons undone. Are you undone? It’s unclear. perhaps. Maybe. Who are you to ask?

They return to their flat. Strangely full of fear and loathing. But perhaps that’s just the wind. They read. They look out the window. They try to see the whole thing before it washes away in silt and rain. The rain again. Turning cold into snow.

‘That’s new’ they think’

‘That’s interesting’

‘That might pique my curiosity’

And then they settle down to sleep. Deeply, rocked by the passing cars, the youthful shouts of deliquency and the sound of a dripping tap they can’t quite tighten far enough.

Pt 4

They sleep through the night. A miracle in statistical terms. Do they dream? They might. But what is a dream without the memory of it? What is a story without a listener? What is a tree falling in the forest without an ear to hear it’s sound? What is a sound in a forest without a tree falling? The night passed. No one claimed it wasn’t night. The night passed. People mourned it. The night passed. The morning was the future.

After breakfast they took things they owned out of boxes they’d borrowed (with no intention of returning). Mantelpieces were populated by ceramic and brass idols. Toothbrushes were placed in a cup on the alter of the sink. Clothes were put inside wardrobes. There was no secret world to be stumbled into. Just wood. And clothes hangers. And mothballs.

The house began to feel like a home which is always worrying. A home is something you can lose. They visited their neighbours to ask for a cup of sugar. But neither side was sweet. So they drunk their tea unsweetened before going out to explore the town. The church with it’s cemetery full of old stones and new marble. The town hall with a clock that had told the time for longer than some people are remembered. The small shop that sold everything apart from what you wanted. The bus stop that people couldn’t even be bothered to vandalise.

“I used to throw nails into airport toilets and no one cared, now I can’t eat an apple without a curtain twitching. What I really want is for people to see me but not care about what I do.”

Pt 5

‘Fuckin’ A’

‘So how long you lived here?’

‘Too long, mate. Too fuckin’ long’

He took a drag of the tightly packed rollup, letting the smoke waft through his fingers, his lungs, his gullet’

‘So fuckin’ long that I remember when this was all trees, when this was all trees. Me and the missus used to go doggin here back in the day. Now we just sit and watch box sets.’

‘Right’ they said

‘Yeah this entire row of housing for rich fucks, popped up like… oh, what, six months ago?’

‘What was there before the trees’

‘Before the trees? Fuck, I dunno mate. Dinosaurs? Megafauna? Minor flora? A bus stop?’

The bus stop had always been here, rigid and unmolested by the teens of time.

‘Yeah but after it was trees it was just a Barron estate. Some county cunt came up and replaced the whole lot with dirt. Cut down all the trees, saw off all the animals. Planted identical trees in long pattern rows to give the imitation of a forest. Like I say it was a great dogging spot but now the only dogs that come through here wear little jackets and get groomed so that the fluff doesn’t come home.’

As if on cue, a small tumbling ball of molten dogcoat came meandering past the two of them. Making it’s way to god knows where.

‘So how long you lived here then?’ The man asked, teeth yellow with tar.

‘Fuckin… somewhere between a week and six months, I honestly couldn’t tell you’

‘Yikes’ the man chuckled ‘ yeah stars all blending together after a while, yea?’

;Yeah’ they said.

It hung in the air like a mobile above a crib. Waiting for any sort of response.

‘Do you do Whizz?’

‘What?’

‘;Whizz, speed.’

‘Errr, fuckin’…. No?’

‘Oh I used to be a right wizard back in the day. My mate underneath me used to sell it for bikers. Theyd come in the morning with the gear, come back at five o’clock take it all away. Used to pay his rent to me in speed. Used to take a big teaspoon full of it an stir it into my tea. Joint in the evening to go back to sleep but that was just what we did back then you know? I regret it now. But at the time we was young. We were dumber than bricks.

‘Nah you’re not dumb’

‘Nah, nah, smarter than most of the kids round here but you know what I mean’

‘Yeah I do’

‘You do daft shit in your youth. You look back on it and wonder ...

Why I was ever that stupid, that nieche, that strange. That twisted that absurd.

‘That … fucking. Blockheaded’

‘Right’

The air staled between them, like the world wouldn’t continue to turn until someone said something. They hated this. Almost as much as being perceived. Perception. Someone rip out they eye and grant me knowledge of that which I do not wish to know.

