#Even though high schoolers across America read it at least once….

[state-of-grac3]

Okay so I’ve literally been on tumblr for at least a couple years so ik some fandoms are smaller than others but I’m also now just realizing how funny it is when there’s only like 10 active people in that fandom and there are non canon things that have basically become canon bc of the said 10 people

[hale-13]

Caliber

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 12 - Death

Peter grew up like most American kids running active shooter drills thinking (hoping) it would never happen to him.

Words: 2338, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Teen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, Michelle Jones, Tony Stark, Various Midtown Students and Faculty

TW: TW: Gun Violence, Blood, Major Character Injury, Possible MCD (if you choose to interpret it that way)

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

Growing up, Peter spent his early childhood in lower level genetics labs with his parents. Part of this was simply because they worked some weird hours at OsCorp but the other part was definitely because they recognized his intelligence and talent early and would give him easy experiments to run while they worked. Safe? Eh, maybe not but Peter had fun.

Well, until they died that is.

After that Peter would spend his time in the hospital daycare or nurse’s break room or sitting at Ben’s desk in the bullpen at the precinct where he worked. Daycare and babysitters were expensive and Peter was having a little separation anxiety from becoming an orphan at six. Peter accredits this formative time in his life to why he has a healthy respect of first responders, why he goes out every night in spandex to help his neighborhood (even if the cops hate him).

After the funeral, after May and Ben went back to work and started taking Peter with them, Ben sat Peter down to go over basic gun safety with him. He can remember that initial conversation pretty vividly: Ben had sat Peter down on the couch and had pulled out his unloaded side arm and the small safe he stored it in. He told Peter just how dangerous weapons could be in untrained hands, how Peter could easily hurt himself or others if he ever touched it, how Ben would always have it locked up but, on the off chance it wasn’t, Peter was to never touch it.

Peter had readily agreed and had steered clear of Ben’s belt and the gun safe next to his side of the bed his whole childhood.

The officers that Ben worked with were, for the most part, super nice to Peter and always took time out of their days to talk to him, bring him snacks and (attempt) to help him with his homework and Peter grew to be the most comfortable in the loud bullpen or the adjacent break room. The summer before he started his freshman year at Midtown, Ben and some of the other officers had given Peter a crash course in gun safety – how to clean, care and shoot a weapon – and it only took one trip to dash Peter’s dreams of working in law enforcement; he never wanted to handle a gun again.

Holding his uncle’s body as he bled out a few months later from the massive hole left in his back by the .45 caliber handgun only solidified that decision.

Luckily, in his tenure as Spider-Man, Peter tended to run into more sub-Ultron and Chitauri fare than the classic handguns and rifles he was familiar with which suited him just fine. When he did come across a run of the mill mugger or rapist who was using a pistol or something similar, Peter took great pleasure in using his super strength to rip it into tiny pieces – destroyed beyond repair and off the streets for good.

This had resulted in some unfortunate bullet grazes and full-on holes in his body that had prompted his helicopter mentor (under the order of Aunt May of course) to force him through another gun safety lecture, complete with a practical portion where Colonel Rhodes assisted in teaching Peter how to properly disarm and disassemble a variety of different sidearms. It was definitely cool to spend time with Actual War Machine but Peter rushed through it as quickly and throughly as possible. He never wanted to have the easy comfort with weapons that Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes had – he preferred non-lethal disarmament when patrolling.

All this said – Peter probably had more experience and knowledge with various weapons (human and otherwise) than he had any right to.

All of this experience, all of his time as Spider-Man, everything he had been through did nothing to help keep him calm and collected when his principal came over the intercom while Peter was in gym class to announce a code red shelter in place order. Like most high schoolers in America, Peter had gone through numerous school safety drills so he, in theory, knew what to do in a emergency.

In practice? Not so much.

Coach Wilson had looked just as pale and stunned as the class but had recovered quickly enough to rush the doors. A few other students had also started moving to gather some of the wrestling mats to roll in front of the doors once Coach Wilson had gotten them closed and locked.

He, unfortunately, wasn’t quick enough.

Brian Anderson, a sophomore Peter recognized from the debate team, forced the door open, brandishing the small revolver in a shaky hand. His face was pale, eyes red rimmed with tears with such a desolate look it made Peter’s own heart clench in sympathy despite his rapid heart-rate.

“Back up,” he whispered, using the gun to gesture for the coach to step away and the man obliged; holding his hands up in surrender and slowly backing away from the door. Some of Peter’s classmates, including Ned who, for once, wasn’t right at Peter’s side in class but across the room from him, had started to cry. Michelle, looking stony faced but terrified underneath it all, was trying to shush Betty Brant who was in the middle of a full blown panic attack and trying not to draw attention to herself.

“Okay,” Coach Wilson said, motioning the class members closest to him to back up with one raised hand, his eyes never leaving the weapon. “You’re calling the shots here Brian.”

Brian sniffled, fresh tears spilling over his eyes and hand trembling as he surveyed the room, eventually moving the barrel to point at Mark Conley, one of Flash’s friends and a notorious online bully. Both boys had gone nearly ghost white and the class seemed to be holding its collective breath.

“Sorry Ben,” Peter thought. “Sorry Mr. Stark.”

