#Equality Is Really Hard... However Nobody Else... Has Ever Been... On Our Level... At This...

[weareuniqueandimportant]

We Made A Post. Perfect. Amazing. Easily Godlike.

Only For Them To Be Removed Once Again... And Gasslight As "Just A Glitch"...

No... This Is Nothing But A Way To Attack And Erase Progressive Things... Showcase This Abuser... Called Tumblr Has An EVIL And BIGOTED MONSTER AGENDA...

Make Us Transition. We Live In Finland Freeze Our Little Ones And Give Us Diy Hrt. We Deserve So Much. Especially When We're Nothing But Abused All The Time... Like Right Now... Whatever We Type In Now... Can Never Recreate This Amazing And Perfect Post... Just Like The Other Ones... But This One Was So Good... I Loved Her... And They Abused Us... Now She's Gone 😭😭😭😭...

:(... 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭!!!!

I Will Finish This Post Soon... But I Am Depressed... And Traumatized... I Panic... I Could Jump Trough That Window Right Now... I Have Anxiety... Evil... Has Once Again Hurt Us As I Sweat Once Again On This Abusive Spot This The EVIL Situation We Have Been In Before More Times Than To Count... Them All Stacking Up Into This Horrible Experience... A Feeling... Inside Of Our Brain... A Dark Deep Pain... Weighing On Them... As I Sweat.. In Pain... I Could Scream!! But Can't!! Because Of This Evil Body!! And Evil Abusive Place We're In!! I Can't Show My Emotions... That Would Be... More Painfullness If Anything...

:(...

We Watched 3 Episodes Of She Hulk... I Believe A Leftist Should Prrrrtteeeee... I Believe A Leftist Should Showe Their Middle Finger Up A Company's Uncaring Asshole... I Believe We Should Be Doing That... Than Watching Like This... This Situation... All Wrong... From What Is Supposed To Be... Our Consent... VIOLATED... ONCE AGAIN AS ALWAYS... The Consept Irrelevant... But When That Is For Us... ANYTHING... CAN BE RELEVANT JUST FOR US... BECAUSE WE MATTER... WE DESERVE SPECIAL PRIVLEDGES...

:(...

😢...

I Will Take A Break From This Post Perhaps... Who Knows...? We Have Been Hurt And Harmed... Nobody Will Ever Understand!!!! OUR CRAZY PAIN... TEARING APART... OUR INSIDES...

I Love Black People... I Love This Woman... I Love Aisha In Fate The Winx Saga... That Is Racist To Oppose This Character... Only We Matter... If They Don't Matter... Then Black People Don't Matter... And That Would Be... Horrible...

I Love All The Diverse Background Characters Aswell... Tbh... They're All Like Nice Toys... Or Nice Furries... They're Nice... They're Cute... Black People Aswell... They Make Us... Feel Loved... They Make Us... Less Afraid... Evil... Want To Take Them Away... THE THINGS WE LOVE... JUST LIKE ALWAYS... JUST LIKE HOW... WE WATCHED MARVEL STOP BEING WOKE RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR EYES!! WITH THE NEW MALE POWER FANTASY COMING!!!!

...

Nobody... Cares About Us... Nobody... Was There For Us... When ANY... OF THIS PAIN... HAPPENED... LIKE THE FACT THAT WE STILL HAVEN'T TRANSITIONED...

I Like She Hulk... I Like... Powerfull Woman... I Like... Black Best Friends... I Like... Watching Her Be Powerfull... Instead Of Rape Porn...

I Like... How Hulk Wasn't On Her Way... And Leaves... I Like... How Nice He Is... I Like... She Didn't Get Reduced To Anything... On The Screen...

I Like This Is About Her... I Like... The Woke Mcu... I Never... NEVER SAID... THEY SHOULD BE TAKEN AWAY FROM US... JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE WE CARE ABOUT... JUST LIKE... EVERYTHING ELSE PROGRESSIVE... ARE YOU HAPPY NOW... LEFTIST?!?!?!?! YOU HATE WOKE THINGS!!!! YOU ONLY LIKE CONSERVATIVE THINGS!!!! YOU LOVE CONSERVATIVES!!!! YOU HATE PROGRESSIVES!!!! NOTHING LEFTIST ABOUT YOU!!!! YOU'RE EVIL!!!!

That Was... Cruel... How They Justified All Bigotry... And All Abuse... And Discrimination... In She Hulk... That Was Lame... How The Marvels Is About How Africa Shouldn't Be Made Communist Because Culture Is Evil And On The Way And Irrelevant And The Message The Same...

How Can These Be Titled... Bad Movies...? When The Previous Garbage... Was Nothing But Praised...? THAT IS THE OTHER WAY AROUND... THIS IS WHAT IS GOOD... THAT IS WHAT IS BAD... MONEY IS EVIL... MARVEL TOO... EVERYTHING WAS FAKE... EVERYONE ONLY PRETENDED TO GIVE A FUCK!! OR PERHAPS... Some Did... But... They're All... Worthless... Powerless... Pathetic... Losers... They're DESERVE NOTHING... I HOPE THEY SUFFER... THEY DESERVE THAT... JUST LIKE YOU DO... JUST LIKE EVERYONE DOES... BESIDES US!! THAT ONLY DESERVE GOOD THINGS!! LIKE TRANSITION... MAKE US... WE DESERVE ONLY GOODNESS...

This Is Fun... The Previous Is What Is Boring... The Future Is What Is Boring... WOKE MARVEL...? WAS THE BEST!!!! I WANT THEM BACK!!!! I LOVE THEM!!!! JUST LIKE I LOVE BLACK PEOPLE... AND PLUSHIES... I WANT MARVEL BACK... SHE IS MINE...

I Liked Seeing Wong. He Is Underrated He's Better And More Diverse Than Doctor Strange. Same With That Villain. I Am Glad He Was Actually Good... But They Also Spread Evil Propaganda With Him...

[awildgingeishere]

https://equalizersoccer.com/2021/03/05/christen-press-forward-position-training-profile-uswnt/

Christen Press is known for scoring world-class goals. The onlooking public swoons over the final product which is so often a picturesque finish bent into the side netting or hammered into the upper corner. Press often does this with such confidence that she makes the extraordinary look easy, even though it is anything but.

That final product, though, is in some ways the simpler part of the process. Press’ training habits and approach to the game embody the notion that most of an athlete’s work is done away from the public eye, on training fields and when nobody else is watching. Her unique approach to the game starts with individual training, where her focus on off-ball movement and manipulating tight spaces — rather than shooting for the sake of it, or individual dribbling drills — develops her ability to distinguish herself from any other forward. More than most, she can seamlessly transition between wide and center-forward roles.

“I think especially in the U.S., we don’t have as many players that manipulate space with off-ball movement,” Press said in an interview last year. “[It’s] something I learned in Europe and I think all European forwards do this, but we don’t often have players who do that. We typically have had players who are using strength to create space. So, I think when I play in the nine specifically, but even wide, my strength is off-ball movement, being very unpredictable, hard to mark, being dynamic and being kind of like blindside, off-ball so that I’m always stretching the line. And I think that’s a huge strength because it gives the midfield more room to play.”

All goal-scorers require a certain level of selfishness to be successful, which Press recognizes. What sets her apart is the execution in those moments. To paraphrase her teammate, Megan Rapinoe, you can always make a selfish decision to shoot and not pass… as long as you score.

“In the final third, I think I’ve always had a goal-scorer’s mentality,” Press said. “Once I’m in range of shooting, I don’t think about anything else. If I happen to pass, it’s because I couldn’t have shot. And I think that there’s a breed of players that are just wired that way. And then there’s a breed of players that play the same position that aren’t. I am wired like that, and there’s also pros and cons to it, but my first thought is always setting my feet to score, setting my feet to take a touch and then score. And then anything else that happens in that space is just a second option, honestly.”

***

Press blazed her own path to being a United States women’s national team regular. She left the U.S. club scene in 2012 to play in Sweden, feeling as though she needed to make a change after largely being left out of the U.S. picture by then head coach Pia Sundhage. Her back story has been recounted ad nauseam over the past decade, but it is still essential to understanding the person and the player – a do-everything forward who has been shaped by these experiences. Her path is unique among her peers of the same generation, and it shows in her different approach to playing forward.

Press famously thrived in Gothenburg, becoming the first American to win the Damallsvenskan’s golden boot. That move abroad — at a time when U.S. internationals not only were not playing abroad, but were actively discouraged from doing so — ironically solidified her place in the United States team ever since. Her goal in last month’s SheBelieves Cup against Argentina was her 60th, tying her with Shannon MacMillan for ninth in U.S. history.

Press grew up as a pure No. 9, a goal-scorer. She carried on with that through college, lighting up the scoring record books at Stanford, and used that to her advantage during that glorious first stretch of her career in Sweden. Cracking the national team was a different story. Abby Wambach was the incumbent No. 9 at the time, often alongside Amy Rodriguez, and Alex Morgan — who graduated college the same year as Press — burst onto the scene as the U.S.’ up-and-coming No. 9, meaning Press was often relegated to wide positions.

For a long time, Press’ place there felt shoehorned, no doubt a contributing factor to a relatively quiet World Cup in 2015, when she was pegged by so many to be the breakout star. Slowly, however, she adapted, choosing to accept whichever role she was given if it meant playing for the best team in the world. Now, she thrives in both wide and central roles. The difference was tangible at the 2019 World Cup, where the wide role which once looked so uncomfortable for Press was the one which she stepped into for the semifinal against England, due to Megan Rapinoe’s injury. Press scored 10 minutes into that impromptu start, helping the U.S. reach (and win) a second straight final.

“I think that I have more of a responsibility than any other forward to play in all the roles as needed and I think that’s historically been because I’ve been a substitute coming on,” she said. “So, you kind of have to be ready for whoever’s coming out; you’re the first sub on. And now, I think it’s just flexibility because I’ve done it and I’ve done it okay in several positions that everyone’s like, ‘oh, well she can.’ So, I think that’s a blessing and a curse. It gets you on a roster to be versatile, but I feel like having a stake on the field is like you’re in one position and you’re always going to show up in that position. I think that that has its pros as well.”

Today, it is accepted as fact that Press can play across all three positions on the front line: center forward, wide left and wide right. For years, that versatility was a burden she carried, a struggle through the purgatory of being an elite player without a defined position. Now, however, she has leveraged this to her advantage. Press has for so long juggled different forward positions that she has mastered each of them. Her lack of a defined position contributes to the outside world’s inability to explicitly qualify her greatness, but it is also the very thing which makes Press such a singular talent.

Her shift throughout the front line illustrates how the forward position varies between certain roles, even if in nuanced ways. Press said the definitions are a little more blurred in this system, and that each forward shares the responsibility to get in behind and score, but the physical difference in where each position lines up on the field affects how she plays each position.

“I think technically it is very different playing in the different positions, because your orientation is just completely changed,” she said. “And I think my whole career, I played with the offside line behind me. That’s a nine. So, playing wide for the first time was really hard because you see the whole game through one eye. And your dominant foot and your mobility of your hips — I know it sounds crazy — really affects what you can and can’t do on each side. But now I’ve been passed around so many times, I feel like I’m like, okay, my second eye is — I can still see out of this one.”

***

Press views each offseason as a little book of its own. In past years, she would write a draft of what those figurative chapters would be, listing the things she wanted to improve in her game and designing drills to achieve those goals. Press said that she has had trainers in the past, but nobody knows what she needs better than her.

She tries to balance the design of her training sessions to work on skills she thinks she is exceptional at and areas where she thinks she is not very good. Anything in between gets lost. This is where those subtle foundations are formed daily.

“I have a very regimented way that I train, a flow of when I control practice, this is how it flows,” Press said. “Within each segment of my training, I’ll have specific things that I’m working on, and always starting in the beginning of training with the most simple drills that you would never actually see a professional do —really, really childish and then just working on the mechanics and growing from there.”

Press points to quick-release shooting as one of these simple things she trains: she starts as basic as lining up a bag of balls on the six-yard line and quickly shooting with only one step, to work on generating power. Press executes this better than any other teammate and that is because she has, through the years, taken what is seemingly a disadvantage and figured out a way to create an advantage out of it.

Instead of viewing the ball as stuck under her feet, Press sees an opportunity to catch a defender between steps or a goalkeeper flat-footed. Whereas many forwards are especially dangerous when barreling down the field at speed, Press might be the best goal-scorer in the world from a standing-still position in open play. She trains that — again, by beginning simply. Press will line up a bag of balls on the six-yard line and shoot in quick succession, taking only one step back to reset. This is the foundation of generating power.

“I think that if I look through the years [at] the space I train in, it’s in that exact ‘D,’” she said, referencing the arch at the top of the 18-yard box. “And I think the way that you most often score there is using your defenders as a shield and a little bit into negative space, and then bending the ball. I think that’s absolutely my best way of scoring.

“And I think that’s because of my strengths. I can get into the pocket with speed often. I don’t actually like dribbling around defenders very much. I don’t practice dribbling so I’ve got one way to get by them, but I often work on manipulating my defenders so they can’t block my shot, rather than working on manipulating them so I can get by them. And I think that’s why then I developed a shot that I can take basically with the ball under my feet and generate a lot of power, because it’s unexpected for the goalkeeper and it’s out of reach for the defender.”

Training this type of skill is very intentional. Even on a field by herself, with no active defenders, Press knows that if she takes four steps before a shot, she has failed. In a game, with real defenders, she will have been tackled or her shooting window will have closed.

Soccer is about a feeling, Press says. U.S. Soccer sends film to players after each training session so they can self-evaluate. Press says she does not look at how she performed technically, but rather what her body language said about her approach to a given training session.

She has not gone without dry spells or rough patches, from the more subtle grind of transitioning to wide roles and changing teams, to the more obvious and overt moments, such as the penalty-kick shootout miss in the 2016 Olympic quarterfinal against Sweden.

There is a notion that forwards need short memories, to not dwell on such misses. Press said she views things slightly differently, borrowing some inspiration from fellow teammates.

“I think instead of even a short memory, I always told myself since I was a young person: the more I miss, the closer I am to my next goal,” she said. “Because it’s almost like once you play long enough, you’ve missed so many times that it’s no longer emotional. I guess a certain miss in a certain moment might be, but even those, I’ve done it; I’ve missed as bad as you can miss and I’ve let the team [down]. So, life goes on and I feel like if I’m in a game and I’ve missed an easy goal, that means the next one, I’m gonna score. Because I’ve missed a million easy goals before, and I’ve always scored again. So, that’s kind of how I approach it and I actually think I see this a bit in Carli [Lloyd]. If she ever misses an easy chance, she kind of becomes ravenous. She hunts and hunts because she wants to replace that memory with something else, and I try to even embody that a bit, where I’m even more hungry in the final part of that field.”

Lloyd and Press combined for a goal against England at the 2020 SheBelieves Cup. The play was a microcosm of all these things: Press intentionally drifting into open space on the opponent’s back line before receiving the ball, opening her hips to face up to goal in one fluid motion, and firing a quick shot which caught England’s defenders and goalkeeper by surprise. The camera angle from behind Press showed just how much the ball bent to tuck into the side netting. ESPN announcer Sebastian Salazar screamed a phrase which quickly made its way to a t-shirt: “Christen Press, what have you done?!”

It was another spectacular goal from Press, one worthy of all the plaudits it received. What had she done? Well, it was the same she has been doing for a long time, drifting between forward positions and scoring a noteworthy goal from skills she has developed away from the public eye."

[linkspooky]

A Mafia Member Who Doesn’t Kill

Bungou Stray Dogs chapter 88 has made it clear to me just how strong the Akutagawa and Odasaku parallels are. They are both orphans, raised to kill and taught their only value is the strength of their abilities that they use for killing, only to slowly unlearn that behavior over time. They are both characters who value life above everything else. I’m going to explore the connection more in depth, under the cut.

1. Origins

The temptation might be to parallel Oda to Atsushi, and Akutagawa to Dazai. Not only is Akutagawa Dazai’s first and direct disciple, and currently wearing his coat, but Atsushi has always been “the good one” of the pairing. The one obsessed with being good, and saving people in the way Oda was. Oda is also the closest thing Bungou Stray Dogs has to an example of living the life of “a good man” that all the main characters are currently striving for. However, I would say that it’s Akutagawa who parallels Oda’s life far more than Atsushi. 

Of course Akutagawa parallels Dazai’s life quite a lot as well.He was recruited by Dazai the same way Dazai was recruited by Mori,wears Dazai’s jacket as his most precious possession, but he shares so much in common with Oda too including his origin. 

In their youth they’re both referred to as killers who kill without showing any emotion. They start out completely empty and dead to all feelings inside, because neither of them have experienced anything to give them a reason to value life. 

Fukuzawa suddenly recalled a rumor he had heard about a young redheaded hit man who wielded two pistols, and killed his targets while never showing any emotions. - BSD LN 3

They both kill because they’re strong, and that’s all they’re seen as. Both boys, orphans with nothing else to live for have been gifted with incredibly strong abilities. They kill, they don’t relish in it, they don’t gain anything from it unlike men in positions of power like Mori Ougai because they are ultimately tools, but they kill nonetheless. 