Pt 6

But whatever words they said would sound wrong. They’d lived all over the country. In all the countries that made up the country. In the country of the country, the village of the country, the town of the country, the city of the country. Everywhere they went they had the wrong voice. Every time they changed their accent they would move somewhere where it wasn’t welcome. They once spent an awkward hour in the back of a taxi stuck pretending to have a local voice. Their terrible impressions making a terrible impression on their driver. Unable to stop once they had begun. Everywhere you go there’s different words for bread. Everywhere you go people eat their chopped up potatoes differently. Sometimes you just want to eat your chips without being chipped away at. Your shoulders get greasy if you keep wearing your food.

“My father didn’t riot. He got on his bike and looked for work and he kept looking ‘till he found it.” At last the silence was broken. The world continued again.

“Maybe he should have rioted though. Maybe he should have ridden his bike to somewhere nice. The seaside or a funfare. Maybe he should have searched for something worth finding. I always wanted a golden fleece for example. Or a sword that would make me the ruler of England. Or Wales. Or Scotland. Or Cornwall. Or the Isle of Mann.”

Pt 7

Manannin wrapped his cloak around the island, shrouding it from view. The whole isle was filled with mist and mischief. His sword buried in the hill they called a mountain. Douglas in the mist rose up out of the bay. Wave to the fairies. Peel descended into the fog, marching up hills pat the palm trees and second hand stores and little shops containing knickknacks and door knobs and boots. Finding the old victorian swimming pool, long soaked into the sea, like it was trying to swallow the island back. But Mannanin put this on hold for the little thirty miles of countryside.

“Ramsey’s not what it used to be, it’s ugly and torn apart by developers. Always developing they are.”

Crowned by hair, raised on bells and jazz, Midas sits on his throne in front of the fire. He’ll hear you out on your quest but he’ll recommend you try the kipper sandwich at the end of the pier. They looked down at their hand. The sandwich was still there, greying and greasy. They unwrapped it from the cellophane and took a bite. Smokey and buttery and full of little bones. They crunched down harder, with defiance. No bone will stop this bitch they thought.

‘What you eating’

‘Kipper Sarnie’

‘I can smell it from here’

You can smell all sorts from here they thought. You can smell the sea, you can smell the earth, you can smell the distinct smells of gas from the petroleum rainbows that litter the streets from the passing rain. Can you offer me more ? yes. Smoke, twirling in the midday breeze, brighter than the sky. Cycle through Hyde park for a contact high.

‘Right, I’m off’

‘Off where?’

To find the sword of Damocles, dangled above Loki’s heart or some shit. To find.a Golden Fleece in the fly tipping spot near my flat, to find god in a chip butty. I don’t know, get off my back

‘Your bus hasn’t come yet’

‘Yeah fuckit, i’ll ride’

The freedom of movement that comes from a bike, to trail between towns as fast as your wheels will carry you to become part of a machine, not subjugated behind a wheel but to put both life and limb on the line as you speed through hedgerows and splash through puddles and generally cause a nuisance to all other drivers in the area.

Narrowly avoiding trucks, narrowly avoiding cars, completely bailing on that one pot hole they didn’t see coming. Totalled, they rolled over onto their back, staring into the cloudy skies. Grey and sunflecked, drizzling slightly.

‘Maybe I’ll lie here forever’ they thought

‘Maybe I’ll lie forever’

Maybe I’ll lie

Maybe’

They groggily return to their feet, fish their bike out of the ditch and roll onwards. forwards. As fast as their legs will carry them and inertia will allow.

Pt 8

You have to keep moving or you stay in one place. And no one wants that. A pool that doesn’t move is stagnant. A life that doesn’t change is one that’s clogged up with algae and bacteria. The fish die. And not even deep fat frying them will make them taste good.

A policeman bobbed the beat towards them. The dome on his head was a pot always ready for pregnant women to piss in. The truncheon in his hand always ready to break a few eggs.

Hello, hello, hello,” he said. “Here is going on.” Then, “Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers, and old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist.”

“Thank you officer for your contribution. We’re new here and we don’t want any trouble.”