“Brian,” he called out, voice sounding much more steady than he predicted it would since he was just Peter Parker right now and not Spider-Man. “You don’t want to do this man.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Brian spit out, anger over-ruling all of his other feelings and his eyes landing on Peter. “You don’t know what I want to do!”

“I promise you don’t want to do this,” Peter said calmly. “I know what they’re like. You think they treat me any better than you? You’ll regret this if you do it.”

Brian snorted out a dry laugh, not looking like he found anything remotely funny. “Then you should want me to do this.” He said, cherry picking Peter’s words.

“But I don’t,” Peter told him, edging closer to the other boy, making sure to put his body in front of Mark as he moved closer. “Do you know how my uncle died?” Brian, eyes locked with Peter’s, shook his head nearly imperceptibly. “He was shot by some guy robbing a bodega. He bled out in my arms before emergency services could arrive.” Peter said bluntly, doing the best to ignore how his heart clenched and his eyes burned.

The barrel of Brian’s gun dipped down to point more toward the floor and Peter took a few cautious steps forward, stopping when he was only about five feet away. “They won’t stop,” Brian whispered, the tears flowing heavier but his finger still in place over the trigger. “It just keeps getting worse and I can’t take it. I can’t do this anymore!”

“I know,” Peter said, voice soft, dropping his hands down to rest loosely at his sides. He really wishes he had his web-shooters, secret identity be damned. He was never taking them off again, no matter what May tried to tell him about work/life balance. “I know what its like and it sucks but they aren’t worth throwing your whole life away. It’s not worth hurting all the innocent people you’ll hurt. You don’t want to do that to your friends and family.”

“I don’t have any friends!” Brian said loudly, raising the gun back up to point at Peter but Peter didn’t move from his relaxed position even though he felt his heart speed up to a gallop. He faced possible injury and death at least once a week but that was always as Spider-Man… never as Peter Parker.

“I’m your friend,” Peter told him, a little desperate but honest. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” Brian gasped and let the pistol drop to his side in a loose grip. “Just hand me the gun Brian okay? And then we can talk about it, I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Brian sniffed and rubbed his free hand over his face to wipe away the tears rolling down his cheeks. “Do you promise?”

“I promise,” Peter confirmed, holding out his hand. Brian nodded and lifted his hand to pass Peter the gun when everything went wrong. Betty, who had been hyperventilating through the entire exchange, finally passed out. MJ tried to catch her but the two of them hit the floor with a echoing bang that startled the whole class. Brian, gun lifted and finger still on the trigger, flinched and jerked to aim back at Mark, shooting.

Everything happened in slow motion for Peter and he grimaced at what he was about to do, saying mental apologies and throwing his body in the path of the bullet, jerking back at the feeling of it hitting him in the chest.

His breath knocked out and his consciousness already becoming more nebulous from the pain that was blooming in his lungs, Peter stumbled forward to yank the gun from Brian’s limp grasp, deftly unloading it with the last of his strength and with shaking hands before throwing the rounds to the opposite side of the gym; collapsing at the other boys feet.

“Oh god,” Brian whispered in horror. “Oh god Peter. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” He tried to bend down next to Peter but was swiftly tackled by Abe and Jason where he was wrestled onto his front with them restraining his hands without a fight beyond his gulping sobs.

“You’re alright Parker,” Coach Wilson said soothingly as he rolled Peter onto his back and used his own hastily shed jacket to apply pressure to the steadily bleeding hole in Peter’s chest, causing him to grunt and squeeze his eyes shut in pain. “Thompson! Call 911 and tell them we have the shooter and we need emergency services in the gym. Conley run up to the office and tell Morita what happened!” Both boys jumped into action but Peter ignored it in favor of unsteadily pulling his own phone out of his pocket and sliding it to Ned who had joined the group along with a pale and teary Michelle.

“Call Tony,” Peter coughed out, blood staining his lips and leaked down the side of his face. “No hospital.”

Ned, shaking and crying worse than Peter had ever seen fumbled the phone with numb hands before giving up and pressing the panic button on the side of the phone. Feeling relieved that his mentor was on the way, Peter let his tired eyes close only to rip them open at the flick on his nose.

“It’s not nap time Tiger,” MJ told him, forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Don’t want to get detention again.”

“I think…” Peter gasped out, his lungs aching with the strain. “Think this… get me… a permanent… ‘get out of detention’… free card.”

Michelle ran soft fingers through his hair, helping him relax his clenching muscles. He could tell that Ned was on the phone and speaking in rapid, broken sentences. He could kind of hear the sirens approaching, the sound of the building evacuating, crying students. But nothing mattered as much as Michelle. “You just couldn’t help yourself huh?”

“You know… me,” Peter grunted, trying for a grin that didn’t show the tacky blood he was sure was staining his teeth. “No guts… no glory.”

“God you’re a disaster,” MJ said with a watery laugh, a single tear escaping to race down her cheek. Peter wanted nothing more than to reach out and wipe it away but his arms were made of lead.

Before Peter could work up the energy to respond, the doors of the gym were blown off the hinges by repulsers as Tony rushed the room, suited up in his full armor and clearly panicked. “Peter!” He shouted as he stumbled out of the suit, falling to his knees next to Peter and hastily began applying his prototype nanotech bandage to the hole in Peter’s chest before rolling him on his side to repeat the process with his back.