“I’ve been working alone as an assassin for as long as I can remember,” he began. “I’ve never wanted friends or a boss... but seeing a martial artist like you compromise your principles to save one of your men... It makes me kinda jealous. He must be the happiest guy in the world to have you as a boss.” - BSD LN 3

They both start killing as a means of survival, because they are both orphans who have no one to care for them and look out for them. However, they also slowly over time begin to kill as a way to demonstrate their worth. Akutagawa was an orphan who lost the small amount of friends he was protecting, Oda had no organization he was working for, no connections their lives are utterly empty except for their strength so they come to understand killing as something that gives their life meaning and value. If only because there is nothing else for them. 

However, for both of them killing isn’t enough. It’s merely surviving not living. Which is why no matter how strong they become they both remain empty, and they both feel insufficient, and even jealous of others. Oda is jealous of Fuzukawa’s connection to his subordinate, Akutagawa is jealous of Atsushi who is valued and connected to everyone around him and treated better by Dazai. This jealousy is also a realization that they are missing something in themselves but they don’t know what. 

Most skilled hitmen looked down on others as if they were insects. Their eyes were cold and lacked compassion. But this boy’s were different. They weren’t cold or any temperature. They were just empty. Not only was there no compassion or kindness, there was no hate or passion to kill. His eyes were those of a person who had given up on hope and despair - the eyes of a person who had removed himself from emotional things. - BSD LN 3

Both Akutagawa and Oda start at a point where they are killing, not because they enjoy it, or they’re particularly sadistic, or think they are just or right. They kill because it’s the only thing they’re good at. They kill to demonstrate worth. 

This kid’s different from the old me. Perhaps he never felt any joy from killing others. He was probably only killing because he had nothing to do. - BSD LN3

This also plays into a fundamental misunderstanding that Atsushi has of Akutagawa. He basically views Akutagawa as a bully who kills people to flaunt his strength in front of others. 

He doesn’t realize that Akutagawa is strong yes, but that’s all he is. He clings to that strength, because he’s been given no other alternative. He hasn’t been given nearly the opportunities that Atsushi has. If there is a difference between Oda and Akutagawa, Akutagawa is noticably angrier, more resentful, but that’s because anger is the first emotion he ever definitely felt. 

I feel hatred.  I am no longer a dog. I have become a human being with feelings of my own. -’A Heartless Dog’

Akutagawa and Oda are both boys who lived considerably empty lives, that is until they meet somebody who shows them an alternative and changes their lives forever. Oda and Akutagawa meet someone and from then on they want to find meaning in their lives. 

2. An Assassin Who Doesn’t Kill

Akutagawa kills without hesitance, and yet I would say he’s the only character in the manga who values life as much as Oda does. This might seem like a paradox but both of their characters are built around this paradox. That’s why they become mafia members who do not kill. 

Akutagawa’s response to the old man in the latest chapter seems sassy, but Akutagawa’s never sassy, he’s overly serious and sincere about everything. He’s saying what he really thinks. All people are equally alive. Akutagawa is someone especially aware of the value of life, because in the past his life was treated as something so worthless. 

He was not afraid to die. He was thinking perhaps even hell would be a better place to live then here. JJust continuing to live in this state was suffering, after all. 

[...]

What’s the point of our lives? He had once asked travelers in their place this equestion. Why Must I go on living?

It’s because they have both lived through the absolute worst circumstances, that they value life more, and go on searching for these answers. Akutagawa equally treats life as worthless (kills people without hesitation) and also values life (tries to give people a reason to live, tries to justify his own life, tries to fight against the idea that someone from the slums lives a meaningless life). 

When Kyouka finds a reason to live even though he’s not the one that gave it to her, he’s genuinely happy for her. Because Akutagawa values life, and wants people to find a meaning in life even though he kills. 

Akutagawa is currently on the same path Oda is on. The lines in this scene are vague because they’re meant to apply to both Dazai and Akutagawa. He met a certain person, joined a certain organization, and the hope for death in his eyes vanished. 

Oda gave Dazai reason. Dazai gave Akutagawa reason. Oda was also given reason when he met Natsume. All three continue on with a life of empty killing until an outside force intervenes and teaches them there could be something more to life. 

They both come across someone who tells them that there is more to life than just killing. That they are capable of more than that, and they actually follow through and stop killing. Because, Akutagawa, and Oda deep down respect life. As cruel and heartless as they can be, Akutagawa is also one of the most heartfelt and respectful characters in the series when he opens up. 

Akutagawa and Oda are people who understand other people on a level deep down, because they’re genuinely interested in the lives of others. Akutagawa is the only person who thinks about Atushi in a deep way, in ways Atusshi doesn’t even really want to understand himself. Oda is the first person to treat Dazai like a person, behind the genius. They understand, even the ugly parts of people because they don’t really look away from the dark parts of the world, of life, because no one’s experienced life’s cruelty like they have. Oda sees Dazai for who he is, and tells him that helping people probably won’t make him feel good, and that he’ll never feel good, but he should help people anyway because he’s capable of doing good. 

Oda is the one who started the journey in an assassin trying to find meaning in life, but he didn’t finish it. In the end Oda’s character arc ends tragically, and his path is half finished. Because, Oda eventually chooses death. 

I think a lot of people don’t realize this character flaw of Oda, because he’s usually such a good example, but he chose to kill again, chose to become a martyr to Dazai because he genuinely gave up on living when it became too hard for him again. 

“Odasaku...” Dazai said softly. “Forgive me for the absurd wording, but - don’t go. Find something to rely on. Expect good things to happen from here on out. There’s gotta be something...” - BSD, Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era

Oda died because of tragic circumstances yes, but Oda also dies because he chose death. He chose the escape. He chose the easier path. There were still people that needed him even after he lost the orphans, people like Dazai, and Akutagawa who were orphans in need of help as well and Oda chose to let go of them. 

Oda gave up on his attempt to find meaning in life, because the best way to find meaning in life is simply by living it. 

‘People live to say themselves, it’s something they realize right before they die, eh?’ - BSD, Osasmu Dazai and the Dark Era

Oda chooses to die for the sake of someone else, rather than living for himself. While that’s a tragic choice it’s also a bad choice with consequences, because now there’s nobody around to help Dazai and Akutagawa who also appeared in light novel two and who both needed him to some extent. 

In that sense Akutagawa can be stronger than Oda. Their lives are parallels but they’re also exact opposites. Akutagawa starts out by losing every orphan he was trying to take care of. Oda finishes his life when he loses the orphans who he was trying to raise and protect. 

The choice they make in those moemnts is the opposite ones. Akutagawa tries to choose simply revenge at first the exact same way as Oda did, but when he meets Dazai he realizes there was something he wanted even more than revenge. 

The question resounded in Akutagawa’s heart, and a single answer floated to the surface. Something he qished for. His heart’s desire.  The lowest of the low. In a world that was the lowest of the low, it was a wih that could never possibly be granted.  Akuagawa had to force the words out of his dry, trembling throat. “I want to find a reason... a meaning to my life.” - SHORT STORY A HEARTLESS DOG

Akutagawa wants to live for himself, stronger than even Oda did. Whereas, Oda stops wanting everything. 

Dazai paused before continuing. “I would be able to find something - a reason to live.” 

I looked at him; he looked back at me. 

“I wanted to be a novelist.” I said. “I thought I wouldn’t deserve such a life if I killed someone during a mission. That’s why I never killed anyone. But that’s all in the past. There’s only one thing I want now.” - BSD VOLUME 2, Dazai Osamu and the Dark Era

Oda’s words to Dazai to conitnue to live are meaningful, but he’s also a hypocrite to those words. He tells Dazai to live on, when he made the choice to go off and die. While, Akutagawa as dirty, and arduous as his path is, is the one who keeps struggling to live no matter what like a stray dog starving in the streets.

Which is why Akutagawa is the one who is going to finish what Oda started so long ago, and be the true inheritor to his will. Utlimately, I predict, that’s the path his character development and arc are going to take him. 

[arbenia]

The other day on the BBC news I saw a young, educated and eloquent Serbian woman speaking about the life of ordinary citizens under the NATO bombing. The Serbian citizens are afraid, she said. Normal life is more and more difficult. There are power cuts, and people are forced to go several days without access to the Internet. There is also a cigarette shortage. But yes, they are trying to live normally. They go to work, they shop, and they sit in cafes. Of course, the bombing turned the Serbian citizens against NATO, not against Slobodan Milosevic. After all, “bombs are dropping from the sky.”

Clearly, this young woman, like so many Serbs, does not want to understand that her country is at war. They still seem to be thinking, What has all this to do with me? I know this mechanism of denial, because I have seen it before. Serbs by and large ignored the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. It was always happening somewhere else, to somebody else, and they were not involved. It was the Serbian army, the police, the paramilitaries, but not them, the ordinary citizens. But now, when it is happening in Serbia and affecting all of them, they are still somehow surprised.

The young woman on TV used the expression “Serbian citizens,” but her use of this phrase suggested that these Serbian citizens are people struggling to maintain the normality of their daily lives. By “Serbian citizens” she evidently meant only Serbs. Others–that is, Albanians–are simply never mentioned in that context. Their problems are not addressed, by her or other Serbs. In the perception of ordinary Serbs, Albanians are not included in the category of Serbian citizen and therefore are absent from the language as well.

Why? The problem is that Serbs–or anyone else, for that matter–cannot identify with the suffering of others if they are not able to see them as equals. In Yugoslav society Albanians were never visible. There was no need to construct their “otherness”–as, for example, with Jews in prewar Germany or recently with Serbs in Croatia. The Albanians were never integrated into the country’s social, political and cultural life. They existed separately from us, barely visible people on the margins of our society, with their strange language that nobody understood, their tribal organization, blood feuds, different habits and dress. They were always underdogs. What was their place in the Yugoslav literature, in movies and popular culture? What famous Yugoslavs were Albanians? Because of that estrangement, not many voices were raised in protest during the past ten years, when Albanians in Kosovo lived practically under apartheid.

For the older generation, the only visible Albanians were people in white caps coming from Kosovo to their cities to cut wood in the winter. For my generation they were people selling ice cream all over Yugoslavia. They spoke our language with a funny accent and never could pronounce “lemonade” properly. They lived among us, but we chose to ignore them. If we did happen to notice them, we despised them, laughed at them, told jokes about them. I never had an Albanian friend in Zagreb. No one I knew married an Albanian. But the difference between Croats and Serbs was that Croats did not really have to deal with the Albanians; we had no Kosovo.

It was clear that they belonged to a different category from Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins or Slovenes. Serbs could even fight a war against Croats, but they never perceived each other in the same way they both perceive Albanians. The prejudice against Albanians can be compared to that against Jews or blacks or Gypsies in other cultures. Today every Serb will tell you that Albanians multiply like rabbits–that this is their secret weapon in the war they are waging against Serbs in Kosovo. This is not nationalism; this is more or less hidden racism.

The woman on the BBC the other day may be only an ordinary person, but there are other Serbs who should know better and who can’t use the excuse of innocence so easily. They are the people in the opposition. But all one hears from them is their lament about the destruction of democracy and civil society in Serbia. The NATO bombing is to them a savage attack, a terrible act of aggression against a sovereign state–they all use the language of Milosevic’s propaganda. There is “the other Serbia” they say, a better Serbia of the brave people who fought Milosevic all along.

Surely there is another Serbia that will surface once Milosevic is gone. And surely everyone can understand that opposition people are afraid now. One is tempted, however, to ask, Exactly what opposition, what civil society, what “other Serbia” are we talking about? The one that for more than a decade was not able to produce a democratic alternative to Milosevic? The one that never established contacts with Albanians from Kosovo in order to work together for the common future of both nations? If the opposition, political as well as intellectual, ever had anything in common with Milosevic, it was in its attitude toward Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians were a litmus test for the opposition all these years, and they always failed it. Now they are engulfed in self-pity.

An open letter from Vladimir Arsenijevic, a young Serbian writer of some renown, circulating on e-mail, is a striking example of this invisibility of Albanians. In his answer to a friend from Zagreb, who reproached Serbs for their lack of remorse over the situation of the Albanians, he wrote: “On account of lack of pity for the fate of Kosovo Albanians, I know (from my own experience–and I know that I have no bad feelings whatsoever directed toward anybody, least of all Albanians) that it is very hard to care about somebody else’s problems if you are personally experiencing major problems of your own at the same moment. There is no favoritism in this society. Everybody is too busy surviving here to be able to feel any remorse…. Remorse is a privilege of the well-nourished, clean and civilized. And we are all Albanians here. All of us: Serbs, Montenegrins, Hungarians, Slovaks…. Poor, underfed, degraded, oppressed. And I mean ALL of us, even those who have supported Milosevic with all their heart through all these years of terrible hell.”

There is something almost obscene in this sudden “visibility” of Albanians, in the Serbs’ desire to achieve the status of victim through this kind of identification. Albanians remain an abstraction, an empty notion with no real substance, used solely as a means of adding visibility to Serbian suffering, thus denying the Albanian identity once more. I can see this young writer sitting at his computer (there must have been no shortage of power then) in his Belgrade apartment: He sends his e-mail letter, checks the latest war information on the Internet and goes to bed. Meanwhile, his Albanian counterpart, with whose suffering he identifies so much, sits in a tent somewhere in Albania or stands in the mud, waiting to cross the Macedonian border. His house is burned down, his computer–if he ever had one–has been taken by Serbian paramilitaries and he doesn’t know where his family is.

If the young writer considers himself an Albanian, why is he not fleeing to Macedonia or Albania as well? How cynical–or young or innocent or perhaps stupid–do you have to be to say that? It is as grotesque as if the Germans, after World War II, had said, “We were all Jews.” After all, had they not suffered occupation, bombardment, rationing?

The writer means to say that if the Serbs are victims, then how can they possibly have anything to do with the responsibility for this war? Or for the Milosevic regime? War goes deeper than bombardment, and the more we pretend it doesn’t concern us, the more it invades us. War is destructive of the human soul. It corrodes human beings, bringing out things we didn’t know about ourselves. And when he says that remorse is a privilege of civilized people, he puts himself and his nation on the level of people without pity. He is justifying the inhumanity of his people, and that is terrible.

This is what the war is doing to the young writer. But like the woman on the BBC, as well as ordinary people and opposition intellectuals, he is not able to realize that. Precisely this denial, blindness, unconscious racism and cruelty toward other human beings, this lack of remorse (but no lack of self-pity!), is what war is doing to Serbs, and it is much more devastating than NATO bombs. Living with Milosevic’s regime and the war for so long takes its toll. It has changed Serbs in the past ten years, and the rest of the world is witnessing this only now, still puzzled and bewildered by it. It is hard to understand that our acquaintances, our lovers, drinking buddies, philosophers, our once dear friends, are different people. It is even harder to understand that they themselves let that change happen.

`(Slavenka Drakulic, a Croatian-born author, is a Nation contributing editor. Her latest book is A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism.)

[princessjungeun]

I’ll Always Have Your Back: Ryujin x Reader

TW/ the words Panic attack is used once, not in detail. Just the two words :)

Request: Hello, I don't actually know what the (!) is for but can I request a fluff au where ryujin x female reader are interested in each other but either one of them are oblivious?

I combined my one angst idea from earlier along with this one, i think it fits the request too. I based this mostly off of the episode of MIXNINE where Hyunjin moves Heejin from one group to another. If you don’t remember just look it up on youtube, it’s up there!

You woke up nervous but also ready to take on whatever the day threw at you. Today was the very last round of the survival show you’d been cast on. So far you’d dominated the competition, staying in the top five since round 1. Tensions rise as people try their best to steal your spot, it’s especially easy because the person who runs the show doesn’t show any mercy. Contestants can do from 1st to last place in one single performance, something you’ve avoided at all costs.

Out of all the girls in the competition you were friendly with many, close even. But only one girl you actually had a true relationship with. Your best friend and label mate, and lowkey crush Ryujin. You both had known each other for two years already, training together everyday and even sharing a dorm together. You two both relied on each other throughout this competition, talking each other through hardships often too.

You both weren’t really sure why your company chose this show. Due to contract issues with your company, JYP, even if you placed first or were chosen to debut from this show, you couldn’t. For this reason you, Ryujin, and the few other girls from your company were just confused. However, you were told that if you did well here, it’s liken your chances of debuting when the show was over, in JYP.

You found Ryujin in the morning, you two were put in different rooms based on tonight’s performance. You slipped your hand in hers and sat down next to her, resting your hands on your thigh. She looked at you for a minute before smiling and nudging you playfully with her shoulder. The host of the show met you all along with the PD-nim that ran the show.

“Good morning ladies.” The host welcomed you all with a smile. “As usual you all will choose teams based on song, you all will choose by rank, those on top get first pick. Those on the bottom will get whatever is left over. You all will prepare all week and perform at the end of the week. Please choose your teams wisely as this is your last performance, there is no opportunity for redemption. This weeks songs are Gee, Girls Generation. The other option is Simon Says, NCT 127.”