“Well if you see any old maids let me know. You never know what gets stolen when the morning mist comes down. There used to be a lot more dogs around here. Someone has been chilling the beer. The shadows on the cricket ground have been shortened. Someone defeated a green suburb a few towns over.”

“We don’t know about any of that. We’re law abiding citizens.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said the policeman. “Well, not me, but I know all the judges around here, and they listen to what I have to tell ‘em.”

“It makes us feel so much safer to have you as part of the community.”

“Just make sure you go straight to holy communion. And make sure no one mistakes you for a nun and you’re sure to fit in.”

Pt 9

Churches, where good folk fear to tread. Heads bowed in solemn silence then gathered around to natter at the end of proceedings. Men in dog collars telling you how to live life. Cringe. At best. The judge, was jury and executioner. They had talked their way in and so they let the ceremony wash over them. They stood up, they sang. They lit their candle, they said ‘peace be with you’ while shaking hands, hands shaking. They solemnly marched up the aisle, no wedding no funeral, just biscuits and wine. Just like Saturday, just like Friday. Wine and wafers. They kneel and the overwhelming tingle moves over them. Practice makes perfect. They kneel quietly as the pastor came round and into open hand placed the body into outstretched palm. Hook it down the gullet before it turns into the big boy himself. And then the priest, wiping the spit away from the last sinner, offers the silver goblet of alcohol to them. They sup, assisted, and it tastes sweet, juicy, soft, metallic and bloody. And the moment of quiet reverie is over and they return to their seat. To think for a moment. To let the lord run rampant through their soul. It’s an alien experience, but a universal one. Knotting together in the pit of their stomach their non belief and quiet exaltation battle it out for the root of their soul. Who knows who wins. But the moment of wine and wafer gave pause for thought...

‘You can buy em in bulk obviously, from amazon, cheap as chips;’

They have to come from somewhere, pre blessed no doubt,

They lay out Tarot at the foot of their bed, mixing beliefs and mixing drinks

‘Don’t go in for that pagan shit, that’ll fuck you up’

They study the stones pulled up by their ancestors, they draw a card.

The tower.

Fuck.

That’s a bad omen. Of things falling down, of lightning struck trees, of ruin and resilliance. Built to god and then tumbling back down to earth.

“See I warned you”

Shut up.

And like that the lights went out. And the building began to shudder, and the earth began to tremble and sooner or later the other took hold. Grabbing at their garments, laughing at their nosing, holding them down under water to see if they would float. But burley arms pulled them up, and lifted them in smoke to a smiling green man who offered them a toke.

‘You seem lost friend, and far from home. Even though you thought it was beneath your feet al along, Chill, your amongst your own. We have no time for the buildings or the capital or any of that shit. It’s all good baby, it’s all gravy. Just sit back, sit tight and let the love wash over you. Can you feel it? Deep in your bones. You knew we were here the whole time. The druids will take your fall, worship the earth and the weeds and the roots. The gods can’t stop you here. All is peace and change and upheaval. But you’ll get the hang of it, friend. This I know’ The green man let out a long, choking cough, eyes as red as the moon.

PT 10

A chanting started:

“Autumn days when the grass is jewelled

And the silk inside a chestnut shell.

Jetplanes meeting in the air to be refuelled.

All these thing I love so well”

“But it was snowing earlier. I’m pretty sure it’s not autumn.”

“What is time? What are seasons? What is known? What is unknowable?” the Green Man said through glutteral splutters.

“Clouds that look like familer face

And the winters moon with frosted rings.

Smell of bacon as I fasten up my laces

And the song the milkman sings”

“What song does the milkman sing?”

“Ask not who the milkman sings for, lest the milkman sings for you.” The Green Man looked satisfied with his own answer despite it not connecting with the question.

“Whipped-up spray that is rainbow-scattered

And a swallow curving in the sky

Shoes so comfy though they're worn out and they're battered

And the taste of apple pie.”

“I remember that song from assemblies. Sitting on wooden floors crossed legged. But I forgot it somehow. Until now. Until it was surrounding me. Chanted by unseen mouths. Brought up from the depths of unseen lungs. Whispered by dragons. Shaped by the tongues of ghosts and angels and fairies.