Peter gagged at the change in position, his eyesight fading out to a pinprick of light and his hearing glitching out. The voices around him became ever more harried but Peter couldn’t make out what they were trying to say – all he knew was he was really tired. More tired than he had ever been maybe. Surely no one would mind if he took a little nap?

“Stay with me buddy,” he heard Mr. Stark say as cold, hard arms gripped under his back and knees, lifting him and causing him to nearly black out again. “Just a quick little flight to the Tower Petey,” Tony said, voice wavering and not its usual strong timbre. “Just hang with me for a few more minutes and then you can nap okay kiddo?”

“Tired,” Peter gasped out, chest seizing. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize!” Tony ordered, frantic and yelling over the wind buffeting them. When had they started flying? “Just stay awake.”

“Love May,” Peter whispered, his vision a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors that were rapidly fading. “Love you.”

“Peter!” Tony sounded so far away, Peter thought as his eyes closed against the colors and shapes and lights that were making him feel dizzy and sick.

Just a little nap.

No one would notice.

[xyliane]

the many lies of kanzaki hitomi to her long-suffering best friend uchida yukari

summary: when hitomi is on time to their weekend coffee time, yukari knows something is up.

notes: because I utterly adore escaflowne in ways that I don’t know if I can truly describe, and the wonderful @wuzzyletoastermac​ recently finished the show, I couldn’t not attempt a post-series write-up about...the best friend who’s only in four episodes. (I just love van and hitomi so much). G, hitomi and yukari friendship, van/hitomi mention. 1450 words.

---

Yukari knows it’s something big when Hitomi makes time to meet for coffee on a Saturday. Normally, Hitomi—best friend since forever, national track star at the age of 18, certified social worker, truly wonderful person, etc. etc.—is off with her long-distance boyfriend, or coaching track, or coaching track with her long-distance boyfriend looking pleasantly befuddled at the whole proceedings. On a rare occasion, she’ll ask Yukari for help getting Van into what can politely be termed “normal people clothes,” and Yukari can spend most of the afternoon puzzling over Van’s absolutely bizarre accent and failing to get either of them to tell her where exactly in Greece she can find someone as hot as Van Fanel.

Hitomi swears up and down that they started dating while she was doing a study abroad in Australia her second year of uni, but that doesn’t explain why the poor man 1: doesn’t speak English at least on par with an average high schooler’s cram school classes, and 2: doesn’t own a single pair of jeans not currently in residence in Hitomi’s closet. The Greeks aren’t that weird. Besides, half of Yukari’s architecture clients are based in America. She knows weird. And even by those standards, Van is weird.

Not to mention there’s some nagging part of Yukari’s brain that seems to recognize Van. It’s bothered her since they first met, and the last three years have done nothing to assuage that feeling. How silly to believe that they met in a dream or a vision. That is certainly more Hitomi’s realm.

But he loves Hitomi. It’s impossible to unsee that deep unending well of affection in his dark eyes, the soft smile that makes him look ages younger whenever she’s around, how patient he is even when she’s determined to find the perfect sweater for a job interview or the exact right cafe she claims was there the last time she was in this part of Asakusa. Occasionally, he’ll even catch her before she wanders too far afield, hand tight on her wrist in a way that speaks both to his own nerves wandering around in a crowded city (again, Hitomi went to uni in Sydney, why is Tokyo that much different) and to the way Hitomi turns back to him like a flower blooming in sunshine, all blushing cheeks and bright smile and alive in ways Yukari only wishes she could feel.

So Yukari’s a little jealous. It’s hard not to be. If it weren’t for the occasional argument blowing Hitomi’s temper sky high and Van’s own anger coming out in blistering tension, or the way that Hitomi will sometimes spend more time complaining about the weekend she’d had with him than bothering to answer any of Yukari’s questions about where exactly they’d met up, she’d worry that Van actually was perfect.

Okay well, no one she has to force into jeans against their will is perfect. Especially someone who looks like that.

So Yukari has kindly deigned to meet with her best friend at their favorite cafe on a beautiful Saturday morning, despite everything (Hitomi’s boyfriend and Yukari’s desire to sleep until 3pm respectively). Something’s off.

And when she rounds the corner at 10am on the dot, Kanzaki Hitomi is already there sipping a latte with Yukari’s favorite sitting there, still steaming. Hitomi is never on time. For anything. Ever. If she is, it’s because of her long legs and bizarre luck.

Something is definitely off.

“Yukari! I got you coffee,” she says, bright guileless grin on her face.

Yukari sits and sips. Sweet, caffeinated bliss. She almost forgives Hitomi the hour.

Not enough to loosen her suspicions, though. “Hitomi, what are you up to?” she says once her brain is active.

“Ah, well.” Hitomi casually brushes non-existent lint off her jacket sleeves. “I wanted to tell you something.”

“Is it about Van?” When her best friend’s face turns a bright pink, Yukari’s eyebrows rise. “Is he moving here?”

Head shake no. Hm.

“Did he finally take his jeans home?”

Deeper flush.

“Are you pregnant?”

“Yukari!” Hitomi screeches, face luminescent and voice far too loud for the little cafe. A few of the other patrons, including some who clearly have had as much sleep as Yukari, turn and glare at them, and Hitomi clasps hands over her own face. Yukari tries to not laugh, really. “I’m—no. And if you’re gonna be a jerk, I won’t invite you to my wedding.”