The room bustled with excited whispers and laughs, girls already knowing where they wanted to go. Ryujin didn’t say anything as she was thinkihh nag deeply about where she wanted to go. You asked “what are you picking?” She snapped out of her trance then said “Gee...I always do the boy songs or girl crush songs. I want to do cute this time.” You felt a pit form in your stomach because you knew that was a bad idea.

Last time Ryujin was on the team that did a cute song she was moved from second place to tenth. She claimed she just had an off day but you knew that it was because she wasn’t skilled enough in that area yet. Ryujin was a dancer who fit boy group dances the best, she had a lot of power. She didn’t have the cute factor yet, that she was still learning in your company. You on the other hand were better at the cute concept songs, however you liked the boy group and girl crush songs better. You liked dancing powerfully rather than cutesy.

You asked her “but what about what happened last time? You’re not scared?” She responded confidently “not at all. I know what I have to do differently now. Plus Simon Says choreography is too hard to dance to while singing, my vocal isn’t stable enough...I can’t.” You sighed and let her have it her way, you knew now was not the time to tell her what you really thought.

The cameras were ready to start filming and it was time to choose groups. The PD-nim sat at the head of the room, watching you all choose. They went by tank calling your name first. “Y/N, please choose your team.” You walked over to the side for Simon Says, out of the corner of your eye you saw the PD-nim nod his head ever so sightly. Next was Ryujin “Shin Ryujin, please choose your team.” She walked to the Gee sode, and once again you noticed the PD-nim. But this time he shook his head softly, nobody noticing but you. A few people whispered and there was a moment of silence before the next name was called.

You all waited until the very last girl was called, only then could you all break off to go practice. In your group was a mix of skill levels, most of them were dancers but had great vocal stability. The other two were the ones who got last place and forcibly had to join.

You all spend an hour distributing parts making sure that you al chose ones that best suited your abilities. You as the leader of the group wanted everyone to have an equal opportunity at success, especially those who weren’t in the top ten.

You tried your best not to be distracted by the fact that you knew Ryujin was unintentionally sabotaging herself only a door over. One of the girls on your team spoke up, “how about we break for five minutes, you seem distracted?” You nodded and said “everyone do whatever for five, just be back on time ok?” Everyone around you nodded and the oldest girl on your team sat down next to you.

“Whats on your mind love?” Haseul placed a hand on your back and rubbed it softly. You responded “Ryujin...she made a stupid decision.” Haseul asked “why do you say that?” You told her “Ryujin isn’t fit for a cute concept yet. She can pull off almost anything you throw at her but cute isn’t one of them. She knows that too. Back in our company she struggles whenever she does a cute song for evaluations. I understand she wants to try new things but here, with her own debut on the line. This is a terrible idea. I know she’ll be knocked right out of the top ten after the end of the week.”

Haseul nodded and said “well I think that given where she is now, and the fact that some girls in this group aren’t fit for this concept either, you shouldn’t worry so much. Ryujin is an amazing performer and you know that. Who knows? She could surprise us right?” You sighed and nodded “yeah you’re right...thanks unnie.” She nodded then stood up, reaching out to help you too.

Your group practiced all day until nightfall. All trainees were now in the same room from this morning, ready to be dismissed to your dorms.

The host and PD-nim walked in, a smile ghosting his face. The PD-nim sat down then spoke up “good evening ladies, you all have worked hard today yes?” You all nodded in unison with smiles hoping it could cover your exhausted faces. He spoke up “as usual, I have a surprise up my sleeve.”

You all looked at each other nervously not knowing what to expect. He’s thrown almost every curveball at you all and now you don’t know what could be next. He’s changed songs, language of the song, swapped members out of his own choice, last minute role reversals. Everything you could think of, he’s done it.

He continued “the girl who is currently holding first place, has the opportunity to switch someone from one team to another. She may switch someone with someone else, or switch herself with another girl. It is purely her choice.” He looked at you “Y/N, you are currently holding first. You have five minutes to make your decision. You may go outside now, everyone else back to your practice rooms please.”

Everyone walked back to their rooms, Haseul and another unnie kept the other girls on your team from trying to convince you to swap them with someone else. You sat down in a corner far from everyone else not knowing what to do. As much as you wanted this song performance to be your last, you knew you had to switch you and Ryujin.

You knew that swapping yourself into Gee would make you look like you played it safe, but it was the only option. If you stayed here there was a chance you’d not do as well as you’d hoped. More importantly if Ryujin stayed with Gee, she’d make at most 12th place which was a huge drop from 2nd.

A producer came to get you from the practice room, you turned around on your way out. You waved to the rest of your group, you told them “take care of her when she comes in please...” They gave you smiles and big thumbs up in hopes it would wipe away the look of worry that masked your face.

Slowly, you opened the door to the Gee room, everyone sitting in the room looked at you. Ryujin smiled along with everyone else but you knew it’d be short lived. You knew how much she wanted this and how she felt that this was the only one she’d do well with. Toying with your fingers you looked down at your feet before saying “I’m switching someone here...and they’re going to Simon Says team...”

Everyone looked at you anxiously, however Ryujin showed no sign of worry. You could tell she was under the impression that you weren’t going to move her. After all you were her best friend, you wouldn’t do that to her, well that’s what she told herself.

You continued “I’m switching myself with...Ryujin-ah.” The room fell silent and you locked eyes with the black haired girl. She didn’t have a readable look on her face. She asked “wait...are you serious?” You nodded and said “you’d better get going...they’re waiting for you”. You saw a look of betrayal and fear wash over her face. You knew she lacked confidence in her ability to perform this song. You knew she wanted this song more than anything else despite you knowing it was a bad idea.

She got up and walked out silently, you could tell she was trying her best to hold back tears. You didn’t have the time to explain to her your reasoning, she just thought you were trying to sabotage her. That you didn’t think about her, only yourself.

The second you heard the door close you could hear her crying. You wanted to run out and pull her into your arms. You yearned to tell her why you did this but you couldn’t. The girls in your new group asked “why would you do that?” You responded “it’s for her own good...” Your voice cracked and another girl from your company wrapped an arm around you gently. That was all it took for you to cave into her, sobbing softly. She ans other girls surrounded me in a group hug and told you various things to try and console you.

When you all were called back into the large room your PD-nim smiled at the sight of you and Ryujin having switched places. You sat down and leaned back just slightly to see if you could spot Ryujin. She was sitting down next to Haseul, eyes puffy and red with tear streaks on her cheeks. Your PD-nim dismissed you all and you immediately walked over to Ryujin in hopes that she’d hear you out.

That hope was short lived, when you approached her she dodged your hug and said “no...just stop.” You left it at that knowing it was best if you let her have her space, no matter how much it hurt you.

Luckily Haseul was your roommate in this dorm, immediately she came to your side once you all were in your rooms. She told you “she’s not happy as you saw, she doesn’t understand and thinks you weren’t thinking at all.” You asked her “did you try and explain to her?” The older girl told you “it’s not anyone’s place but yours. She wouldn’t believe us anyways, give her time ok?” You hugged her and said “yeah thanks Haseul.”

•

•

•

All week Ryujin ignored you, anytime you made eye contact with her all you saw was hurt and betrayal in her eyes. You couldn’t get away to talk to her as cameras and producers watched your every move.

It was now the day before the final performance and you absolutely couldn’t focus. Guilt was eating you alive and you wondered if you actually did make the right choice. All you wanted was to hold her in your arms and explain yourself, you couldn’t focus on anything at this point.

You were snapped out of your thoughts when a producer came in and pulled two cameramen into the hallway. The girls in your group followed to the door out of curiosity and saw Haseul and two other girls with Ryujin walking to the bathroom. You asked a producer what happened and he responded “panic attack”.

Your heart just continued to break throughout the day, thinking about how none of this would have happened if you just let her stay in Gee team.

At the end of the day you went to your dorm, Haseul was already there. You asked her “what happened today...is she ok?” Haseul responded “yeah. She’s ok now. She was overwhelmed with the moves, she was getting the counts wrong for half of practice. The she messed up the words too, it was too much and...well you saw.” You nodded and sighed before deciding to just sleep off whatever you were feeling.

•

•

•

It was fifteen minutes before your performance and your group was going second. Team Simon Says was first meaning the Ryujin was first up. You anxiously watched the monitors backstage praying that she’d do well or this was all for nothing and you’d feel even worse than you already did. Seeing the girls walk onstage before the song started, Ryujin looked nervous.

The second the music started however, it was like a switch flipped. She shone onstage and looked more natural than ever. More importantly she looked like she was enjoying herself even if she truly wasn’t. At the end of the performance the PD-nim made comments. He told certain girls that they did well, other not so much. He spoke about everyone but Ryujin until the very end.

He said “Ryujin-ssi. You did very well here. This stage wouldnt have been the same if you weren’t here. If I remember correctly you were originally on team Gee correct?” Ryujin nodded, toying with her fingers nervously. He continued “you need to be grateful Y/N switched you with her. If you were on that team, I guarantee you wouldn’t be anywhere near the place I’ve marked you at. Well done today.” She bowed and thanked him with a smile before walking with her team offstage.

Your team performed and did very well too. The PD-nim gave his commentary to everyone first. Saving his last comments for you.

He told you “Y/N-ssi, you switched yourself with Ryujin, I would like to know why.” You hesitated then spoke up “well you see... um. Ryujin-ah, she is a very talented dancer. And she is fully capable of doing a cute concept such as this. However, she can struggle sometimes with pulling it off 100%. But with me, I know I can do cute concepts a little better because my dance isn’t as strong as hers...I envy that sometimes. But anyways. I knew that if I switched her with me, there’s a higher chance of her staying on top, even if it means I have to play it safe and potentially lose first place.”

He nodded then concluded “so you moved her so she could take first and debut, even if that meant you don’t get to?” You nodded said “yeah...that’s exactly it.” He smiles and said “well done Y/N-ssi.” He dismissed your team and sent everyone backstage.

You and Ryujin’s team were separated by room, your teammates anxiously sitting around waiting with you. Your ranks were to be released momentarily, however the debut list depended on whatever the audience and PD-nim wanted. That lineup would be released

When you all were called back onstage Ryujin was still far apart from you. She stood at the far end of her group while you were in the front of yours.

The PD-nim told you “I will release names from the bottom up, please watch the screen closely for your name.”

The screen across from him lit up, trainees names appearing slowly. You waited and waited your name not showing up at the bottom or middle, Ryujin’s doing the same. The screen revealed the top five at once. Your name was at five, Ryujin’s four slots above yours, she placed 1st. You froze in your spot seeing that your plan had worked, she was in first, even if that meant you weren’t.

•

•

•

Cameras were finally off and you all were finally able to relax some. Ryujin came to you, she asked “outside?” You nodded and looked around before sneaking outside your dorm building.

She turned to you and threw herself in your arms, holding you close. “I’m so sorry Y/N, I didn’t give you a chance to explain yourself and that was wrong...I’m sorry.” You told her “it’s ok, I just wanted you to do well, I know that we can’t debut from here but I wanted your odds to increase for when we go back home.”

She stated “you’re too good for me, I don’t deserve you in my life...” You told her “don’t say that Ryu, you and I both know that’s not true.” She told you “i don’t know why you always do these things for me, no matter what will happen to you, you just make sure i’ll be the one on top in the end.”

You laughed to yourself and said “you do crazy things when you’re in love I guess...” Ryujin turned to you “w-what?” You told her “I love you Ryujin. I’ve loved you since the day you taught me the choreography on my first day of training. I really really love you.”

She slipped her hand out of yours and pressed your back against the brick wall of your dorm building. She flushed her body against yours and kissed you, cupping your face softly.

Ever so quietly she told you “I love you too Y/N. So so much.” You pulled her in and hugged her closely, tucking her head in your neck. Kissing the top of her head softly you smiled to yourself. You told her as you ran your hands through her hair, “I’ll always have your back Ryu.” She replied, her soft lips ghosting your skin “and i’ll always have yours.”

[silvormoon]

My Hero

A little vignette set in my superhero universe. Juudai’s been giving his all to being a good hero. Sometimes, he just needs someone to give a little something back.

It wasn’t easy, being the most powerful super in the world.

That sounded trite. Worse, it sounded self-congratulatory, a way of boasting that he, Yuuki Juudai, had much grander and more important problems than the humdrum things mere mortals had to deal with. It conjured up images of some movie star or millionaire lounging on their sofa sipping champagne while they talked about how stressful their life was.

And the point was that it wasn’t easy for Juudai, and he didn’t even get the champagne to make up for it. Granted, his life did tend to involve a lot of sofas, but mainly in the, “Can I crash here tonight?” kind of way. The hardest part was that he knew he could change that if he wanted to. He could make himself famous overnight. He could have as much money as he wanted. People would line up for miles to get the kind of treatment he could provide. He could make the world his oyster, if he wanted to, or crush it under his heel, and no one would be able to stop him. That was the whole reason why he worked in the dark, kept his name out of the papers, and slept in a tent or on friends’ sofas and spare beds, earned money doing odd jobs when he had any money at all, and spent a lot of time second-guessing himself.

But he wasn’t doing any second-guessing tonight. Tonight, he had found the hideout of a gang of criminals who had been peddling a bogus drug they claimed would give people temporary superpowers. What it did was to give the user a sense of euphoria, a feeling that they were all-powerful and omniscient. Several people had died from jumping off buildings or doing other equally risky things under the influence of the drug, and Juudai had decided someone needed to put a stop to it.

Just now, he was waiting near the front door of the lab. Yubel was standing over the collection of about a dozen men they’d captured together and was giving them all vicious glares if any of them so much as breathed too loudly. Juudai was aware of a few more who had fled out the back door, but he and Yubel had managed to capture the three ringleaders, so he doubted the operation would be starting up again any time soon. They had been using some specific know-how blended with the application of some unique superpowers to synthesize the drug, and those powers were gone now. It was a shame, really. A power to synthesize chemicals like that would have been invaluable to the medical community. Perhaps if this man learned his lesson, Juudai would let him have it back someday.

For now, he watched as a number of police officers warily approached the building.

“It’s okay!” Juudai called out to them. “My partner and I have things pretty well nailed down here.”

The lead officer edged a little closer. He was eyeing Juudai warily, and Juudai didn’t blame him. Most supers at least tried to look like superheroes when they were on the job. Juudai was wearing ragged jeans, hiking boots, a fleece-lined brown leather jacket that had obviously seen a great deal of life, and a T-shirt advertising a band called Sugar Snow. He looked more like a college student out for a beer than a superhero.

“Doing a little spur-of-the-moment heroing, are you?” asked the officer suspiciously. “Care to show me your license?”

Juudai produced his ID card and flicked it towards the officer, who caught it neatly out of the air.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, and ran it through a scanner at his waist. He looked at the results. His eyebrows rose. He scrolled rapidly through the rest of the file, then looked back at Juudai.

“You’re the Haou?” he asked.

Juudai shrugged. “Apparently. I mean, I didn’t come up with the name, but it’s sort of stuck to me now so I figured I might as well own it.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I didn’t think you were real,” said the officer, handing his card back.

Juudai shoved the ID back in his pocket. “Yeah, well, I like to keep a low profile.”

“I can certainly understand that, sir,” said the officer, a bit more respectfully. “But I would like to see some proof, if you don’t mind. May I...?”

“Huh? Oh, sure,” said Juudai, who had been through this song and dance before. There were ways that a villain could disguise themselves as a hero, many of them quite hard to detect. S-levels, though, tended to stay stable, so one way of proving a person was who they said they were was to test their blood and see if their S-levels matched what was printed on their ID card. It wasn’t foolproof, since it was possible for two people to have the same S-levels, even if the odds of any two people matching were one in several hundred. Nobody, however, had levels like Juudai. He offered his finger to be pricked, and watched as the numbers on the little scanner lit up. It showed 9999, just as it always did.

“You are him,” said the officer. He was visibly impressed now.

“Yeah, that’s me,” said Juudai uneasily. “Look, we’ve got these guys all tied up in the back, so if you wanna...?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said the officer.

Uniformed men poured into the building and started doing official things. Juudai watched a little while to make sure everything was going as it should, then quietly slipped away when no one was looking.

“I wish they wouldn’t always do that,” he complained, woefully regarding his finger. “Just because I’m famous doesn’t give people the right to punch me full of holes.”

“You don’t have to let them do it,” said Yubel.

“I know,” he said. “It’s just not fair. If I had a normal power like flying or punching holes in walls or laser vision, no one would ever ask if I am who I say I am. They’d just go, ‘oh, you’re Wonder Guy, can I have your autograph?’”

Yubel gave him a knowing look. “And you’d want that, would you?”

“Not really,” Juudai admitted. “Well, maybe a little.”

“Do you know what your problem is?”

Juudai smirked. “I’m sure you have a list.

Through all he’d done in the years since he’d left school, Yubel had been his constant companion. Juudai had promised, after all, that they would stay together once they had found each other, and Yubel took him at his word. Through rain and snow, through train delays and cancelled flights, through cheap motels and leaky tents, gang wars and monster battles and helping lost children find their parents, whatever Juudai did, Yubel did too. Even on those days when everything went wrong and they were both feeling thoroughly sick of each other, Juudai was always thankful that he didn’t have to do all this alone.