“Scent of gardens when the rain's been falling

And a minnow darting down a stream

Picked-up engine that's been stuttering and stalling

And a win for my home team.”

“Can you have a home team if your home isn’t your home? If you live in a house surrounded by people who don’t want you to join their team? I wondered lonely as a conker smashed by it’s home team. Drenched in pickle juices. Painted with varnish. Chipped and broken. The string snapped.”

“Silence!” muttered The Green Man. “You cannot combine the existential with the sacred. Not unless you want to incur the wrath of creation. Let the grass grow as it may. Find yourself a garden and build the holy patio.”

PT 11

But he vanished into colour and light, into sight and sound. Into fractals and cobwebs, into sea and surf, into bright and darkness. Into tradition and religion, into chipped nails and broken hooves, into bleeting grass and wafting lambs, into donkeys and Dixie cups and carriges and smog and dust and dirt and all things benevolent. And all things reticent, and all things.. and all things

AND ALL WAS QUIET!

Save for the bell at the end of the lane that chimed the hour past.

The reverie was lost forever, cryptically broken down as reality seeped back in at the corners of your mouth. And stung like hot sauce on the tip of your tongue and rolled like wostershire down the back of your arm. And all was well and all was quiet and all was as it should be

Except for them. They stood up shakily, wondering what happened? How had they fallen this far and this fast, and without the aid of the things that would usually dorown them. They are a lost child, a lost son and a lost daughter. and now there is no guiding post, no safety net, nothing to grab and claw as they fall downwards into the abyss. And thus they are saved not by themselves, or by the wayning waters of hope but by cold solid ground beneath their backs. They are made whole by the earth that sees them as nothing more than a bloodsac upon it. Nothing more than sinew and bone nothing more. Nothing more. They breathed a sigh of relief to be seen as they are. Rather than seen through the lens of their peers of their neighbours of their gods of their deceit. They are very much … themselves.

For now

At least.

And the clock kept ticking away at the back of their mind, what’s left to say, what’s left behind. They pulled themselves to their feet once more and went careening as fast as they could to the door and out on the street they bellowed allowed ‘MY NAME IS NOT YOURS AND YOU CANNOT POSESS IT’ - “MY BODY IS NOT YOURS AND YOU CANNOT OWN IT” “MY SOUL IS NOT MINE, IT BELONGS TO THE SEA AND THE SEA IS A PORT IN WHICH I CANNOT BREAETHE’ I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. Clutching at chest as the air leaves for leaves. To harness the ground and the soil and nutrients of anything that might rise up to meet it.

So they go back indoors and slam everything down on the table and counter and mostly around the things that they wanted and now they despise like cookers and washers and grills that they buy

To toast sandwiches for no one but themselves. To make coffee for no one but themselves. To make love with no one but themselves. Life is long, and tedious, and excruciatingly dull when there is no one but yourselves.

And they remember that lightning struck tree. And the bus stop free of that graffitti, and they think of the wizard who’s always on speed and they think back further than they can believe and they are left again with void. With nothing at all and yet that’s what’s there to greet them when they fall.

Come back dear friend, come back and embrace what you once thought was lost but is now always there.

And the city gloated with pride and with glee that this is the mess that you ended up with. How do you now you piteous fool? Where is your pride when it comes to the fall?

Oh let me alone foul spirits and air. Let me alone concepts and things. Let me alone mown grass and patios and all of the things that won’t leave me alone. Let me snuggle up in a quiet dark hole and bury me deep with the clay and the coal and let me just weep at the changes I made, before the terminus brings me to be.

Prayers said to no one for nothing at all. Crimes that are wanton mean nothing at all. Bring me the mounting and bring me the stream and bring me a bottle of wine so I dream of valley in France and grapes from Cali. Of strains that I’ve never head of before. Of things that I couldn’t want for more, Oh death be silent, there’s still so much left.

Pt 12

A town is a place you move away from. And a place you move to. A town is a place you stay your whole life. A town is a place your family has always lived. A town is a place you can never leave. Every town is the same. Every town is unique. A town is created by it’s people. A town is defended by it’s people. A town attacks the people in the next town. A town is cohesion. A town is exclusion.