Any and all feelings of malicious annoyance vanish in an instant. “You’re—Hitomi! Congrats! That’s amazing, when are you getting married? Where are you getting married? If Van’s not moving here, does that mean you’re—where is he these days, is it going to be big or small? What should my dress look like? Do you have the colors picked out?”

Hitomi giggles through her fingers, a little on edge and clearly overwhelmed. “That’s too many questions!”

“I can write them out in a list and email them if you’d rather.”

A high-pitched whine more like a tea kettle than a woman in her mid-20s erupts out of Hitomi, and she drops her face to the table in her best impression of a puddle of melted ice cream. “I wanted to tell you properly, you know,” she mutters.

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t let it slip on accident,” Yukari says. As much fun as it is to mercilessly toy with her best friend who completely deserves it, there are more pressing matters, particularly Yukari’s own calendar that she is going to completely shuffle around. “But before I spend the next three hours getting you to spill every detail, at least tell me when and where.”

Without moving her face off the table, Hitomi rustles in her purse, pushing a pair of envelopes at Yukari. The first is a classic wedding invitation, cream colored envelope brushed with elegant black kanji. It’s exactly what Yukari would have expected from Hitomi’s mom, who has handled the years after her husband’s death with astonishing grace. But the second…

The parchment—it’s too thick to be paper, fibrous and off-white and flecked with gold—is about as wide as Yukari’s hands spread apart, and covered in a mix of runes and curling symbols that spread across the top of the invitation like wings. In the center of the whole thing is burnt a diamond-shaped emblem with a winged dragon. It doesn’t look like any Greek Yukari has ever seen.

“Would you be the host for my reception? It’s in a month and a half,” Hitomi is asking, which under any other circumstance would send Yukari into delighted peals of laughter. She’s a planner by nature, and organizing something as momentous as Hitomi’s small wedding will be worth every moment of her best friend and her boyfriend making sappy eyes at each other.

“Of course I will,” Yukari says, distracted. Social work doesn’t pay enough for an invitation this fancy, and Van can’t even afford his own clothes. And it’s not in Japanese, or English, and is that real gold? “What is this?”

Hitomi rubs nervous circles around her latte mug. “Since Van’s not from here, and the only person who can travel is his sister, we thought, you know. One wedding here for me, one there for him.”

“Sounds great,” Yukari says, turning the parchment upside down and over onto its back, hoping that the meaning will magically appear. “Hitomi, I can’t read this.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, Yukari.” Hitomi passes a hand over the parchment, the ring on her hand glimmering bright pink in the sun, and the runes curl and shift before Yukari’s eyes like…like magic. Yukari resists the urge to rub her eyes. Magic isn’t real. Just like dragons aren’t, or friends vanishing into pillars of light.

Your presence is requested at The marriage of Van of Fanelia and Hitomi Kanzaki White, 12th Moon Present invitation upon arrival

“It’s almost like a destination wedding!” Hitomi says. “Will you come? Please? Only Mom and my brother can come, and you know Sota hates this sort of thing.”

The things Yukari does for Hitomi. “Of course I will,” she says. But before Hitomi can relax too much, she reaches across the table and grabs her best friend’s hands, digging in just a little too hard. “But Hitomi, for once, don’t lie to me about this: where on earth is Van even from?”

Hitomi gives a little hiccup of a laugh and refuses to meet Yukari’s eyes. “So, funny story…”

——

“You owe me so much cake, Kanzaki Hitomi.”

“I promise, at least one at the wedding!”

“Each wedding.”

[nadiafm]

( camila morrone, cisfemale ) hey ! have you seen NADIA PEREZ around ? they work as a ICE SKATING INSTRUCTOR at big bear resort, but they must be off their shift by now. well, if you do see them can you let me know ? they’re 21 years old & they’ve been working here for 11 MONTHS. they tend to be +AMOROUS & +CONVIVIAL, but can also be -LICENTIOUS & -WARY. the other employees have labeled them THE ROMANTIC. thanks a lot ! gold hoops , floral mini dresses , pink lipgloss , overly dramatic eyeshadow , freckles specked across your nose , mascara running down your cheeks , tequila shots chased with salt and lime , lana del rey blasting in your headphones , mirror selfies , golden hour , glitter and rhinestones , blue raspberry dum dums , piled up books you keep forgetting to read.

hey y’all !! i’m so excited for this wow. i’m sam, i’m 22, and i live in pst !! i’m a sucker for cooking shows and dogs and candles. but more importantly...this is my freaking baby nadia, an absolute idiot with a heart of gold ! i already know this intro is going to be too long but bare with me i will include a tldr at the bottom i promise. also hmu on discord to plot ! capricornmom#1278

here is nadia’s pinterest & here is her playlist

aesthetics : gold hoops , floral mini dresses , pink lipgloss , overly dramatic eyeshadow , freckles specked across your nose , mascara running down your cheeks , tequila shots chased with salt and lime , lana del rey blasting in your headphones , mirror selfies , golden hour , glitter and rhinestones , blue raspberry dum dums , piled up books you keep forgetting to read