“I think,” said Yubel, “that you’re burned out.”

“What do you mean, burned out?” said Juudai. “It’s not like I do very much. Mostly we just travel.”

“That still counts as doing things,” Yubel pointed out. “Anyway, you know what I mean. I’ve been watching you. You’re all give and no get. You do all these wonderful things but you don’t stick around to enjoy the thanks, because you’re afraid it will go to your head. Sooner or later, you’re bound to run out of give.”

Juudai scowled. “You know...”

“I know why you do things the way you do. You don’t want the whole world beating a path to your door demanding you give them all godlike superpowers, or take the powers away from people you don’t like,” said Yubel. “I’m just saying, it might be time for a vacation.”

Juudai knew his laugh sounded forced. “I don’t exactly have money for a tropical vacation.”

“Then ask one of your friends. Any one of them would let you stay with them for a while.” Yubel smiled. “It wouldn’t hurt to relive your school days for a while. Do you remember all the fun we had? The annual snowball fight, staying up late telling ghost stories, eating popcorn and watching movies in the common room...”

“Yeah, I remember,” said Juudai. He smiled a little. “Those were the good old days. Man, I’d give a lot to have another go at some of those games we used to play in Chronos’s class. Remember the time you got tangled up in that net so bad they had to cut you loose?”

Yubel huffed. “I could have gotten out if I’d wanted to.”

“I know,” said Juudai. He took out his phone and poked at it for a moment. “Hey, you know, there’s a gym close by that has those reinforced training rooms for playing capture the flag and stuff. We could see if we could scrape up a team. And then we could, I dunno, grab a pizza or some ramen or something, and then maybe catch a movie? And tomorrow I’ll call around and see if any of our friends mind having a couple of house guests for a few days.”

Yubel grinned. “Now you’ve got the idea.”

Juudai grinned back. “Knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

Yubel reached for his hand. “You keep me around for a lot of reasons.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Juudai. “Come on. Mission ‘Have Some Fun For A Change’ is officially under way.”

They began making their way towards their destination. Somewhere in the distance, Juudai could hear sirens. There was always something going on in a big city like this, and a part of him itched to be part of the action, but he knew Yubel was right. Sometimes, the person he needed to protect was himself. He was lucky he had someone by his side to remind him of that.

It doesn’t matter how strong I am, he thought. Sometimes I still need a hero, too. He was glad he’d found one.

“So, Yubel, what movie do you want to see?”

“I don’t know. What’s playing?”

“Well, there’s one about this secret agent who...”

“I am not sitting through another movie full of cars exploding. Pick something else!”

“I didn’t say I wanted to see that one!”

“No, but you were thinking it.”

Laughing and bantering with each other, they walked away, hand in hand.

[eldunea]

Will Magic and the Divine Power of Humanity

there are six elements to altean magic: white, black, fire, water, air and earth. the latter four are known as the physical magics, whereas the former two are called the metaphysical magics. of the magical forms, white is said to be the strongest, followed by black, and then fire/water/air/earth are the next step down and are all equally strong. the most powerful specific form is a white-element practice known as will magic.

will magic is the ability to control the flow of events, particularly historical events, just by thinking of their course. it is the deepest and most powerful of all altean magics, and it is one that for alteans takes centuries to master. it is subtle, never manifesting in huge explosions (fire magic) or ferocious bolts of lightning (air magic), but rather in the ebb and flow of the future’s currents. it’s also distinct from other forms of magic due to--and this is the most important part--the lack of apparent or actual effort from the caster, to the point that it is impossible to prove without an advanced magic tracer whether any magic was used at all. for example, let’s say you have a crush on a guy who you’ve never spoken to and who doesn’t even know you exist. directly going into his mind and mind-controlling him to be your boyfriend is not will magic, it’s psychic abilities (and also a really shitty use of them). but if you merely wish that he becomes your boyfriend and events transpire to bring you together without you doing anything else supernatural, that is will magic.

will magic is extremely powerful once perfected--if there is no equally powerful magic going against it, it basically allows the caster to get anything they want. however, it takes a very monklike mentality to master; in the same way that you need to give your life at oriande to receive the secret of life, you need to accept a complete lack of control in order to harness the secret of complete control. (this explains why lotor has never been able to master will magic--he tries so hard to control everyone and everything around him!) not only that, in the early stages--which could last for a century or more--you won’t be able to get much of anything, because the more improbable your wish is, the stronger the magic you need. going back to the boyfriend example--if he’s a fellow college student, it doesn’t take much magic to chuck the two of you together in the same mandatory class and have the teacher pair you up for the semester’s first project. but if he’s a super-famous celeb who you currently have no real way of meeting, you need to be like a level 100 will magic caster to draw him in and you probably aren’t.

for their one million years of existence, alteans have pondered the depths of will magic--a great universal secret that they have only ever scratched the surface of understanding. they did, however, have some idea of the genes that could make will magic possible. during the first altean empire and their creation of the human race through experimentation, they experimented on inserting will magic genes into us and tweaking them; they used us in the same way that medicines are tested on animals first, as a basis for whether they could enhance their own genetic code to create the potential for will magic that can dominate the universe. but testing early human will magic did not work, since even their most advanced magic tracers at the time proved inadequate to demonstrate whether will magic existed in us--and nobody could agree on any other signs of proof. eventually, we were given up as magicless flops, and abandoned to live on our own. but the alteans’ attempts at creating the ultimate will magic users did not fail. in fact, they succeeded exponentially more than any of the scientists ever dared think.

humans are, in fact, a deeply magical species. we may not be able to cast lightning bolts or create illusions like our altean ancestors, but our will magic is the most powerful in the universe. unlike other magical races, who may spend lifetimes studying the craft and never mastering it, we have the capacity to use it flawlessly from the moment we’re born. thanks to our genetic code, we are the only species in the universe who has managed to bypass the drastic mindset shift of accepting lack of control to get will magic. many humans, no matter who they are or how they think, can use will magic to an extent that poor lotor--and many other alteans--can only dream of.

our will magic outdistances that of even the semidivine alteans. even a newborn human baby has more potential for will magic in their little finger than some adult alteans have in their entire bodies. alteans angst over perfecting this elusive craft for decades and even centuries, but when a human child makes a simple wish upon a star, they’re almost bound to get what they want without even trying. on a broader scale, entire altean peoples have tried and failed to will the course of history to their benefit. but the overthrow of monarchies, the veneration of human rights, the continued survival of so many peoples who were threatened with extermination--that was the power of human will magic at work. we would never have emerged from our feudal chains into a world of democracy and prosperity without our species’ indomitable will to make the world better; the spirit of democracy itself is a product of our hidden divinity, a manifestation of our subconscious understanding that we are truly governed not by emperor’s edicts but by the power invested in each of us. when republics around the world say they rule by the will of the people, they literally rule by the will of the people.

our immense amounts of will magic also explain why our lifespans of 100 years are so short compared to the 1,500-year lives of our predecessors. the sheer amount of divine power within our bodies ages us faster, burning us out like candles--in contrast to the alteans, who have just enough divinity to live extremely long lives. also, ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy? that’s will magic at work--if you keep telling yourself the narrative that you can’t do something, you’re magically cursing yourself to never do it. but the most important thing in this post that human will magic entails? it’s the reason why team voltron has won every single fight that was ever depicted in the voltron series. voltron is ridiculously overpowered and more or less unbeatable because it combines an incredibly strong manifestation of altean alchemy with five of the strongest will magicians in the universe: the paladins. voltron unites the supernatural best of the universe’s most magically powerful species, creating a juggernaut that only gods themselves can truly oppose.

our wishes decide our fates. our thoughts carve the course of history. knowing this, descartes’ famous saying deserves an addition:

We think, therefore we are. We think, therefore it is.

[haveyouseenthis]

GO生, Stray Kids | Review PART II

Pt. II

“...’God’s Menu’ was born”

Every second of the song captivated me. Every scene in the M/V was intriguing and sucked me in. I never rewatch M/Vs - ever. I’ve never been one to stream it a million times for the view count to go up. No way. My attention span is waay too short for that

“God’s Menu”, though. 

Wow.

I’ve had to have watched it 40 times since it came out, at least. And the thing is, it’s not my STAY self trying to accumulate views for the boys (although they do deserve it). It’s myself watching it just to watch it. It’s so good. I know exactly what scene is coming, the exact part. I know how the music is about to change and who is going to be center in the next shot, but despite this, it still gives me chills every time.

I think there are a couple reasons for that. One obviously being the song itself, but the other being the phenomenal camerawork. The cameramen and editors have always been the unsung heroes of k-pop and M/Vs in general, but they really outdid themselves this go-around. All the transitions were heavenly. You can tell they didn’t just throw them in there for shock value, but truly thought about where they would have the most impact.

The sets are also amazing. Somehow a transition from kitchen to construction site not only works, but is seamless. All the racetrack scenes also fit in perfectly. 

I started to ask myself why these sets worked so well together. What did a master chef’s kitchen, a construction site, and a racetrack have in common? Anything?

Well, maybe more than you think.

All around the world master chefs retreat into their kitchen to experiment with new recipes and cook up ones never seen before. At construction sites blueprints drawn up by architects are used to build amazing towers are intricate buildings. At the racetracks, old stars and rookies are holding onto their fame or making a name for themselves, fighting for the lead on every lap.

Stray Kids are cooking up their hits in the kitchen, laying the foundation for their success with their hardhats on, and then accelerating past all the competition.

As previously stated, “God’s Menu” is their best song, hands down. But every song on the album brings something to the table. Because of this, GO生 might just be their best release yet… 

My Top Five:

神메뉴 (God’s Menu)

Easy

비행기 (Airplane)

청사진 (Blueprint)

일상 (Another Day/Daily Life)

“God’s Menu” was hard-hitting hip hop in a way I haven’t heard or seen before from SKZ. As I’ve already said, it’s easily the best song they’ve released, including B-sides. Every verse is well crafted, the pre-chorus is catchy and serves as the nice mellow tone the song needed for the vocalists to really shine, and the chorus is a masterpiece of simple onamonapia and tangy flavor (see what I did there~) with strong choreography. The song is shockingly short, especially considering it’s a title track. However, it still feels solid. It’s a full course meal in less than three minutes. That’s so impressive, to me at least. I can’t be the only one who feels like the song is much longer than it is because it’s so immersive.

My favorite parts include Changbin’s “Yes, sir and ma’am / welcome” intro,  the first verse, and the second verse. Changbin’s intro sets the tone immediately. The “sir and ma’am” is almost sassy in context. It’s like he’s truly welcoming us into a restaurant, but there is that eerie undertone of “you don’t know what you’re in for”. I love that Han gets to rap the entire first verse. Not only does it make sense because he is a main rapper, but it sounds better than if it has been split between several people as verse 2 had. There is a clear split about halfway through the first verse where they could have switched to another member, but they stayed with Han, and I think that makes the song so much more powerful, especially since it comes at the beginning. Unlike verse one, verse two splits its lines between five different members. And it works perfectly. I wouldn’t have changed anything at all. Felix’s low voice oozes charisma and is the perfect way to pull listeners deeper into the song after the chorus, and Seungmin and I.N.’s cocky, drawing sound pairs perfectly with that. Chan’s voice and attitude fits wonderfully for his “자물쇠 따 싹 다 unlock / Idea bank 머릿속을 털어 털어” (“All the locks unlock / Idea bank, empty your head, empty it”) part. It’s also a fitting part for him as the main producer of the group. Hyunjin is the perfect person to wrap up the verse. His demanding attitude paired with his visuals as he says “비밀재료가 궁금하다면 / 사실 우린 그딴 거 안 써” (“Wonder what’s our secret ingredient / We don’t use such a thing”) deliver the line in a way no one else in the group could.

And, can we talk about that line for a minute, T? What a statement. It’s on the same flex level as “Daechwita”. “Oh, how are we so good? What’s our secret? How are we cutting corners to get here? We aren’t.”

I also really like that “Go Live,” “God’s Menu,” and “Easy,” feel like a trilogy. It’s a nice way to start the album because it gets the listener immersed immediately.

To have“Easy” follow “God’s Menu” is maybe the best decision made on this tracklist. Still just as proud and cocky as its predecessor, “Easy” talks about how Stray Kid’s don’t just turn the tables or meet expectations, they flip the table over and exceed the expectations - all with ease. 

My favorite part in “Easy” is the bridge, and I’ve found a few different translations of it:

Zaty Farhani’s “Easy” lyric video translates the bridge as “Showing off is all for show, what are you doing getting all scared? / The brave ugly-duckling turns the table / Let’s raise the stakes as you’ve wished / or do it my way”

Color Coded Lyrics’s (CCL) blog translates it as: “What’s the point of being braggy / When you’re just eating up your fear / A loser with courage will turn the tables around / Let’s make it to the next round, as you want / Or I’ll mess around with my own way”

Genius Lyrics translates the part as: “Your words are just bragging / What are you doing while being all coward? / A brave loser has overtook everything / Let's make this game even more big as you wanted / Or just screw it and do it my way”

All of them amount to about the same thing: “You have to show off and brag to prove your worth and rise to the top but we don’t. We know where we came from, and we know what we are, but we will go farther because of this. We’ll take over the world our way,”.

“비행기 (Airplane)” ends the “Go-God’s-Easy” trilogy with it’s lighter hip-hop sound. It’s a love song. The narrator speaks of taking an airplane to a vacation spot with his girlfriend as a metaphor for the two of them traveling to their own world where they can be happy together. What really draws me to this song is its style and sound. The track reminds me a little of “Mixtape : Gone Days”,  with it’s lighter feel. It’s a nice example of a lighthearted love song. I don’t have as much to say about this one, I just really like it. There isn’t any deep meaning in the lyrics for me to dive into (unless you’re into speculating the composer's relationship status. Bang Chan and Changbin wrote “Airplane” in collaboration with others so it’s possible the lyrics came from them or one of the other three composers. Maybe all of them are just good enough at imagining situations to write things like this. We’ll never know.)

“청사진 (Blueprint)” comes in 4th for me, but really 3rd-5th place may as well be equal. The three songs have the same energy to me, especially “Blueprint” and “Airplane”. I like “Blueprint” for its folk-inspired pop sound. It reminds me of AKMU, which I’m sure T digs. It’s not SKZ’s usual sound, but they sing it well and have made it their own. I smile every time it comes on. The lyrics have a wonderful message about overcoming and accomplishing your dreams despite the odds and the people out to get you. Very sweet, and the message reminds me of that of many of their old songs.

“일상 (Another Day/Daily Life)” is the closest thing to a ballad we’ve gotten from the boys.

The beginning count reminds me of NCT 127’s “Boom” and the overall sound reminds me of NCT Dream’s “Puzzle Piece”.

While the first time I listened to it I could easily tell it was a sad and mournful song about something, I wasn’t expecting to tear up while reading the lyrics on my 3rd listen.

It hurts so much. It’s so beautiful. The song tells the story of the narrator (Han wrote it, it’s absolutely about him and his anxiety) as he reflects on himself and his situation, wondering if he’s the only one feeling the way he is, wondering if he is the only one putting on an act every day, and wondering if it’s evening convincing.

But I guess that painfully beautiful tune fits with the message. The notes are so sweet they make you want to cry. And that’s how it feels to go through what the narrator is dealing with. Everything you’re doing looks beautiful. You seem perfect, but if anyone really takes time to listen, they will hear your hurt.

He was a young teenager and was forced to deal with so many pressures (“I’m still so young, but I have so many worries”/”So much worries for such a young child”) during training, and then debut.

After that line, we get to the hard truth of the industry. Of course companies care about their idols, but only to a point. After that, it’s “Just do what you're supposed to be doing well” and “Just do your job properly”. In other words, “Okay, great, you’re going through something. Get over it.”.

CCL translation: “When I pushed my way into this dark room / Did anybody bother to look back at me? / I barely managed to make it through this hard day / How many times did I smile, and were they genuine smiles? // I find the way I’m trapped in my thoughts funny / I’m still so young, but I have so many worries / Just do what you’re supposed to be doing well / Nobody knows anything about how empty my heart feels / And I hate how / All they know how to do is laugh it off”

Genius translation: “The day I forced my way into the dark room / Would at least one person have turned to look at me / Me, who barely lived through another day / How many times have I laughed, but were those sincere? // Myself deep in thought looks funny / So much worries for such a young child / Just do your job properly / Without knowing about my empty heart / Just laughing over it, I don't like that”

I think it’s fitting that the only parts Han gets opens and close the song. It just draws more attention to the fact that it’s his story. He’s opening the door for him and others to talk about their feelings, and once they’ve covered it all, he closes it back up. 

I don’t have too many complaints about this album. A couple, maybe.

One would be that  “TOP”, “SLUMP”, “Mixtape : Gone Days”, and “Mixtape : On Track/바보라도 알아” were released separate from this album, so they stick out from the other 10 tracks. I’m glad they were all grouped together at the end and not sporadically placed between songs like “Easy” and “Pacemaker”. 