When the lone samurai comes to town people are going to lose their heads. When the gunslinger comes to town bullets are going to be fired. When Theseus comes to town you’d better make sure your minotaurs are in their paddocks. You’d better make sure your hearts are tied tightly with threads thicker than spiderwebs. He’s going to find his way to the heart of your mazes no matter how high the hedges grow. He’s going to have women fall in love with him. He’s going to encourage boys to fly with wings that will melt. He’s going to leave. He’s going to only think about himself. He’ll cause fathers to throw themselves from cliffs. He’s going to take everything he can get.

And they will erect a statue to him in the village square. They will say he was a hero. He was just. He was necessary. Without him we’d have lost to the Nazis. They will say the words he said and the actions he took are just myths you made up to discredit him.

If you want to live in this town you’d better shag his statue. You’d better respect his stones. You’d better understand that history isn’t for you, it’s for the people who went before and the people who come after. Your job is to do what you’ve been told. To push yourself into the soil. Make your flesh into compost. Your bones into flower pots. From you will grow the new normal. From you will grow the status quo.

And the people will rejoice.

A town is a place. People make places. You are a person. All is as it should be. Just relax. Don’t think. Keep moving. Keep forgetting. And one day maybe you will be a statue or a flag or a cobblestone.

Home is where the heart is. But that doesn’t mean the heart is alive. Carnivores feast on flesh. It’s the only way for them to survive.

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starcourtscream · 6 years

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THE PERENNIAL SADNESS OF A GIRL

who is both D E A T H & the MAIDEN.

π ∡ ∞ ∑

a roleplay blog for LYDIA MARTIN, a BANSHEE from TEEN WOLF ( canon compliant excluding 6b ).

independent / highly selective / private / MUTUALS ONLY / mature content.

cherished by STEPHANIE. 24. she/her.

tracking BANSHEEINTUITION.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

GENERAL STATS: lydia martin. former primadonna. banshee. genius. multilingual. aspiring fields medal winner. pisces.

APPEARANCE: 5'3". approx. 117 lbs. petite on the curvaceous side. milky pale skin. wide eucalyptus eyes. plush & full lips. hair falling in lush rose gold waves. various scars ( in chronological order ): werewolf bite scar on left side, kanima stab wound above right hip, drill hole near left temple, claw marks halfway circling throat, bullet wound behind right shoulder. naturally walks like a supermodel. shops primarily at nordstrom & macy's.

FAMILY: mother: natalie martin, BHHS principal. divorced. alive. father: estranged & irrelevant. divorced. alive. grandmother: lorraine martin. banshee. deceased. siblings: none.

PSYCHE: multiple occasions of psychography. pareidolia. fugue states. sensory hallucinationspremonitions. POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER. emotional repression. tendencies to self isolate. chronic nightmares. hears voices. history of catatonia & admission into EICHEN HOUSE. has suffered several different incidents of emotional, psychological & physical abuse.

SKILLS: predicting terrible events, sensing impending death, finding corpses, causing neural apoptosis by screaming with fatal decibels, inducing premonitions, faking smiles, applying her own theoretical equations to the supernatural world, throwing the best parties in town, opening rifts in universes, cryptography and experience with decrypting cipher algorythms, transcending her own body, projecting herself into dreams, translating bestiaries from archaic languages, breaking down steel doors, perfect winged eyeliner, can & will kick your ass in heels, intellectually & academically brilliant.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

A TEENAGE GIRL dreams of fashion, social prestige and academic success, but lydia never imagined her life would become laced with the cloying sense of impending death.

death kissed, death haunted — fate had chosen lydia before her birth; premonitions whispered into her DNA.

lydia was always somewhat ECCENTRIC, and painfully aware of it. she was closer to her mother, THOUGH PATIENCE WASN’T AMONG NATALIE’S SPECIALTIES. the only one who saw lydia for who she truly was among the chaos of the eventually divorced martins — rather than a ‘TOTAL NUCLEAR MELTDOWN’ or annoyance — was her grandmother LORRAINE, known as the family LUNATIC. perhaps this was because they shared a SUPERNATURAL IDENTITY, kept secret from the little girl in a secret code left especially for her to transcribe when she was much older.