character parallels : jackie burkhart ( that 70′s show ) rachel green ( friends ) , cassie howard ( euphoria ) , brooke davis ( one tree hill ) , bianca stratford ( 10 things i hate about you ) , april ( palo alto ) , erica vandross ( flower ) , gigi & triple a ( booksmart ) , snooki ( jersey shore ) , jessica day ( new girl )

full name : nadia paloma perez

birthday : july 23, 1998

zodiac : cancer sun , pisces moon , pisces rising . god help this emotional ass girl

nationality : american 

religion : roman catholic

sexual & romantic orientation : bisexual , biromantic

hometown : aventura , florida ( 20 minutes outside of miami )

languages spoken : english ( fluent ) , spanish ( fluent ) , french ( still learning , takes it in school , somewhat conversational )

likes : candy ( sour punch straws , lollipops ) , watching soccer games ( messi stan till she dies ) , rex orange county , writing , magazines , making empanadas with her abuela , romantic comedies ( her fav is how to lose a guy in 10 days ) , tequila sodas , sex , lana del rey , chipotle burritos , iced chai lattes with almond milk from starbucks , gossip girl , craft beer , margaret atwood

dislikes : quinoa , nuts in things like salad or cookies , star wars , watching golf , oatmeal , church , screamo music , california ( a grudge ) , spoiled rich kids , condescending business majors , quentin tarantino ( and his avid fans )

BACKGROUND

Born and raised in South Florida, a little aways from Miami ! Her mother, Paloma, was an Adventura native while her father, Santiago, was an immigrant from Argentina. Her parents met in college when Paloma was studying abroad in Argentina. They fell in love, rather quickly, and the rest was history. They had planned on moving back to America together, but Santiago’s visa was denied. So, after only four months of knowing each other and 2.5 months of dating, they got married. 

Turns out sometimes you should know your partner better before getting married !! shocker right. It wasn’t so bad at first, though. They were young and in love and their honeymoon phase seemed to last forever, until it didn’t. 

By the time Nadia was born, they’d already begun to realize each other’s faults and flaws. Santiago was a good looking guy, and with his thick Argentine accent, he tended to come off as overly friendly and at times overtly flirty. Paloma was jealous and needy. It never seemed to mesh well when she thought her husband was flirting with every other mom in the neighborhood. 

So, for the majority of Nadia’s childhood, all she remembered from her parent’s marriage was them fighting. She had a close relationship with the both of them, though, and she was particularly close with her father. He was her biggest supporter !! Always hyping her up. He was the one signing her up for sports like soccer (they’re a huge soccer family, the only time her parents weren’t fighting was during Argentina games), gymnastics, dance, and ice skating. Her favorite was soccer, and her for most of her adolescent years, her dad coached her team. They formed a really close bond because of it. 

The marriage was sort of non exinsistant at this point, but in some sort of last attempt to salvage any love they might have had for each other, Santiago and Paloma had a baby. It was more Paloma’s idea than anything. Santiago, at that point, was only sticking around for Paloma. She was seven when her little sister was born, Caterina, and Nadia absolutely adored her. They may have been seven years a part, but they were the best of friends. 

When Nadia was twelve, she woke up with a note on her bed side table. It was from her father, and it read: “Nads, I’m so sorry I couldn’t say goodbye to your face. I wish I was stronger. I am so proud of you and I promise I will be in touch. Te amo. Papa” He hadn’t left anybody else a note, and not even a word to her mother. As close as she was to her mother and sister, she couldn’t help but blame them for her father leaving. Still, she was pretty certain she’d hear from him soon. That he’d come back once he cleared his head. Only, he didn’t. 

Word spread pretty fast around school about what had happened. Suddenly, Nadia was a charity case. PTA moms were coming up to her and offering to bring her lunch or dinner, if she needed it. She was the girl who’s dad left them high and dry. It didn’t help that on top of that, her body was going through changes much more rapidly than any of her friends. She already had gotten her period, and by the time she was in seventh grade she was wearing a D cup bra. So in addition to the sudden spotlight as the girl without a dad, boys started treating her differently. Boys that had never talked to her previously suddenly wanted to be her friend. In eighth grade, Hayden Walker rolled up a small piece of paper and shot it like a basketball into her cleavage. He high-fived his friends after and thanked her for the backboard.  

So middle school was rough. And while Nadia had had one or two boyfriends during that time, she’d never gone past kissing them. That’s not how the rumors went, though. That was the part that hurt the most. The things people said, especially the things girls said about her. Girls she thought were her friends. 

At the end of eighth grade, during the summer before high school, she got a text from her dad. The first one in 2 years! She’d idolized him her whole life, so obviously she was ready to forgive him as soon as she heard from him. He told her he was living in California and Nadia was like, I’m sold! Let’s go! Only her mother was like...are you fucking insane you are not going to California to visit that man. Long story short, she found a cheap cross country bus ticket and essentially ran away from home to see her dad! He was shocked she had come at all, despite his text message leading her to believe he wanted to see her. Apparently it was more of a courtesy text, a text so he could let go of the guilt of leaving an entire family behind. Because in the two years he’d been gone, he managed to start a new one. He had a new wife, and two newborn twins. 

Nadia was pretty furious, but she stayed the summer anyways. She had full intentions of starting high school in California and not going home to Florida. Things were tense at her father’s, though. Her “step mother” obviously didn’t like having her around, and though her bond with her father was slowly rekindling, there was still a sort of distance between them. But they were trying to make it work, at the very least. 