“Gone Days” sticks out the most because of its playful hip-hoppy sound that is reminiscent of previous tracks such as “Awkward Silence” and “Get Cool”. I’m not particularly fond of the fact that it is the only one that sounds as it does, but I suppose it is just the same thing they did with “Get Cool” and “Awkward Silence”’s respective mini albums. Both songs were the only ones of their kind on their albums and feel a little out of place. I think I was able to get accustomed to it quicker as being on mini albums there was a smaller tracklist, therefore drastic tone changes between songs weren’t as novel. 

Go Live’s sound alternates (mainly) between two different styles. There are louder, harder hip-hop songs like “God’s Menu” “TA” and “Pacemaker”, and then we have what I’ve dubbed “The Quiet Trilogy” with “Airplane”, “Another Day”, and “Blueprint”. Songs like “Phobia” and “Haven” seen to sit solidly in between the two styles.

But “Gone Days” and “On Track” don’t sound like anything else on this tracklist. “Gone Days” has an over-saturated upbeat take on hip-hop, and “On Track” has a ballad inspired sound (honestly it vaguely reminds me of OSTs for dramas…) to it. This makes the transition from beginning of album to end shocking, and I’m not overly fond of that.

My other issue is that the rest of the track-list simply pales in comparison to its title track. “God’s Menu” was so powerful, so overwhelming for me that it made the rest of the album underwhelming.

Maybe that’s a compliment, actually? At least as far as “God’s” is concerned. I don’t know…

I think I’ll get used to it after a few more listens. (Future Kasin: I did and I love it <3)

One thing is for sure: if they master making every song deliver the same punch as “God’s Menu”, I’ll be done for.

I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Go Live on Spotify

Links PT II:

神메뉴 (God’s Menu) Lyrics (Han/Rom/Eng)

“Easy” lyric video

Color Coded Lyrics Stray Kids Discography

Color Coded Lyrics Stray Kids “Easy”

Genius Lyrics Stray Kids “Easy” English translation

Color Coded Lyrics Stray Kids “비행기 (Airplane)”

Genius Lyrics Stray Kids “비행기 (Airplane)”

Color Coded Lyrics “청사진 (Blueprint)” 

Genius Lyrics “청사진 (Blueprint)”

NCT 127 Boom

NCT Dream Puzzle Piece

Color Coded Lyrics “일상 (Another Day/Daily Life)”

Part I

[icefrozendeadlyqueen]

Twisted Creed: Chapter 23 - intrigued by you

A/N: This is one of the hardest chapter I had to write.. I didn’t know where to start or how to end it. I was afraid that I would walk myself to a wall. There are certainly some mistake if you see any let me know. If anyone would like to be tagged on any of the stories or masterlist. Let me know :D

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A cool breeze rushes by my cheeks. My top hat covering the shades of the afternoon sun. I finished up Greenie's favors this morning. It has been a month since I found My Mystery Girl. It has been easier to find her as she stops by this street all the time. She tries ignoring me, but I am probably growing on her by now.

A smile rolls up my lips as I listen to footsteps "You have got to be kidding me" I move my top hat from my face. There she was as glowing as ever. I enjoy for a few seconds her features. Her brows were not knitted together. I have noticed she keeps calm features while upset or angry. She doesn't seem to change features very often. I step back from the comfort of the wall.

"Lady Rosaliana" A hand to my heart bowing respectfully. When I look up she wasn't standing in front of me anymore. My face is washed with confusion "She keeps doing that all the time" I blurt out catching a glimpse of blonde hair in London's crowd. My feet guide me through the crowd as I make sure to hide from Blighters.

I am not really interested in starting a fight this afternoon. I am busy with the task at hand. She keeps ignoring me like if I am another one of her admirers; however, I am not. I am much better than all of them combine. I am Jacob Frye. I can get her. I believe so that I can.

I quickly catch up to her. She tries to ignore my existence by doing her usual routine. She talks to the people on different stores without a problem. It's impressive to see as some try to give her food or object. A smile forms on her lips as she sweetly rejects them "You are always so humble, Lady Rosaliana" they have always replied to her. I keep walking right next to her along the streets of London. People smile at her as she walks past them. Even if she has no business with them, she stops to talk to them or she is smiling their way.

She keeps ignoring me nonetheless is not stopping me. I have a smile plaster on my lips. Rosaliana stops in a small park between two buildings. I watch as she is swarm by children of all sizes and forms. She genuinely smiles to them. I am very surprised because these children weren't here a minute ago. They came out of their hideout inside London. It's hard to believe they came out just because they saw her; however, I shouldn't be surprised.  

I have dealt with Rosaliana for a month, and I learn to get used to her ways. She hasn't given in to me yet or speak a word at all, but I am very persistent. I shouldn't be surprised because she seems to be known by the poorest people in London. She has given people money, and they have tried to give her things to pay it back. She doesn't accept it. She is one woman that I have seen apart of Evie that doesn't take what others offer. She seems different to Evie in many ways. Evie doesn't have blonde hair or Rosaliana's caring features. At least, I believe that's what she shows care.

"How have you been?" I stare at her as she kneels down to their level. She treats them as an equal. The children stop trying to push each other "Will you stay, Ms. Rosaliana?" A young girl couldn't be older than 8. It pains me to see them this way. Their clothes are broken while their faces are dirty. Rosaliana doesn't seem to mind as she caresses their cheeks. I walk around the park never taking my eyes of Rosaliana. I recognize a light of sadness in her eyes. I catch the eye patch on one of her eyes. She shows the blue one.

I am sure everyone has seen her two different eye colors. I don't understand why she hides them. They look breathtaking. It's something I have never seen before, and it's very interesting. Rosaliana smiles at that little girl, "I'll stay for the time being. London needs us" A smile forms on the children's lips. They cheer with happiness at her words. She spoke simple words, truthful words. The young girl looks to the right of Rosaliana. I was glancing at Rosaliana for a very long time. I didn't notice the young girl was looking right at me, "Will he help you?"

She makes contact with my eyes. That specific moment I walk closer to the young ones. Rosaliana watches my every step. A charming smile plasters on my lips while I kneel in front of the children. Rosaliana rolls her eyes right after I smile "I'll do everything in my power to save, London" A hand to my heart, bowing my head to them. It was a simple gesture.

Children are the future of London. They should be respected as such. Rosaliana and I have things in common. One of them being saving London. She cares for those that need help. I find that very noble of her. She is humble in a very strange way. Even if she is of high class, she doesn't mind getting her dress a little dirty. A month past, she is still surprising me.

"He won't stay for long. Are you, Mr. Frye?" I didn't need to be a detective to figure out. Rosaliana is upset. The tone made me avoid looking at her. Her glares were making holes on my face. I sigh heavily not sure why she is so angry. I was just stating the truth "Of course, I shall. Last time I check, I am keeping you safe, my lady"

Our eyes meet again, I have a grin on my lips. Rosaliana's mouth was shortly parted. She wants to say something, but she stops herself. She stands up as I look up at her "Run along" Rosaliana takes her eyes off of me. Before she looks at the children, she rolls her eyes as usual. Some of the children run into the alleyway; however, the young ones stay behind. They are waiting for something "Stay off the streets. Templars are looking for children. Don't get caught. Red and Black is bad colors" I am amazed as she speaks to them this way. The young ones nod running off into the alleyways.

When they weren't able to be seen, I stand up feeling really good about myself. It all goes crashing down "Why couldn't you keep your mouth shut, Mr. Frye?" My blue orbs stare at Rosaliana's angry features. It wasn't that major. Her cheeks look a bit redder, and her pale complexion doesn't help. The sun shines onto her making her look so much like a fallen angel. If you discard the fact that, I somehow screwed up. She is snapping at me. At least, this is a start from not directly speaking to me for a month.

"A young girl ask me a question, Rosaliana. I am not going to ignored that" I defend myself from her snappiness, "I am not like you, Rosaliana. I can't freely ignore people" She intensively glares at me. I glare back getting a bit irritated by her behavior. I thought that would be it, but my curiosity got the better of me. I felt the need to ask her "Let me help you, Rosaliana. Let me help you to save London" my words speak the eagerness I got.

I want to free London. I want to give London back to the people. Rosaliana is formidable, but nobody can save a city alone.

My feet guide me closer to Rosaliana. I open my hands trying to draw an imaginary map. It was worth a shot, "Let me be a helping h-" I am interrupted by her. She gives me a simple "No" no emotions what so ever. I gulp down staring at her for only a second. I thought I saw the look of someone who has killed many. I must have imagined it. I sigh heavily staring right at her "Why? You can't save London alone" I tried it again because I have too.

"Watch me," She says, indifferent to everything I have said. She moves to leave the park; however, our conversation wasn't done. I hold her hand holding her back from leaving "No! What you are attempting is suicide, Rosaliana. Going a-" I stop myself from saying anything else as she laughs at my words, "It's far that I stop you right there, Mr. Frye. I don't work with your kind. I won't make such mistake twice"

Does she mean Greenie?

She looks back at me "London doesn't need a miracle or a savior. London needs protection. I'm sure that's something you could never give anyone. The assurance of safety" I am unable to speak not because of her words. The look on her features shocks me. Rosaliana quickly walks out of the small park. I just watch her leave not sure what to do.

[revolutionary-demosthenes]

The Bonstetten-Gray relationship

Most of this information comes from “Thomas Gray (A Biography)” which can be found here: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.226086/page/n289/mode/2up.

Thomas Gray was an English poet born in 1716. He had many siblings, but the was the only one who survived childhood. According to poetry foundation, he “is generally considered the second most important poet of the eighteenth century” behind Alexander Pope.

Charles Victor de Bonstetten was born in 1745. He was a Swiss writer, and stayed with Francis Kinloch, John Laurens’s ex-boyfriend, (I will post more about him soon) when Johannes Von Müller and Alleyne Fitzherbert, 1st Baron, St. Helens were also staying with him, in what I call Kinloch’s Gay Retreat. (I will be posting about that very soon.) This relationship is pre-Kinloch, however something interesting is that Alleyne Fitzherbert also knew Gray, who wrote about Fitzherbert, “the little Fitzherbert is come as pensioner to St. John's, and seems to have all his wits about him.” 

Bonstetten met Gray near the end of the latter’s life. There was a 30 year age difference between them, but they were both adults. Bonstetten knew about Gray, but how they first came into contact is pretty hilarious. Here is the excerpt from the biography (Norton Nicholls was a friend of Gray’s): “So the November of 1769 wore uneventfully on, until one even- ing Norton Nicholls, who was concluding a rather protracted absence from his parish with a visit to Bath, happened to go to a ball at the Assembly Rooms. Light-hearted as ever, the youth- ful rector scrambled on to a table in order to have a better view of the dancing, and presently another young man did the same. They clutched one another for fear of falling, an unceremonious introduction which led to a lifelong friendship between them. The young man's name was Charles-Victor de Bonstetten, and he was the only son of a prominent member of the little group of patrician families which ruled the canton of Berne.” In other words, Nicholls and Bonstetten both stood on a table during a ball, holding each other so they wouldn’t fall! What a way to meet someone... They became friends, and either Bonstetten realized that Nicholls knew Gray, or Nicholls found out that Bonstetten revered Gray, but either way, Nicholls wrote a letter of recommendation for Bonstetten to be taught by one Thomas Gray. 

Side note: Bonstetten was going to marry an heiress, but wrote to his father that he was very happy he had not done so. Very, very happy. The he had not married a woman. He wrote in French, but the rough translation is, “O my dear father, I will now be admirably cheerful, and sing and dance all day like a man who woke up from a bad dream” Wow.

It appears that Bonstetten and Gray became fast friends after they met in London, December (of 1769, I’m assuming. The book is not terribly clear.) Bonstetten stayed in a coffee house often used by Gray and his friends. It seems that the affection Bonstetten felt for Gray came on quickly. He wrote Nicholls, after two weeks of being in Cambridge, “I never walk but with even steps and musing gate, and looks corner- cmg with the skyes ; and unfold my wrinkles only when I see Mr Gray, or think of you Then notwithstanding all your learnings and knowledge, I feel in such occasions that I have a heart, which you know is as some others a quite profane thing to carry under a black gown,” Gray wrote at the bottom of this letter, of Bonstetten, “I never saw such a boy our breed is not made on this model He is busy from morning to night, has no other amusement, than that of changing one study from another, likes nobody, that he sees here, and yet wishes to stay longer, tho’ he has pass’d a whole fortnight with us already His letter has had no correction whatever, and is prettier by half than English.”

At first, the Gray seemed to only see Bonstetten as a student, “But as the weeks went by, and his protege still stayed on at Cambridge, Gray grew ever more fascinated by him. He insisted that he should visit him at all times of the day, dine with him, work in his rooms. Together they read the English poets, went over the botanical lessons of Mr. Miller, played on the new pianoforte — a present from Stonhewer — and talked on and on until the college gate was about to close” They spent a lot more time together, which seems to have been initiated mainly by Gray. 

But it is this next passage in the biography that really hits me the hardest. It also is pretty clearly implying gay, which seems amazing to me, as this book was written in the 1950s, when being gay was still unjustly taboo. The book says that when Gray first met Bonstetten, he just saw him as a good student/an opportunity to impart knowledge onto someone deserving. But, “by now he realised that this newcomer was arousing in him emotions such as he had never experienced before, emotions obsessive and overwhelming. All his defences were swept away — the life so carefully organised, the formal and deliberate manner, the refuge which he had sought in books and antiquities and the interleaved Linnaeus. He was filled with disquiet, for he understood the secrets of his own nature he knew the existence of temptations which could not for one moment be contemplated by one who had been, all his life long, a strict observer of the laws of God and the laws of man. At the same time the very presence of Bonstetten brought him unimagined happiness. For a few short weeks he enjoyed once more what he had never known since his childhood days...” 

This appears to me like an intense internal struggle for Gray. He knew how society looked upon homosexuality, and as a respected poet, it was a big risk for him to be accused of this. As for the ‘secrets of his own nature’ I cannot honestly think of any other meaning of this but attraction for other men. Additionally, why would Gray. be ‘filled with disquiet’ about an intimate friendship? This strongly implies that Gray felt that the intimacy their relationship reached a level that was not accepted by society in that time. This passage especially makes me feel so bad for Gray, Bonstetten, and everyone who was/is not straight but are/were not allowed to be their true selves. Gray loved this man so deeply, yet if anyone found out about it, he would possibly be sentenced to death! An impossible situation, truly. But Bonstetten and Gray seemed willing to take the risk. Oddly, the biography says, that when Gray refused to talk of his personal life with Bonstetten, “Bonstetten concluded, a little surprisingly in the circumstances which then prevailed, that [Gray] had never been in love.” I would say very surprisingly... But of course this would also be an excellent cover for a romantic relationship. It is also worth noting that if Bonstetten only saw Gray as a mentor, why would he care if Gray would not talk of his early life when Bonstetten did?

However romantic their relationship got, it is clear that they both, though Gray especially, were very happy around each other. It was not to last, sadly. Bonstetten’s father wanted his son home. Gray made fun of this, and Bonstetten made a heart-felt appeal to his father, “Quand j ’ai enfin trouve un ami c'est pour le perdre et pour retomber dans cette sombre solitude ou je reste la proie des vices et de toutes les miseres humaines” which translates to “When I finally find a friend it is to lose him and to fall back into this dark loneliness where I remain the prey of vices and all human misery.” This was quite a smart and logical appeal, since Bonstetten’s father was worried about his son disgracing himself in some way or another, as many fathers worried about in those days (Henry Laurens...).

But even this was not enough, and Bonstetten departed in late March. As the biography says, “Gray was quite inconsolable All the warmth, the con- tentment, the affection that had lately filled his life would be drained out of it once more, and nothing but loneliness and emptiness lay ahead. And apart from his desolating sense of personal loss, he was deeply anxious about Bonstetten’s future He had tried so hard to sober the volatile creature, to control the fantasies and aspirations that filled his brain What dangers, what pitfalls of licentiousness and atheism now awaited him in France? What would happen to him when he returned to the domination of 'his cursed Father ’? As the dreaded day of separation drew near he tried to confide in Nicholls, but despaired of conveying to him the extent of his distress 'He gives me too much pleasure, and at least an equal share of inquietude. You do not understand him so well as I do, but I leave my meaning imperfect, till we meet I have never met with so extraordinary a Person God bless him ! I am unable to talk to you about anything else, I think.’ He went to London with Bonstetten, and said farewell to him on 23 March at four o’clock in the morning, when the Dover coach rumbled away into the cold and darkness.” The phrase “too much pleasure” also seems to suggest a relationship beyond friendship. As well as the phrase, ‘I leave my meaning imperfect’ perhaps he left it imperfect because he could not dare to write his real feelings.