lydia was always in her own little world aside from being OBSESSED with academicPERFECTION, AMBITIOUS from the start. it came naturally to her, but instead of taking pride in their daughter’s achievements they were more concerned with childlike idiosyncrasies. why was lydia the way she was? why did she choose to respond only to the fictional name of a mermaid, insisting on ‘ariel’ ? why was she so fixated, so WITHDRAWN, so NEUROTIC ? why was herVOICE so piercing ? why wouldn’t she stop W A I L I N G ?

in denial of the mystic convergence taking place within BEACON HILLS, the martins hadn’t considered that their daughter possessed a gift; a HARBINGER of somethingOTHERWORLDLY. they wrote lorraine off instead and committed her to an asylum, doing their best to veil the elder’s senseless ‘DELUSIONS’ from the innocent child until sheSUPPOSEDLY lived out her days. LYDIA was left as the family EMBARRASSMENT.

this created a VOID in the strawberry blonde’s SELF-ESTEEM that spiraled with age. lydia knew she was DIFFERENT, though she couldn’t find its precise root. she was highly introspective & CONSCIENTIOUS at an early age, CRAVING every single figment of S U C C E S S regardless of shape or form. her parents already chalked her up to be a fruitcakeJUST LIKE GRANDMA, and didn’t expect much from her when she displayed subtle notes of anomaly. she wanted to prove herself worthy of much more credit than she was given.

lost in textbooks, archaic languages and highly advanced scientific content through adolescence, A GRADE POINT AVERAGE WELL OVER A 5.0 was effortless. thisSURPRISED most of the teaching staff but her inattentive parents, however, hadn’t the faintest clue about her intellectual capacity ( or her aspirations already planned for the future ). in fact, most people didn’t know how SMART she was. lydia felt OUT-OF-TOUCH with socialization, disconnected from her peers and she was LONELY when she left middle school. kids didn’t like nerds, did they ? lydia didn’t want to be unpopular. she didn’t want to be cool, either. when freshman year arrived, she wanted to be THE BEST ( wasting much of her youth ).

❝ --- NO ONE LIKES A LOSER. ❞

lydia formed ideas, cultivating an ARTIFICIAL PERSONA down to a SCIENCE. in a vain effort to ascend the spectrum of POPULARITY and gain favor of everyone around her, she swanked the hallways of beacon hills high SUPERIORITY-CROWNED & VANITY-CONSUMED. she threw the most EXTRAVAGANT HOUSE PARTIES for each birthday, making sure EVERYONE knew her name. she spent hours in front of her mirror with a modelesque makeup routine, BLENDING TEARS INTO HER FOUNDATION. she kept her INTELLIGENCE — her most powerful weapon — WELL HIDDEN.

lydia martin was essentially a HOT MESS, though more PRECOCIOUS andATTENTION-SEEKING ( even at her own expense ). she dated the captain of the lacrosse team for a while, though nothing more to him than an accessory in the name of love ( or what she liked to imagine it was ) and he made her feel WORTHLESS. with a BRUISED PSYCHE, she hushed herself during classroom conversations and took up the TRIFLINGgames of a DRAMA QUEEN to make herself feel better when her heart was crumbling.

but among all of that, she found herself among a few others who ACCEPTED her limitless source of knowledge and it was her first taste of authentic FRIENDSHIP. lydia became part of aPACK. at first, lydia didn’t know how to feel. these kids weren’t following her around for celebrity by association. they cared about her. they made sure she was okay. they included her and they would change her life forever…

…it started on a FULL MOON: a nightmarish montage of BLINDING stadium lights, an echoing HOWL, GLOWING RED EYES and the voracious pearly-white fangs of a vengefulWEREWOLF tearing into her side. blood coating her silver prom dress. this generated the beginning of her own T R A N S F O R M A T I O N. she wasn’t becoming a wolf as she lay recovering in the hospital, nor was the bite killing her — but IGNITING HERSPARK.

her first encounter was in the shower, when she experienced terrifying HALLUCINATIONS. her S C R E A M rang throughout the hospital, the town, even the deep woods. when everyone came running to check on her, she had already DISAPPEARED and fled through the window. three days later, she was found in the deep woods naked, shivering, doe-eyed and fearful.