Then came the end of the summer. Nadia had made a few friends around the neighborhood, and was invited to an end of summer kickback with a bunch of high schoolers. Naturally, she lied about her age at the party. She was 14, but told everyone she was 16, and everyone seemed to overlook her baby face thanks to her ass and tits. At the end of the night, a boy drove her home, and the two ended up hooking up in the car. Apparently she had misjudged how much her father actually cared, because he’d waited up for her to come home, and after seeing car headlights out front, he’d stormed outside to find her in the car with a high school boy, half naked. After allowing her to gather her bearings, he essentially humiliated her right there on the front lawn, screaming about how irresponsible she was amongst other things. The majority of the conversation has since been blacked out from her mind, but she’ll never forget the look on her dad’s face when he said, “you’re nothing, you’re just like your mother, and i don’t want you anywhere near my family.”  whew !! ya girl was hurt.  

So, obviously, she was back on the way to mom’s ! Honestly at that point her mom wasn’t even mad at her for leaving she was just thankful she was back. 

GODDD okay this is getting long so I need to wrap this up. I haven’t even gotten to personality KJSHG Okay let’s wrap up high school in one bullet point. Basically she sub consciously searched for every man’s approval because she lacked the approval she needed from her father! This meant lots of boyfriends and never saying no. In her four years of high school, she was maybe single for a total of like ... seven months. not seven consecutive months lmao, 7 months in between relationships. 

one of those boys was connor perch, her first official boyfriend freshman year ! they were really sweet n young and nadia really thought she was in love. but then she gave him a blowjob and this mf recorded it ! and nadia found out after the fact, asked him to delete it, he said it was just for himself to look at, only to find out he’d sent it to his friends a few days later. so that basically set the precedent for how she’d be treated the next four years of high school ! she tried to act like it didn’t bother her but dang. high schoolers can be very mean !

oh my god i seriously have to wrap up okay this will be quick. basically when she was a senior in high school she went on a ski trip to big bear and met a boy named ethan, who she like fell in love with so fast like literally a week give it a rest girl. he was from Colorado but when she left they kept in touch and basically talked every day for the rest of the school year and throughout the summer. She’d decided to apply to Boulder University to be closer to him because this time it really felt like the real thing ! SURPRISE AGAIN ! She got to school and found out he had a girlfriend. She was really mf heartbroken over that. But did she learn her lesson? No. Does she still fall in love with anyone who looks in her direction? Yes. 

Okay and lastly she has been working all sorts of jobs throughout college because her mom is helping her pay for tuition and rent so she’s gotta cover spending money ! She ended up getting a job at Big Bear Resort during her last winter break as an ice skating instructor because she used to do ice skating back in the day. Now she works at Big Bear during her school breaks and on some weekends ! 

TLDR/Tidbits

Hopeless romantic with major daddy issues

Will overanalyze every interaction she has with anyone because she thinks they might like her

EXTREMELY GULLIBLE 

Probably will have a crush if you are even remotely nice to her 

Really dumb but means well. Literally no common sense. Complete bimbo

Cries A LOT. Complete crybaby. Happy or sad she’s probably crying

Heart of gold!! She really always means well even when she fucks up so bad I SWEAR her heart was in the right place 

Can outdrink anyone. She would drink a 6ft5in, 200 pound man under the table any day

Tequila is her choice of drink, but vodka is for her #sadgirlhours

Obsessed with Rosalía, Lana Del Rey, & Rex Orange County. And also 2010 bangers. Anything she can shake her ass to !

She pretty much used to exclusively wear mini dresses because when she realized everyone was just gonna sexualize her anyway, she was like FUCK IT, i’ll show my ass n titties n legs. Except it’s fucking like negative degrees in Colorado so she can’t do that ! Bummer. (she’ll still probably find ways to wear mini dresses)

Obsessed with makeup!! She loves doing adventurous things with eyeshadows and lipsticks  like ok euphoria 

Kinda crazy. Major crackhead vibes especially when she’s drunk! She loves going out, she’ll go out on a Tuesday, she just likes to have fun ok and dance on tables and make out with cute people

She’ll have a one night stand but just know for HER she’ll probably get attached. I’m so sorry it won’t last that long but she’ll pine for at least a week

ok that is all i’m so sorry for this shit show of an intro but here is a messy list of wc !

[dat-fandom-losertown]

Cat Out of the Bag

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Chapter 1: Prologue & The Encounter

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Neko!Hank Anderson x Artist/Author!Connor

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Warnings: Swearing (assume this’ll be in all future chapters as well lol), A tad of Violence, Panic attack similar to my own, Blood/Injury Mention

Word Count: 9,453 (I have no clue how to write short chapters/fics lol)

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

Synopsis:

   “I ain’t some starvin’, twink cat that you can just bring home and teach how to trust and love or whatever the fuck else books try to say. Hell, I’m not even a Persian or Maine Coon cat with those bushy, pale tails like people always love to give us bears. I’m just an old, fat calico.”

   “I personally don’t agree with the stereotypes as well. But as I offered before, you’re always welcome to leave. The front door is right there, I’m not keeping you trapped here... If you wanted to stay, though, I can make you breakfast? You can watch me make your breakfast, or you can make it yourself if you want.”