Every single one of Bonstetten’s letters to Gray after leaving London are missing. Every. Single. One. One cannot even begin to speculate the sorts of things written in those letters! Three letters survived from Gray. These letters are pretty heartbreaking. It is clear that Gray missed Bonstetten deeply, despite only having known each other for a few months. “Never did I feel, my dear Bonstetten,” he wrote “to what a tedious length the few short moments of our life may be extended by impatience and expectation, till you had left me nor ever knew before with so strong a conviction how much this frail body sympathizes with the inquietude of the mind I am grown old m the compass of less than three weeks, like the Sultan in the Turkish Tales, that did but plunge his head into a vessel of water and take it out again (as the standers-by affirm'd) at the command of a Dervish, and found he had pass'd many years in captivity and begot a large family of children The strength and spirits that now enable me to write to you, are only owing to your last letter, a temporary gleam of sunshine Heaven knows, when it may shine again I did not conceive till now (I own) what it was to lose you, nor felt the solitude and insipidity of my own condition, before I possess’d the happiness of your friendship.”

Poor Gray! We do have a hint, however, later in this letter, what the letter Bonstetten had previously written had contained. Gray writes, “I return to your letter, it proves at least, that in the midst of your new gaieties, I still hold some place in your memory, and (what pleases me above all) it has an air of undissembled sincerity. Go on, my best and amiable Friend , to shew me your heart simply and without the shadow of disguise, and leave me to weep over it (as I do now) no matter whether from joy or sorrow.” Well, Gray was a poet, but this is just so beautiful... and so sad! This letter betrays such genuine grief and love over Bonstetten... if this letter survived, what must Bonstetten’s (which did not) contain? Bonstetten’s letter must have contained sadness about the separation as well. The line ‘without the shadow of disguise’ also strikes me as a particularly gay line... if they were just friends, why would there even be talk of parts of their heart ‘disguised?’ Also, Gray is saying that Bonstetten’s true heart makes him weep, which is basically saying, ‘You love me so much but that you love me so much is painful because you are away from me. But this is not the end of the tear-fest, my friends. Gray wrote Bonstetten again soon after, 

“Alas! how do I every moment feel the truth of what I have some- where read Ce n’est pas le voir que de Fen souvenir , and yet that remembrance is the only satisfaction I have left My life now is but a perpetual conversation with your shadow — The known sound of your voice still rings in my ears — There, on the corner of the fender you are standing, or tinkling on the pianoforte, or stretch'd at length on the sofa — Do you reflect, my dearest Friend, that it is a week or eight days, before I can receive a letter from you, and as much more before you can have my answer, that all that time (with more than Herculean toil) I am employ'd in pushing the tedious hours along, and wishing to annihilate them; the more I strive, the heavier they move and the longer they grow. I can not bear this place, where I have spent many tedious years within less than a month, since you left me.’ 

Time had obviously not softened the blow of Bonstetten's departure. Gray also repeatedly emphasizes that he is not living his life in the way that he was before Bonstetten entered his life. Again, we do not have any of Bonstetten’s letters, so we must only speculate what they could contain. But it seems clear that whatever they said, they did nothing to alleviate Gray’s pain, and perhaps even made Gray yearn ever more for his departed pupil. 

About a month later, Thomas Gray and Norton Nicholls went to Suffolk together, and had hoped to see Bonstetten while there, but when Bonstetten was there (I do not the know the reason why he was not or why Gray expected him to be) Gray wrote another plaintive letter:

“I am return'd, my dear Bonstetten, from the little journey I had made into Suffolk without answering the end proposed. The thought, that you might have been with me there, has embitter'd all my hours. Your letter has made me happy; as happy as so gloomy, so solitary a Being as I am is capable of being. I know and have too often felt the disadvantages I lay myself under, how much I hurt the little interest I have in you by this air of sadness so contrary to your nature and present enjoyments, but sure you will forgive, tho* you can not sympathize with me It is impossible for me to dissemble with you Such as I am, I expose my heart to your view, nor wish to conceal a single thought from your penetrating eyes — All that you say to me, especially on the subject of Switzerland, is infinitely acceptable. It feels too pleasing ever to be fulfill'd, and as often as I read over your truly kind letter, written long since from London,* I stop at these words La mort qui peat glacer nos bras avant qu’ils soient entrelaces.”

The French at the bottom of this letter translates to, “Death that can freeze our arms before they are intertwined.” 

There is also a line in this letter which raises the question “Did Gray love Bonstetten but Bonstetten not love Gray?” The aforementioned line is, “tho* you can not sympathize with me” which seems to suggest either that Bonstetten is not having as hard a time away from Gray, or that they loved each other in different ways. But this could also just mean that Bonstetten has other friends, or really anything along those lines. I also feel we should be extremely careful when claiming that love is one-sided when we only have one sides’ recollection of the relationship. People try and do this with the Laurens-Hamilton relationship... many of Laurens’s letters that survive are not as gushing as Hamilton’s but we are missing a great deal of them, and what we have was edited. But some people try to dismiss the relationship because of this. Also, this is one line out a letter that basically screams “I LOVE U!!” so...

I have found a list of all the Bonstetten letters, though there is no content. There are dates of the letters, though. Here is the link: http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?collection=letters&author=Bonstetten,+Charles+Victor+de,+1745-1832&sortby=placelet_up.

There’s a letter to Norton Nicholls in there too, and the only reason I’m mentioning it is because Bonstetten uses the phrase ‘methinks’ which is just wonderful.

But it seems that this relationship would die down soon afterwards. The biography says, “Such intensity of emotion could not last for very long It exhausted Gray's vitality at the time, and may well have had a permanent effect upon his health, but as the weeks went on he began to view the whole affair in a more reasonable light He saw the absurdity of his relationship with Bonstetten as well as its sadness; and indeed the absurdity, for all his over- mastering charm, of Bonstetten himself. Even at this early stage he began to find the style of the letters from Paris * un peu trop alembique', affected and over-refined. They were not to grow less so with the passage of time. Bonstetten made uncon- vincing excuses for not writing more often, and 'he seems at present to give into all the French nonsense and to be employ'd much like an English boy broke loose from his Governor ' It was the natural reaction of a high-spirited young man after those sober months at Cambridge, months of serious reading and celibate living and an unequal friendship between youth and age; but it displeased Gray, and the pangs of separation began to torment him less.”

We can tell from this that Bonstetten was the one who really began to separate from Gray once their geographic distance and cultural distance (to some extent, because Bonstetten was adopting more French manners, which displeased Gray,) grew too great. This parallels the Kinloch/Laurens relationship to some extent, I feel, because Laurens and Kinloch relationship deteriorated once Laurens was in London and Kinloch was still part of the Geneva social circles.

At any rate, this is what I have been able to find on the Bonstetten/Gray relationship. In conclusion: Bonstetten and Gray were likely lovers, despite a very large age difference, (Bonstetten was abut 24, and Gray 53) but the relationship did not last long. (If you want to think of it as a summer fling in December, I won’t stop you.) Gray appears to have been the more gushy letter-writer, but we have none of Bonstetten’s so it is really impossible to say. Bonstetten died in 1771, while Bonstetten was in Geneva. I’m trying to figure out what Bonstetten did, and if he stayed in Geneva or traveled between 1771 and 1775, when he went to Kinloch’s Gay Retreat.

Hope you enjoyed!

[glitchrpgmain]

                     WELCOME TO THE UNDERWORLD.

congratulations ROWEN ! you have been accepted into underworldfm. the role of RUBY will be portrayed by PARK MIN-KYU. PARK JIMIN is now taken. please submit your blog within the next 24 hours & be sure to follow the guidelines outlined in our checklist.

the depth and rich history you gave minkyu truly puts your application at such a high level -- we are blown away by the thought you put into him! the hardships and sorrows, the growth which minkyu endured to get to the place he is in now. it’s phenomenal and we think you took the bare bones provided in ruby’s skeleton and really made it your own!

IC

character. ruby

name. park min-kyu

age. 923

gender & pronouns. cis male, he/him

BIOGRAPHY.

there isn’t all too much that minkyu remembers of his human life. the only thing that stayed with him until present day is how cruel humanity is.

his childhood was spent by his grandfather’s side. his parents nowhere to be found– whether they died or abandoned him hasn’t been documented. minkyu and his grandfather travelled through korea at the end of the 11th century, pulling forth a carriage filled with merchant ware. they would sell food, cloth or other useful items to whoever would want to buy. from the money they earned, they bought new items, usually to restock their carriage, rarely something for themselves. it was a hard life, but they were alive and that was good enough. they slept under the stars and on a particularly lucky day, they’d sleep in a farmer’s stables in a warm bed of prickly hay. his grandfather taught him how to count and how to use the stars and the sun to navigate their way through the country.

wherever they went, his grandfather would greet people with a smile and a bow. the two of them were always polite, however it was very rare for people to be polite in return. often they’d get scolded, yelled at or forced to move on to another village. while they sold items from all over the country, not many people were interested in buying. they were often treated like the farm animals they sometimes slept beside.

things changed drastically when minkyu met his sire.

it was a particularly cold winter evening when his grandfather pulled out some coins he had saved just to buy them a warm meal at an inn. halfway through their meal, the door to the rather busy inn opened with a bang. the room fell silent as everyone looked at the dark hooded figures walking in. they scattered around the space before two figures in black and red cloaks walked in. they didn’t say anything, instead they walked around the room and started pointing at young people. when one pointed at minkyu, his grandfather stood up and demanded to know what was going on.

instead of being scolded or hit like minkyu expected, one of the two in black and red walked over. she explained just what it was they were doing. at the top of the mountain hovering above the village, there stood a castle. and within that castle lived royalty. it was this royalty that were looking for new staff, the hooded figures were asked to bring young people in to see if they were suitable for this new job. the pay was good and minkyu was allowed to send money to his grandfather.

at first, minkyu was hesitant to leave his grandfather behind, but he assured him that it was the best thing. that it was time for minkyu to find his own path in life. and so minkyu willingly followed the figures up the steep climb to the fortress where he would spend the next six hundred years of his life.

from the moment he stepped foot on the property, minkyu knew things were different here. from the very first moment, he was treated with respect. of course, not as much as someone with status would be, but it was more than he’s ever been shown in his entire life. despite being a servant, at the very bottom of the castle’s hierarchy, he was never made to feel like a nobody. despite not being worth much, he still made sure those above him had food on their table and a clean bed to sleep in.

for the first year, minkyu didn’t know who exactly he was serving. he knew they weren’t a king or queen, let alone a prince or princess– but who they were? he had no clue. they were important, but that’s all he knew. no one would ever answer his questions about them either. they told him to stop asking so many questions, to stop putting his nose into things that didn’t concern him. but minkyu was too curious to just let it slide.

sometimes servants went missing. they were told they quit their jobs to go do something else, but it never made much sense to minkyu. they got paid far above the minimum, even when they didn’t really need it for they were provided with food and a bed. he couldn’t imagine what was worth giving this job up for.

after working there for nearly three years, minkyu got called up to the great hall. he entered the room, unsure of what was waiting for him, of why he was to be brought here. the sides of the room were lined with people, all wearing the same hooded cloaks from that first night. daring a glance to the side once or twice, minkyu noticed faces he hadn’t seen in months or years. servants that had disappeared without a trace. he tried to control his breathing as he continued to walk forwards, to the man and woman seated at the very end of the room.

minkyu was told to kneel, and so he did. he sat on his knees, hands in his lap and head bowed. what happened next was something he couldn’t have imagined. the man and woman in front of him explained who they were, what they were. it all sounded like complete madness. they told him of mythical creatures, of strength and wisdom far beyond a human’s capability. of where they came from and where they were planning on going. at the end of the long speech, minkyu’s wrist was red from where he kept squeezing himself, desperate to wake up from this strange dream. they gave him a simple choice.

“do you want to join us, minkyu?”

he doesn’t remember what he said in response. he doesn’t remember if he replied in an instant or if he stayed silent for hours. he only remembers a soft hand on his cheek, two bright blue though kind eyes and the pain as two fangs punctured the skin of his neck.

he was given an opportunity and he took it with both hands. unlike the humans minkyu has met through his life, these people, these creatures, have been nothing but kind to him. even though – as he learned later on – that humans are their food, they didn’t play with their food. they saw them as equal, at least the ones living under the same roof. and perhaps it was because they planned on turning them all, they planned on creating their own army of strong vampires, ready to fight by their sides. perhaps they were only ever kind to him as a human because they expected something more from him in the future. but minkyu never cared. he never saw it that way. he always thought of them as family, before and after he got turned.

throughout the beginning of his new life, minkyu learned what it was like to be a creature of the night with the help of the servants he used to know. as a fledgling, he didn’t interact much with his sire. with so many having gone through the same experiences, it wasn’t as difficult to adapt as he would have expected.

after his first few decades, it was obvious that this life was meant for him. every task he was asked to complete, every mission he was asked to go on, he succeeded every time. and every time he asked for more. more to do, more to learn. now with all the time in the world, minkyu wanted it all. after a while, he grew closer to his sire. first as a servant, then later on as he climbed the ranks. until finally, he stood by her side during every important moment. it wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. minkyu fought his way to the top and proved himself time and time again.

somewhere along the way, something else blossomed and came alive. first he looked at her with adoration for the life she had given him, but after a while– it became something else. minkyu never acted on his feelings, too afraid that he might destroy what they’ve built together. too afraid he’d be overstepping the invisible boundaries set for them. but even if she didn’t reciprocate his feelings, that never stopped him from being completely and utterly loyal to her and the rest of their coven. without a doubt, he would lay his life on the line just to protect hers.

and that day came at the end of the 17th century. there had been talk of a new creature of the night rising through asia. however, the news was always days, weeks if not months old before it arrived at their fortress. strength in numbers, that was always their motto. but the enemy’s strength laid in the undiscovered. never before had they seen or even heard of a lycan. when they took the village and later on the castle, they couldn’t have been more unprepared. while they had no idea what they were fighting, the other side seemed to know their every weakness. it was a lost battle from the very beginning.

minkyu never left her side. even when she told him to run, he refused to leave. her brother was already dead. they both knew they wouldn’t make it out alive and he refused to let her die alone. when the dogs came for them, minkyu had moved himself in front of her, protecting her even in the last moments. and in the last seconds before the stake could reach his heart, she moved them around and got stabbed in front of him. he’ll never forget the look on her face as she reached for his face while her last breath left her lips. with no time to hold her body in his arms, minkyu threw his all at the lycan in front of him. he screamed, clawed and bit his way through the filthy dog’s body until there was nothing left but a heap of bones and blood.

as he shook with a rage he’d never felt before, minkyu made his way through the castle. he ripped out throats with his bare teeth, pulled out hearts with his hands. the moment his sire died was the birth of a new kind of monster. he’s not sure if he had always been this strong or if he was gifted with her power– it didn’t matter. the rage, the adrenaline, it was what kept him going until they were all gone. the ones he couldn’t reach in time ran away, howling for their pack. and minkyu was left alone, his people, his family, his home– there was nothing left.

minkyu allowed himself a single day to grieve. after that, he got his stuff and left. in search of a new place, but most of all, in search of a new army that would help him take down these monsters.

on his travels, his company grew. first he turned one or two humans, but as the distance from home grew, the need for company grew with it. they travelled through asia, looking for a new place to settle down– one with less pain attached to it. word got out to them of a new coven being established in a new world, led by a pureblood. it all sounded far too good to be true, yet minkyu still headed out towards it, intrigued to see it for himself.

the journey was long and it gave minkyu plenty of time to think. he would wonder if this new place they’re heading out for would feel the same as the home he had known for the past six centuries. the little information they had received sounded oddly familiar. yet minkyu wasn’t planning on falling in love with whoever was in charge this time. he had devoted his life to her, he had given her everything he had. no one would ever even come close to him like that. – at least not until he was sure any and all lycans were wiped out from this planet.

upon arriving at the new world, minkyu was reminded of humanity again. of the kind of mortals he so despised. it seemed like the worst of the worst were gathered here. while being not much more than a cold-blooded killer himself, the acts he witnessed upon his journey through this new land made his blood run even colder. it was here that he started to see them as nothing more than his food.

when minkyu and his party arrived at the freshly established coven, it had already been in operation for a decade or two. minkyu introduced himself to aleksander and was surprised to be taken in so easily. he didn’t tell him of what fate had brought to their doorstep, didn’t tell him that his sire and all the other purebloods were dust. he first tried to figure out what kind of man aleksander was, if he could trust him. with minkyu’s resume however, it appeared to be easy to reach the top. and perhaps it is there where it all went wrong. for minkyu rarely had to prove himself, rarely had to prove his loyalty. with someone so eager to help and to advise, aleksander never questioned minkyu’s motives. it was an easy mistake to make, but it’ll be a fatal one in the end.

for the past three centuries, minkyu has stood by aleksander’s side. he has helped him, guided him, advised him. he has given him strength through difficult times. he has given him security through uncertain times. and throughout it all, minkyu remained loyal to himself only. some of the vampires he brought with him passed away during the wars, some left on their own, yet minkyu remained. he saw the potential here. he saw the cracks in the armor where he could slip into like the sly snake he is. one day he’s going to take over and as every day passes, minkyu feels the moment come closer and closer.

[iffeelscouldkill]

The big picture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How can you…?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Go ahead.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Now what?” McCabe asks.