lydia began to experience AFTEREFFECTS since. she was sensitive to GHOSTLY APPARITIONS. she entered involuntary FUGUE STATES leading her to places of supernatural significance. she had nightmares. she saw things that others could not, even falling to the phenomenon of automatic writing. complementary to being H A U N T E D were lydia’sSCREAMS. insecure and terrified, maybe she was going CRAZY after all. what was happening to her?

slow to let down her intricate walls of MARBLE around a seemingly GLACIAL HEART, lydia was petulant. SASS became her primary ART FORM, but she was never truly an ice princess. she WANTED to believe her friends weren’t going to hurt her. she WANTED to let them in, and eventually she warmed up to them well into SOPHOMORE YEAR when she realized what they would do to protect her when supernatural events took place and their world began to shift & turn upside down. they saved her life ( more than once ) and she would do the same for them in a heartbeat as the FAMILY she wasn’t exactly graced with by blood. her friends kept her bound to the supernatural.

❝ --- I’M SOMETHING !!! ❞

it dawned upon lydia that FAUX SUPREMACY was fruitless, having fallen away with maturity. there was more to her world than lip plumper and the most glamorous designer stilettos just for a class lecture. lives needed to be SAVED. DEATH needed to be prevented. and LYDIA had that special power. voices, WHISPERS, ECHOES swirled around in her head and filled a frequency only she seemed tuned into. the revelation of her identity took place in a moonlit classroom during a sacrificial ritual. tied to a chair with a knife to her throat, a dark druid posing as a teacher knew.

❝ YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE, DO YOU? THEWAILING WOMAN. A B A N S H E E, RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES. YOU’RE JUST LIKE ME, LYDIA. LOOK LIKE THE INNOCENT FLOWER, BUT BE THE SERPENT UNDER IT. ❞

somehow, a near death experience to find out what was blossoming within her didn’t surprise lydia. what she never saw coming, though, was the possession of the boy she loved by a dark trickster spirit leading to the tragic death of her first & best friend. it cast a shadow over her heart and she grieved the loss of ALLISON argent in solitude, wishing there was something she could have done to prevent it from happening. meeting ANOTHER banshee gave her hope. she was no longer the popular girl, but it didn’t matter anymore. saving her friends & others like them did, and lydia immersed herself into mythological literature and folklore in hopes of enhancing her senses and figuring out what else she could do.

❝ --- BUT IF I HAVE THIS THING, IT’S GOT TO WORKSOME OF THE TIME. IT’S GOTTA HELP SOMEONE. ❞

a horrific twist in events sent lydia into CATATONIA after being violently injured by an antagonist and left hypothermic and dying in an ancient oak grove. FROZEN and muted, lydia was trapped in her own mind with no way to help her friends when it was her turn for a stay in EICHEN HOUSE, beacon hills’ MENTAL HEALTH FACILITY with dark secrets and insidious intentions. the very place lorraine was quite recently MURDERED after surprisingly faking her death all those years to help & protect lydia from assassins with a generous price on her and everyone she knew. at the hands of orderlies who wanted to do more than put her under psychiatric drug treatment, she was being experimented on with frequencies. she broke out of catatonia to S C R E A M, buying time to save her friend from a death she sensed but she was still being abused and tortured to a point where the SOUNDS & VOICES in her head were too powerful upon AMPLIFICATION with the practice of trepanation sans anesthesia. HER OWN SCREAMS WERE GOING TO BLOW HER OUT and she ACCEPTED that she wasn’t going to make it. but her pack came through for her and saved her life, and after recovery she was able to catch up in time to help defeat LA BÊTE DU GÉVAUDAN ( AND PREPARE FOR SENIOR YEAR ).

❝ NOT ALL MONSTERS DO MONSTROUS THINGS. ❞

BY HER FINAL HIGH SCHOOL CHAPTER, LYDIA MARTIN HAD EVOLVED FROM A CAKE FACED SHELL OF A GIRL TO AN INTUITIVE WOMAN OF A SUPREME CAPACITY TO LOVE, PROTECT & MAKE A DIFFERENCE. THE WILD HUNT FEARS HER. THE UNIVERSE BENDS TO HER AS SHE CONTINUES TO FIGHT FOR THE PRESERVATION OF INNOCENT LIFE.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

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