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

~> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

                   Growing up, Connor was always stuck in the worlds he fabricated in his mind, and he wasn’t ashamed of it like his family tried to tell him to be. Even when he would introduce himself to people since middle school, he would always say his name then state that he had an uncontrollably active imagination, and if they ever are speaking to him and he doesn’t appear to be actively listening that they should try to not be offended. He just simply found inspiration and was committing whatever it was to memory to come back to later, or has laid out a simple plot to follow along later. He really meant no harm or disrespect to them.

    Let’s just say that, among the school’s nerds, jocks, or other cliques, “Crazy Connor” did not fit into any social group, and regularly gained more bullies than friends. He never minded too much, though. He always lived vicariously through his character’s lives which he created, and they always had plenty of friends and allies they could turn to when in trouble. That’s all he needed, or at least, that’s what he always convinced himself so he wouldn’t become swallowed by loneliness.

    By his first year in high school, he wrote an entire book, and by the end of his first year, he wrote another, longer one. For his second year in high school, he was “gently persuaded” into taking an art class for whatever reason the school offered (he wasn’t listening on purpose that time), and he discovered he had a natural gift in the subject. With the encouragement of his art teacher and his one and only friend, Markus, he started posting his artworks on a blog he created just for this purpose, that way he didn’t flood his normal social medias with the unusual content. Soon after, he bought himself the equipment to start doing digital art and quickly switched to that for any piece that wasn’t a graded assignment.

    By the end of Connor’s second year, an online social media influencer found the one fanart of them he made– and his blog and all of his other works by extension– by pure chance. After some talking and interactions, they asked if they could commission him to do a small line of t-shirt merch designs. Of course, Connor said yes. They loved it, and so did the customers and fans who looked at and bought the t-shirts. He still knows to this day that he is more than extremely lucky to have had this chance.

    After designing the merch, his art blog started gaining more attention, and by christmas break of his third year in high school, he was making more money each month than any student he knew with a job. He got donations from very generous people just for sharing his art and little comic scenes, and he regularly got commissions from people, and was even asked to create pin and more t-shirt designs for that same online influencer. Connor never gave up writing, however, he simply never posted it anywhere public. Although, as soon as he turned 18 early in his Senior year, he immediately self-published the first book he wrote after doing some heavy editing (it was an actual cringefest trying to read through it), and made it well known on his blog that more were coming in the somewhat-near future.

    It didn’t do too well, to say the least. A world where nekojins and inujins don’t exist, especially for the sake of not making certain things in the plot happen conveniently and provide crude or perverted humor? It doesn’t fly for most people. He didn’t give up, though, of course not. He expected this book to not do well at all, so he wasn’t put off in the slightest. He self-published his next book during his final new year’s break of high school, which ended up doing much better than his first, considering it was a fantasy adventure genre and had a nekojin as one of the main characters. Looking back on it now, this is probably where his career in writing first started.

    Up until this point, Connor was convinced he’d be stuck at a nine-to-five office job for his entire life, since he couldn’t see himself doing what he loved due to the lack of publisher and author connections and, as much as he loves art, that’s not where his true passion lies. He knew that he’d eventually get burnt out if it were his job and only source of income. Although, he also couldn’t imagine doing something he actively disliked because he would rather rip his hair out than be an accountant or anything of the sort like what his family wanted. However, this second book made him realise that it could be possible to do what he wanted full time.

    As Connor very soon found out, nekojins and inujins weren’t popularly a main character in books or any media for that matter, and if they were, the book almost always had a forbidden love type of plot or the partial-human was a slave of some sort of one of the other main characters. The fact that Connor, a high schooler, wrote a book with a kick-ass nekojin who gives no fucks and takes no shits as a main character with a pure human lover/sidekick was decidedly open minded and extremely controversial.

    At one point, an encounter with a reporter brought up the question of how he found the courage to make such a bold statement. Connor felt somewhat guilty when he admitted that this story idea had just been in his head for so long and it just had a bad-ass nekojin as the main character. He put no thought into what people would think about it or what kind of statement it could possibly give. It’s just what the story always was, so he made it how it is. Simple as that.

    And apparently that was an open minded answer. The fact that he hadn’t even thought about what the public might think and didn’t care whatsoever that the main character was a nekojin proved that in his head was a world that easily existed where partial humans and pure humans lived in perfect equality. The writers of those articles weren’t exactly wrong, but Connor still didn’t like how every single one of his artworks and writing pieces were soon heavily criticized and people looked far more into them than even Connor himself thought was possible. It was almost intriguing how people could pull such in-depth ideas and conspiracies from works that were made simply because he thought “Oh, this kind of pose looks cool for this character” and “Wow, these colors look cool with it so we’ll smash them together like this” and “Ta Da! I did it! I made a thing! Look guys!”.

    By the time he graduated, he was in the midst of self-publishing a third book that Connor carefully picked because the story line didn’t have anything blatantly controversial in it. His fourth or fifth ones didn’t have anything especially attention-grabbing in them either. Although, that’s just how he planned them in his head. Yes, he did have other titles deemed more risky and controversial, but he didn’t release them only because he didn’t want that kind of attention on him again yet. Eventually, all the controversy surrounding Connor had died down once people began realising that such a large statement from him was likely going to be a one time deal. All that was left behind from the ordeal was a sudden spike in interest and income from the people who found his work because of the fuss.