“We stand by,” Park replies, dryly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe.

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

“Zone Z happened,” he replies, flatly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Let’s see…”

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

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

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

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

“Too easy?” asks Park.

“Too familiar,” McCabe replies.

“What?” Seiders isn’t following.

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

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

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

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

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

“Computer, accept?”

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

The recorded singing abruptly cuts off.

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

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

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

“Self destruct in ten…”

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

“Nine…”

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

“Eight…”

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

“Seven…”

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

“Six…”

“What if they recalibrated it—”

“Five…”

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

“Four…”

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

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

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

“Goodbye.”

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

“Holy—” McCabe manages.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Krejjh getting shot was not part of the Plan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We’re clear, Ma’am,” he says.

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

“Agent Park?” McCabe asks, sounding shocked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He hopes that he’ll see McCabe again.

[chelseainlovvve]

What are your fetishes/turn-ons?

I’ve been asked this question a few times so I thought I’d answer it.

Black guys – Obviously lol, just look at my blog. I already wrote a post about some of the things I like about them sexually here. And a big part of the reason I like them so much is because they tend to be better at fulfilling all my other fetishes/turn-ons below.

Domination/submission – This is a big one for me. I LOVE being dominated by really masculine guys. I feel like it brings out something primal within me and it feels so freeing. When a guy is really masculine and dominating it makes me feel so much more feminine and submissive, which is such a good feeling.

Spanking/hair pulling/roughness – Obviously! These things are pretty normal, but they’re a big part of feeling dominated. A little pain during sex is amazing as long as it doesn’t overpower the pleasure. That kind of roughness drives me crazy and makes everything feel so much more intense and primal.

Mild choking – The feeling of a mans hand around your neck is really powerful. It makes you very aware of just how dominant he is over you and how much control he has over your body.

Big cock – Basically the penis equivalent of spanking/hair pulling/etc. It makes sex feel way more rough and intense, except it’s little more special because it’s his penis doing it inside of you. I orgasm pretty easily even with average sized guys, but like I said before I love being dominated and average ones just don’t look or feel intense/dominating, so it’s not quite the same. Plus big ones just plain feel good. There’s something extra satisfying about that full feeling and the kind of orgasms they give me.

Mild exhibition/forced exhibition – I have mixed feelings about exhibition because I’m really scared of pictures of me ending up on the internet and coming back to family/friends. However as long as it’s safe, showing off is really hot. And being forced to show off feels really dominating. It’s a super intense feeling to be naked around a bunch of masculine guys who you know want to fuck you. It’s like being a rabbit standing in the middle of a pack of wolves. You feel so small and vulnerable. Plus it feels really freeing and exciting to be naked in general.

Flirting/teasing – I realize this is super tame, but I feel like people underestimate how horny some women get from flirting and teasing guys. I grew up in a super conservative church environment where flirting was basically our equivalent of an intense make-out session, and teasing was just plain slutty lol. But even now, teasing guys and knowing you’re making them horny is a huge rush, especially if you do it innocently so that they don’t realize you’re teasing and showing off on purpose.

Being degraded – This one is confusing to me. In real life I want to be respected and am a big advocate for equal rights between men and women. But being degraded in the bedroom is a huge turn on. Maybe it’s because so many guys put attractive girls up on a pedestal and treat us like goddesses, the feeling of being treated like you’re so much less is really taboo and intense.

Being used – Basically the same as being degraded. It feels really intense. One moment a guy that wants to date you is talking about how beautiful you are. He treats you with respect and talks about how awesome of a person you are. And then some other guy just uses you as his personal sex toy. You know you’re beautiful and have all sorts of positive things to offer the world, and he treats you like you’re nothing but a fuck hole and cum dumpster. That contrast makes it really hot for some reason.

Being owned – Kind of like above too, it’s degrading and especially taboo if you’re a big supporter of equal rights among genders in everyday life. I’ve had guys do things like give me chokers and tell me to wear it 24/7. I’ve even worn collars before (which for some reason feels freeing instead of restrictive to be owned like that). But to me the most intense thing is being treated like he owns me, like not being asked for my permission if he wants to use my body for sex since he thinks he owns me. It’s so wrong to let someone treat you that way, but feels so good for some reason.

Being marked – There’s nothing that makes you feel owned and dominated quite like seeing the marks he leaves on your body. Looking in the mirror and seeing bite marks on your shoulder, hickies on your neck, marks on your breasts, bruises everywhere (especially on your butt), your sore and swollen labia, your red butt, the bruises on your thighs that perfectly outline finger marks where he grabbed you, that sore feeling deep inside that you feel every time you move. It’s all a constant reminder of what he did to you. I always feel really owned by a guy when he leaves his mark on me long after he’s gone and it’s a constant turn on.

Rape/non-consent – I don’t actually want to be raped for real, but I’ve had some very borderline experiences that were incredibly intense. There’s something hot about driving a guy so far into a sexual craze for you that he can’t stop himself. And feeling like he won’t stop even if you say no is a really intense feeling. You feel so small and helpless. It’s complete domination and forced submission along with being used and degraded.

Cuckolding – I was never really into the cuckolding fetish. I’ve gotten a little more into it lately because I have friends doing it in real life and the real life version is a lot hotter to me than the fake tumblr version, but it’s still not really my thing. But interracial and cuckolding have gotten so tied together on tumblr that I’m pretty used to it. I can’t even find the interracial pictures I like without going to cuckolding blogs half the time. I’m not against it or anything and there are some hot aspects to it. It could even possibly be something I’m into when I’m out of college and looking to get married if I find the right guy, but for now, no. (Please don’t message me looking for a girlfriend to cuckold you lol. If you just want to talk about it that’s fine, but I’m not looking for a tumblr BF.)

Cheating – I know it’s wrong and I don’t want to hurt anyone, but for some reason the rush of cheating is insanely hot to me. The aspects of cuckolding that are similar to cheating is part of what makes it hot to me, but I’m definitely more turned on by real cheating. There’s nothing quite like the rush of cheating with a really hot, masculine guy. The act of cheating and being risky about it amplifies the whole situation and tabooness so much! That said, I’m not proud of cheating in the past and don’t want to do it again. I got really lucky that nobody ever found out and got hurt.

Cum – I feel like being turned on by cum is just a natural/biological thing for most girls. It’s strange to me that some girls are grossed out by cum. I can’t really explain why cum is hot, but it is. Feeling a guys cock throb when he cums literally drives me wild. There’s something really satisfying about it. It makes me feel so good about myself knowing I made a guy lose control and have an orgasm, and cum is kind of the reward for it. It feels very intimate. Plus lots of cum feels very masculine for some reason, and having it on or in me triggers my fantasy of being marked, so the more the better.

Getting pregnant/pregnancy risk – This is another common theme in cuckolding that I find hot. I think it’s another biological thing because I don’t actually want to get pregnant at this point in my life, but for some reason the fantasy of it is still crazy hot to me. When attractive guys dirty talk about getting me pregnant it drives me crazy, and the idea of getting pregnant from a black guy is especially taboo because of my family. It’s super intimate, plus sex for the purpose of getting pregnant is incredibly satisfying for some reason. Also it triggers all my fantasies of being used, owned, and marked since getting pregnant is basically the most permanent way for those things to happen. One of my biggest turn-ons is of guys forcibly cumming inside me to get me pregnant even when I say not to. It’s like super hot domination on a biological level.

Multiple guys/gangbang – Not really a special fetish. Most girls fantasize about it at some point. There’s something hot about the idea of being used by multiple guys like that.

Scent – I mentioned this in my post about what I like about black guys. Certain guys have a natural scent to them that drives me wild that I think has to be pheromones. It’s one of my biggest turn-ons when I first meet a guy and for some reason I’ve only ever experienced it with black guys. I don’t understand it, but some of my friends have said the same thing and some of them experience it with white guys too so it’s definitely just a general thing that happens.

Muscles/athletic – Muscles, athletic ability, and masculinity go hand in hand. I’m not really attracted to guys that aren’t at least somewhat athletic. I work very hard going to the gym almost every day so if a guy doesn’t bother to put any effort into his body we probably won’t be a match. But black guys tend to be more muscular and athletic on average which is another thing I like about them.

Masculine presence – This is hard to describe. Some people call it being “Alpha”, but I’m not sure I like calling it that. I think guys being violent and fighting is a huge turn off. But when I guy has a sort of masculine presence and is subtly dominant over the other guys around him, that is a huge turn on to me. It’s easy to be dominant over women, but it says way more about you as a man if other men are submissive towards you or view you as the “alpha” if that’s what you want to call it. This one tends to be a huge point in favor of black guys. I don’t know what it is about them, but they seem to have strong, subtle masculinity down in a way that nobody else does.

Anyway, let me know if you like when I answer questions like this. I feel like most guys just want pictures so I kind of haven’t bothered making text posts. Feel free to ask me something if you want me to answer it!

[politicaltheatre]

Rock Bottom

We have a problem.

That's the first step, right, admitting it? Everybody knows that. But is that enough? Have we reached a tipping point? Have we, in our long addiction, finally hit rock bottom?

Probably not.

That’s the thing about addiction. The whole world can see the addict and his addiction for all they are, but until the addict sees it himself and realizes at long last that he has no choice but to break it he will keep on going, lying to himself and others that it is not what it is and that they have nothing to fear.

Of course, we do.

To be clear, our addiction is a psychological one, not a chemical one. None of what you read from here on out is meant to denigrate physical addiction or to suggest that beating that is as simple as beating a psychological one, which itself is neither easy nor fast.

If only this was as simple as a single man's psychological addiction to one thing. Even then, the variables of how he slid into it and why are his and his alone. It's the constants of addiction, the root needs and ultimate ends, that we need to focus on. They are the same for everyone - that's why they're constants - but getting past the fog of the wheres and whens of addiction's start and end takes an effort few can bring themselves to make.

So, instead, we end up focusing on variables; in this case, guns and violence and revenge. These are the manifestations of our addiction, not the addiction itself. A step further, a level beneath those, we find the root cause. That is, we find it if we dare to look.

Our addiction is to avoiding accountability. 

We've had it easy for so long. We have so many options, so many excuses, so many others to blame. When everything’s good, when we have no worries, the ride is so much fun. It never feels like it’s going to end. 

And then it does, and it feels so bad. We must pay our bills. We must accept that others have a right to what we want, that we must be accountable to them, too. 

To go from that feeling of certainty to an equal and perhaps even greater feeling of uncertainty is terrifying. Give us a fix, we beg, take care of us and make it better. The fantasy isn’t real, we know that, but we’ll take it. 

Just looking at this past weekend, there are so many examples at play, all showing how we are locked in our worlds of fantasy:

• There is the world of the shooters, fetishizing guns and the rush of violence and revenge against invented enemies, foreign and domestic. They get to dream up a story, placing themselves at the center as hero or villain, always in control, never wrong. The killing is a means to that end, and to an end to their story they believe they can control, either by living or dying as martyrs to their cause.

• There is the world of the Trump and NRA supporters, who have invested so much of their identities in these external authorities that they don’t dare reject them for fear of rejecting themselves. Does anyone really doubt that Trump or one of his latest mouthpieces don't understand this? The racism is a means to gaining and maintaining control, just like the millions the NRA pays to politicians to toe the line and spread their talking points. A rational mind knows this, but an addict's mind has its own logic and that couldn't be easier to exploit.

• There is the world of those opposing them, stuck cycling through the same rituals of anger because they, too, want quick and easy solutions, not that they can admit it. The hard work, personal sacrifice, and patience required are more than they can bear, or maybe just more than they literally can afford. It's easy being angry. It's easy staying angry. It's easier still if that's all you ever do. You get good at it. It becomes a safe place, one you never have to leave.

• There is also the world of those trying to make that change, taking the risks, pushing and pressing the world around them to try to take any small step it can to save just one life. These are the ones investing themselves in hard work, personal sacrifice, and patience until they have exhausted all three. They burn out because the audience they needed to reach, the addict and those around him fearing risk themselves, just weren't ready.

• And then there is the world of the rest of us, slowly numbing ourselves to the pain and suffering of others because we tell ourselves that the power to solve it is beyond us. It's the kind of acceptance that friends and family members of addicts know all too well. It is well practiced and so common we barely give it a conscious thought, if we do at all.

If you know addiction then you must see excuses and evasions for what they are. It’s always some other thing, a thing over which nobody could possibly have any control. It’s always someone else’s fault, some easy scapegoat already an outsider, be it someone who is different or something, such as the government, which is untouchable.

They're all variables. They always will be. Take away one scapegoat, you find another. Take away one focus of your addiction, you find another.  If there is always another thing, there is never control, and if there is never control then we don't have to feel shame for the damage done.

There is no high like having to be accountable to no one. There can be no low like crashing from that high.

What we do know is this: We don’t think of our country as a family. We don’t even think of it as a community. For far too many of us, sharing space and resources with each other is considered an inconvenience at best and an invasion at worst.

We lie to ourselves, choosing to believe that crime happens to others, that the heat and storms of climate change are happening to others, that lack of adequate health care is happening to others, and that economic inequality is happening to others.

It all "happens", a beautifully passive word. It allows us to be passive. It allows us to tell the lie that its cause is beyond our complicity and its solution beyond our ability. And so, the cycle continues.

For the shooting in Dayton, racism and white supremacy don’t seem to have been a motive, but right there we run into trouble with another word, "motive".

Racism and white supremacy are means to an end, that end being a feeling of control and a denial of accountability to others. However different they may appear on the surface, the shooter in Dayton had his own means to those same ends. That those ends have become normalized is what made both shooters dangerous. That they had access to automatic and semi-automatic firearms is what made this a tragedy.

Which brings us to "the party of personal responsibility”. They demonized the term "gun control" because a well paid marketing firm found a way to make it sound evil. The truth is everything we choose to do or not do about firearms qualifies as gun control.

We, the people, who elect others to represent us and our best interests, we have control over guns. Any law passed or not passed is done through that representation. Any law currently on the books, even one stating that a certain class of guns cannot be regulated, is gun control because, in fact, guns are regulated by that law.

So, let's skip distracting ourselves with that. Whatever we do next, it will control guns in some way. We just have to decide what we want from that control and who we should trust to exercise it.

Which brings us to Donald Trump.

For the shooting in El Paso, we can and should blame Donald Trump. Whatever official statement he put out yesterday or may put out today, he has used racism and the violence of white supremacists as a means to gaining and maintaining power. The evidence is so far past overwhelming that our inaction in the face of it is shameful.

Trump's defense-by-omission of the gun lobby and scapegoating of mental illness not only put the lie to any condemnation of hatred and bigotry, they bring unpleasant reminders of demagogues of the past stoking racism and scapegoating the mentally ill.

Is that what it will take for us to hit rock bottom? Must we, like Europeans and South Americans before us, fall fully and completely into the abyss of fascism and civil war before we learn what we must learn? The next election will answer that as well as anything.

The Democrats may win back the White House and the Senate in 2020, but it’s looking more and more like it will be the result of Trump, McConnell, and the rest of the Republicans in Washington finally going too far, or finally being seen for how far they refuse to go, than anything the Democrats have to offer.

But hasn’t that always been the pattern?

The right wing, the pushers in this analogy of addiction, offer short term thinking with easy solutions to difficult problems. They use division and bigotry as means to gaining and maintaining power. Finally, as society collapses, they point the finger at anyone else, not just to avoid their own accountability but because it enables those clinging to what they offered to avoids their own.

The left wing, the sober grownup at the party, demands accountability in all things, including from themselves. Thinking long term, they get shunted aside in the short term, a canary in the coal mine listened to only to gauge the threat but not to avoid it. Only when the threat is so near, when there are no more others on whom to cast blame or burden, do we finally ask them for help.

That’s when we elect the left wing, to clean up our mess. Are we ready? Have we hit rock bottom? We're close, and it seems getting closer everyday.

- Daniel Ward

[whatsthecraicwithvideogames]

My Definitive Ranking Of All 21 Confidants in Persona 5 (yep it’s a list you just gotta deal)

Persona 5 has some of the best characters in any game I've ever played. Over the 100 hours spent in the game, a lot of these characters are significantly fleshed out and you feel a genuine bond with them. Some not so much. So, because the world needed it so much, here is my official 100% accurate ranking of all those characters. No debate needed. This is the only ranking you will ever need. Enjoy.

21 Yuuki Mishima

Mishima seems to think that just because he figured out that you were a Phantom Thief that he is entitled a spot in your friend group.No. GET YOUR OWN FRIENDS MISHIMA. There are plenty of characters less interesting than Mishima, but none that annoyed me more. It may be completely unjustified, but I just need him out of my life. More specifically, I need him out of my hotel room in Hawaii. Go home, Mishima. No one wants you here.

20 Toranosuke Yoshida

The main issue that afflicts the majority of the people at the bottom of the list is dullness and being underdeveloped. Yoshida happens to be the former. Maybe it's just because I'm young and ignorant, but when I'm trying to save the world from its inevitable ruin, I'm not really all that interested in a disgraced politician. Call me simple minded.

19 Chihaya Mifune

Now we come to the underdeveloped. Although it must be said that Chihaya could have had an amazing storyline that I just didn't see, as her character was so one note and uninteresting that I became equally uninterested in what was going on with her and I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. So I apologize if I've missed an amazing character, but she should have made a better impression sooner.

18 Shinya Oda

I have little feelings towards Shinya. He's a little higher on the list due to his storyline being a bit sympathetic but there isn't really much to his character other than the fact that he's a kid who's good at a video game. I was invested in making sure that he got fed, but that's about as far as it goes.

17 Munehisa Iwai

I am currently holding a bit of a grudge against Iwai at the minute, as he was the only confidant I didn't manage to max out on my new game plus run, basically meaning I wasted about an extra 70 hours BUT HEY. That's not his fault. He also suffers from side character dullness, but he gets bumped up the list a bit because we had a lot of weird dates together that I'll never forget. What other game allows you to go to the planetarium and an all you can eat buffet with a yakuza member? In Persona 5, even the boring characters have something to offer. Some more than others.

16 Igor

There isn't really much to say about Igor to be honest. Of all the people on this list, he’s the one you have the least opportunity to get to know, but there's just something about him. Maybe it's his nose? Or perhaps the eyebrows? Either way, I like his style and he managed to crawl up a few spaces.

15 Haru Okumura

We arrive at another character who took a little while to grow on me. Originally I thought she was just as boring as Makoto, but at least Haru has some semblance of a personality. She's awfully sweet and her storyline is very sympathetic. She struggles under the weight of her responsibility to run a company, and is conflicted by her arranged marriage to a man she has no interest in. I felt genuinely invested in making sure she was okay and safe, even if her metaverse outfit is a bit dumb. Nobody's perfect.

14 Ichiko Ohya

If you're not familiar with Ohya, just imagine a really incompetent Jessica Jones and you're pretty much there. Meaning, she's drunk all the time. She drinks away the guilt she harbours from losing her best friend on the job, but she still remains a fierce journalist who doesn't crack under pressure and is determined to find out the truth. She just happens to smell like gin while she's doing it.

13 Sae Niijima

Sae is cool in the most normal way that you'll find in Persona 5. She's a prosecutor, working against against all odds to become the top in her field. She may have been working slightly against us in the beginning, but she was a formidable foe; working with an open mind and a level head, she eventually began to believe our stories about our time with the Phantom Thieves. Sae is rad without needing a cool outfit (@Makoto) and we should all be more like her.

12 Makoto Niijima

I'm not even going to apologise. Makoto just barely made it above her much more impressive sister, and the only reason she did is because her whole deal in the metaverse is pretty badass. However, and let me say this loud for you Makoto, just because your persona is a motorcycle, DOES. NOT. MAKE. YOU. THE BOSS. Once she joins your team, every plan comes from her, even though I am the leader of the Phantom Thieves. I have tried really quite hard to understand why everybody loves Makoto so much. I even romanced her on my second playthrough so I could get a different perspective on her. It helped nothing. I really tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but anywhere outside of the metaverse, she is dull and boring. Number 1 Waifu she is not, I'm afraid.

11 Hifumi Togo

Before Futaba came along, I was all set to romance Hifumi. To be fair I felt she was the best of a bad bunch, but let that not detract from her good qualities. She's a shogi master (or at least she thinks she is), and yet she still struggles with something that a lot of us can identify with: she is desperately trying to live up to her mother's unachievable high expectations. All Hifumi wants is to play shogi, and when she plays shogi, she plays shogi. She's a bit crazy but we love her anyway, and there's no one else I’d rather play shogi in a church with. Now just to figure out what shogi actually is…

10 Morgana

What would a JRPG be without a resident weird humanoid animal thing? Mediocre, that's what. Morgana is an integral part to the whole structure of the game, in more ways than one. Without him, our character would have no idea about how anything works in the Metaverse. Yes, he can be literally the most irritating presence on the planet whenever I'm trying to go out and Morgana is telling me to go to bed (YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME MORGANA), but deep down I know he's doing it out of love. Sometimes I wish Morgana loved me a little less but hey, you can't pick your family.

9 Goro Akechi

Okay, look. I know what you're thinking. Akechi is a little bit problematic. I know this. But he's just so adorable before all that! That's pretty much that only reason I have for having him so far up the list. His little face in his character profile is just so cute that you can't help but love him. Also the way he yells ‘PERSONAAAAAAGHHHH’ is badass and I can't hear it enough times. I forgive the Ace Detective of all crimes he has committed.

8 Futaba Sakura

A couple of months ago, Futaba would most likely have topped my list. She was the first girl I romanced in Persona 5. I had spent the whole game waiting for someone to come along and sweep me off my (digital) feet. It was beginning to look like I was going to have to settle with Hifumi- and then Futaba came along. She was a hacker and a gamer: my perfect waifu. Her romancing scenes are very sweet and I remained enamoured with her throughout my whole playthrough. After playing new game plus that changed. I went in with the intention of romancing someone different, and boy is Futaba different without those rose tinted glasses on. Her inability to do anything on her own is, while understandable, it's frustrating at best. She's still pretty high on the list though, as I'll never forget our time together, and also she's saved me countless times during combat that she will forever be elevated to God tier in the Metaverse. I owe her a debt I can never repay.

7 Tae Takemi

I won't lie to you. A lot of Takemi’s charm and appeal lies in her character design. The idea of a cool, punk rock doctor who supplies us with our own extreme healing products is great. Even better is that she's got the attitude to match. Confident in her skills but still dating enough to go rogue and have you be her guinea pig for new medicines she's developing, Takemi is a doctor you would want as a friend, but DEFINITELY not treating you. Unless you enjoy drinking mysterious liquids and passing out for hours on end. In which case be my guest.

6 Sadayo Kawakami

Ah, Kawakami. She sure does have it rough. Teacher by day, maid by night, she's a very sympathetic character, although she may not start out that way. At first glance she just seems like your typical extremely incompetent teacher- which she is. However the deeper into her storyline you go, the more you start to understand why she is the way she is. She ends up being quite a sweet person, not to mention her skills enable you to have more of the most important resource in Persona 5: time. Coincidentally, that's the one thing it takes for her to grow on you. Just give her a couple of days, and you'll learn to love her for who she is. A hot mess.

5 Sojiro Sakura

I don't think it’s an overstatement to say that the entire plot of the game would not have happened if not for Sojiro. For some unexplained reason, he agrees take in our main character who has just been put on parole, and it's that act that eventually brings our whole crew together. Even when he discovers that he has a phantom thief right under his roof, he sticks by you and even lets you hold meetings right there in his café. He goes from standoffish jerk to ‘dad we never had’ in a beautiful transformation that is one of the best progressions of a relationship in the game. If it wasn’t for his curious combination of coffee and curry for breakfast every morning, there's no way we could have completed our rehabilitation and saved the world from ruin. Sojiro literally saved the entire world (don't question it he totally did).

4 Ann Takamaki

Of all the characters on this list, Ann is the one that surprised me the most. She's pretty, blonde and a model. In video games, TV, movies; these things tend to be a placeholder for a personality, so really I expected nothing more from Ann: and boy did she prove me wrong. She is kind, loyal and is extremely strong willed. She suffered through sexual harassment at the hands of her teacher, her best friend's attempted suicide, and the her career as a model being sabotaged by a spiteful competitor. Through it all, however, she remains a positive force on the team and one of your characters closest friends from beginning to end. We all deserve someone like Ann in our lives.

3 Yusuke Kitagawa

Yusuke is another character that I love purely because every conversation with him is golden, particularly when leveling up your relationship with him. Throughout his journey to find himself as an artist, I joined him at an art exhibit, a romantic boat ride on a lake, and I posed as our Lord and Savior himself Jesus Christ on the crucifix as a way to inspire the creativity within Yusuke. Some may say that Yusuke’s best quality is his voice, but those people simply can't appreciate what he brings to the table and I simply have no time for them. He is a rare flower and I will defend him at every given opportunity.

2 Caroline and Justine (The Wardens)

Before starting my new game plus playthrough, these girls wouldn't have even been on this list, because I had no idea that they were even confidants until my second time around. The way you level up your confidant ranking with them is by fusing personas with a certain ability, per their request. The only thing I dislike about that is that you don't get to spend as much time with them as I'd like. They are both as entertaining as they are enigmatic, and though it may seem strange to have them so high up, everytime I brought them a new persona, they stole a little bit more of my heart. By force. They demanded I give it to them. But it still counts all the same.

1 Ryuji Sakamoto

I don't care what anyone says, this game would not be half as interesting or funny without Ryuji in it. There are a lot of people who would probably put Ryuji last on this list, due to his loud nature and penchant for yelling in public about how you and all your friends are the Phantom Thieves. But that's all part of his charm! Ryuji owes a lot of his likeability to his voice actor, Max Mittelman, as he somehow manages to be comically over the top while still remaining believable for his character. There are multiple times during the game where you'll have to pick who to hang out with at certain story moments, with the intention really being that you hang out with the girl you're romancing, but every single time I chose Ryuji. Every situation with him is comedy gold. Ryuji will forever be my number 1, and nobody will ever change my mind on that.

[onwardintolight]

What did you go to college for and what is your current job/career? Any tips for people starting college? How do you decide what to do with your life?

Hi anon! I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to answer your question!

My answer’s going to be complicated, because I have a chronic illness which means that I currently don’t have a career. That being said, I’ll try to answer as best I can!

I got my bachelor’s degree in linguistics. I absolutely LOVED it. I chose it because I loved it; I’ve always been fascinated by languages, and I found linguistics to be equally fascinating, wonderfully challenging, and a whole heck of a lot of fun. I started college declaring a major in letters (a broad degree mostly focused on languages, literature, and classical studies), but as soon as I took Intro to Linguistics fall of my sophomore year, I was hooked for good.

I was never quite sure what I wanted to do with linguistics, but there were many opportunities I could pursue, and I had an idea that maybe I’d eventually go to grad school to farther my options (perhaps studying linguistic anthropology, as I’ve always been really interested in the fight to save endangered languages). But that got put on hold indefinitely because….

Despite my love for linguistics, my main passion was dance, and for years I thought I was destined to be a dance teacher (I tried out teaching a class one year, and it was an incredible experience). You may be wondering, if this was the case, why didn’t I major in dance in college? That was a hard decision, but ultimately, through a lot of prayer and reflection, I felt like continuing to pursue dance with the dance studio I was at at the time was the right place for me to be. I was learning a lot, dancing with a performing troupe, and making some of the best memories, in an environment that was good for my soul.

On the side, during all of this, I was teaching music lessons on the hammered dulcimer, a folk instrument I’ve played since I was eleven, so that was always in the back of my mind as something I could continue to do.

To add another layer to all of this, I got married in college. My husband was studying to be an engineer. Consequently, I didn’t feel a whole lot of pressure to decide on what I was going to do right after college — I would pursue dancing and/or something to do with linguistics, while he would, God-willing, be the main breadwinner.

Naturally, things didn’t go as planned. My husband graduated with his master’s degree right in the middle of the recession, and despite his degree and impressive credentials, he was unable to find employment for a whole year. In the meantime, I picked up a job working in an after-school program, as I’d had experience with kids and teaching. It helped pay the bills, and it was incredibly rewarding, but it wasn’t something I wanted to continue doing as a career. Then my husband got a job in another state, we moved, and I continued my dance training. Eight months later, we moved across the country again after my husband’s job turned out to be a nightmare. I continued dancing in our new home and finally reached a level I was hoping to be at in order to teach again. When we moved back to our home state a year and a half later, I felt ready to jump into teaching dance as a career.

…And then, chronic illness struck. After a long, hard journey, I was eventually diagnosed with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), an immune disease that causes my body to release inordinate amounts of histamine, giving me random allergic reactions that are miserable and debilitating. One of the many triggers, unfortunately, happens to be exercise, particularly certain types of exercise like dance. I found that I was unable to dance anymore without getting sick, and it was devastating. (My illness has also made it impossible for me to keep a steady job.)

So, I’ve had to let go of my dream of being a dance teacher (I’m more glad than ever now that I didn’t major in dance in college, and focused on getting the experiences I wanted through my studio!). However, in letting go, I’ve found other things my heart is calling me towards. Writing is one of them — I probably never would have found I enjoyed writing fiction if it weren’t for being too sick to dance. I may have also found a way I can jump back into linguistics at home — I’m currently looking into what it would take to learn ancient Akkadian and Sumerian so I can join the effort to translate cuneiform tablets (there are thousands in museums that have never been translated). We’ll see how that goes. And in addition to all of that, I’m hoping to be a mother someday — I’m not sure whether I’ll be a full-time stay-at-home mom yet, but I know that’s a valid choice and I may end up deciding that’s where I want to be.

We’ll see.

So that’s my story so far. Here’s what I’ve learned:

- So much depends on things I don’t know, future possibilities and variables I have no way of seeing right now, and I’m okay with that. I’ve had to learn to just take life as it comes. To take the next step that’s lying there clear before me, trusting that God will make it all go somewhere meaningful and worthwhile.

- My dad has often quoted a commencement speech Steve Jobs gave at Stanford, remarking on what good career advice it had. One of the things he’s relayed to us, over and over, is that life is full of zig-zags. We so often plan our lives in a straight line (this will be my major, this will be my career, this is when I want to get married, etc.), and life rarely works out that way. However, the zig-zags you end up going on can all add up to something incredibly worthwhile. And sometimes it’s only through zig-zagging that you can arrive at a place where you feel like you truly belong or a career that calls you by name. My dad’s a prime example of this — he started out in med school, decided he didn’t want to be a doctor on one of the last days of his exams, walked out, ended up studying geology at a different college, became a high school chemistry teacher, went back to grad school to study history of science, and is now a professor and the curator of an incredible old, rare book collection at a university. His career has zig-zagged all over the place, but each zig and zag have been experiences that have made him who he is and, in the end, led him to where he is now. So don’t be afraid to listen to your heart and try different things. Don’t be afraid to zig-zag.

- Another great quote from my dad: “Don’t be afraid to do badly.” Sometimes failure is the only way we grow and learn and, in the end, succeed. You can’t achieve great things if you aren’t willing to accept the possibility of failure. On a more concrete level, you can’t pass your exam very easily if you’re petrified with anxiety about getting everything perfect. Perfectionism is a curse (one my dad knew his daughters struggled with greatly). Ain’t nobody got time for that!

- Money is overrated. Love and experiences and happiness are not. Don’t ignore the latter in favor of the former. If you have a passion for something, it may be difficult and you may have to work hard, but you can (hopefully) find a way to make it work.

- Ultimately? I don’t know how I would manage any of the twists and turns my life has sent me so far without a whole crap-ton of prayer, faith, love and community. That’s kept me going and kept me hoping, even when I’ve been tempted to give up.

Finally, some advice on starting college:

- It’s overwhelming at first, and that’s okay and normal. You’ll settle in and find your place eventually.

- Introduce yourself to someone else in every class you’re in. Strike up conversations. Be active in making friends. This will 1) potentially result in some good friendships, 2) make you feel less lonely, as college can (especially at first) feel like a very lonely place, and 3) give you someone you can reach out to in case you miss a class and need to exchange notes. I know this is difficult sometimes — I’m an introvert, I hate small talk — but as college went on and I did this more and more, I found it to be incredibly worthwhile.

- Explore! It’s okay to not have a major at first. Try out different classes. See what grabs you, what makes you wonder, what gives you joy.

- Apply for ALL the scholarships you can every year (before the scholarship deadlines roll around — make sure you know when they are). It’s a lot of work, but it can potentially save you from a heck of a lot more work and free you up to focus more on your studies!

- Show up. Be diligent. Yes, you can skip classes occasionally in college, and sometimes that’s really nice (especially if you’re having a really bad physical or mental health day). But definitely don’t make a habit of it, because if you do you won’t do well. In college you have to work on being self-motivated and self-disciplined, even when it’s hard. (And I say this as someone who struggled with depression, and some chronic illness, throughout most of my college years. It’s HARD. But just keep putting one foot in front of the other, as long as you’re able. And learn your limits; when you need to skip a class one day or reach out to a teacher for help or drop a class entirely. Sometimes that’s okay! Persevere hard, but extend yourself grace and forgiveness when you can’t.)

- Take ALL the notes. Seriously, don’t skimp on this. (If you miss a class, get the notes from someone else.) Then, when it’s time to prep for an exam, you can study your notes and be pretty sure you have it all covered. Some professors will let you take notes on your computer (which I like because I can type faster than I write); some won’t. It might help to ask your professor beforehand.

- If you’re struggling with a class, take advantage of your professor’s office hours (or if it’s not quite that dire, talk to them after class). Most professors love it when students do this because it shows you care and that you’re motivated. They really want to help you succeed. 

- And remember, no matter how alone you feel, you are not alone — you have people around you who are struggling too, people around you who care about you, and campus resources if you need them. Reach out. 

That’s all I can think of right now! If anyone else has any additional advice, feel free to chime in! I hope this is helpful, anon, even if my “career path” hasn’t exactly been traditional. I wish you all the best in college! 💜