    Yes, he hated that partial human slavery still existed, and no, he never planned on getting one of his own and helping the economy of those types of businesses, but he couldn’t gather the bravery needed to make any grand statements on his blog and march along with the groups of people trying to make things equal. He had morals and human decency, but they apparently didn’t run deep enough to make him less terrified of the mass of negative attention he once faced, so he supported the protesters in spirit for doing what he can’t with minor guilt.

    He still feels that way even now at 32 years old. He’s lucky enough to no longer be a starving artist, and he moved out of Markus’ and Simon’s shared apartment to live on his own a couple years ago. He still mainly does digital pieces when creating art, but he took inspiration from Markus and his father and started using different types of traditional medias again. Although, somewhere down the line, art stopped being the larger source of his income, and started being extra cash he put into savings and funding for larger luxury items– such as trips across America for more experiences that he could use in his art and books.

    He no longer has to self-publish anymore, yet he still occasionally does under an alias when his agent, a good friend of his by the name Luther, wants him to change too many aspects of a book to make it more commercialized. He has told Connor in the past that he comes up with other manuscripts to pitch quickly compared to the other writers he works with, so he doesn’t worry too often about Connor self-publishing something he didn’t accept. He understands that, to Connor, these aren’t just books, these are tiny pieces of himself in written form. Though, Luther always goes into detail about what parts he doesn’t like and why because there are times where Connor decides that the world in his head would be made better with the changes Luther wanted.

    Connor is currently heading home after one of said moments. He just got done with a meeting to pitch his next potential book, and Luther had suggested that he change the time travel portion in it to make it a trilogy and expand on some character’s backstory and development. Connor, not understanding why he hadn’t written a series of any kind yet, since most of his books are rather long, quickly and happily agreed to go home and edit large chunks of it to make it work.

    He wonders if he can somehow convince Luther or the publishing company to hold off on publishing the books until all three are completed. Connor hates waiting months for sequels and much prefers having all of the books in a series so he can binge them, and he knows that he’s far from the only one who feels this way. They probably won’t stall until all 3 books are fully completed, though. He’ll just have to somehow work quicker than usual without getting burnt out, or pitch a different book from his list of ideas to work on in the meantime.

    Connor blinks out of his head to pause and take in the scenery around him. Connor’s lucky to live in a more suburban area. He’s always been an extremely light sleeper, so he could never get much rest when he lived in the city with his family. The nearest area like that is just far enough away that the only evidence of it being there are the skyscrapers in the distance and the fact there are precisely 14 stars on a clear night sky, and on the nights that aren’t clear, the clouds over the downtown area have an enchanting glow to them.

    In the area Connor lives in now, most of the roads are all one lane per direction, with the exception of the main roads with the stores and sloppy grids of traffic lights. This is where Connor is right now, walking along the strangely empty sidewalk. He lives in one of the apartment buildings in the area, and the rumble of cars and occasional shrieks of emergency vehicles are enough to make him want to move back to Markus’ quieter area, despite there still being five more months left on his two-year lease. Looking off to the side where his apartment building should be, Connor decides that he should start hunting for other apartments if he really wants to move somewhere else.

    Connor pulls out his phone to take a picture of the serene scene he’s just been greeted by. The setting sun casting the sky in a brilliantly beautiful gradient of rich orange and gold. He has to shove the small sense of guilt away for thinking something that air pollution has caused is gorgeous, because that’s exactly what it is. The small trees that are planted in the middle of the wide sidewalk on the other side of the road look like a black void is trying to rip and glitch its way into swallowing the sky whole, yet is always coming up short. The road he walks along is empty for now due to the traffic light glowing red behind him, which gives him a chance to get an unobscured picture.

    This is the perfect scene to paint back at home. Maybe it’s just the thing to finally get him out of his art block.

    Connor quickly snaps several pictures at varying levels of brightness and contrast before the light turns green. He quickly puts his phone away and continues on his way home. Honestly, Connor should have taken an Uber or something instead of walking, but he isn’t regretting it quite yet. He probably will in a few minutes, though, when the only light will be from the moon and the occasional street light. He supposes he can always call an Uber now, but he’s currently only a fifteen minute walk away from his apartment complex if he doesn’t take the shortcut through the trees, closer to ten minutes if he does.

    Besides, the air is nice and cool for once, if not a bit on the humid side– but that’s just what happens when you live along the east coast, you get non-stop humid air. On top of the air being nice, Connor really needs to get more of it from outside, rather than the stale air inside. The last time he left his apartment (besides hopping into his car for grocery, work, or mail related journeys) was probably a little under a year ago, maybe a little over. Sure, once in a while he’ll open his windows, but that isn’t the same as being outside, feeling the sun on his skin and slight breeze in his hair.

    Huh, that could make a cool land in his series. A place where no matter where a person stands within the small civilization, there is always wind to be felt. They could remain protected and unspotted with the use of a force field of sorts that spreads itself over the town. Maybe that could be because they are a true neutral civilization and don’t want any part in the war–

    A thud of something hitting metal immediately followed by a quiet groan of pain interrupts Connor’s wandering train of thought. He probably wouldn’t have even heard it if he hadn’t retained his habit of somehow being alert to his surroundings while zoned out from back when he was in school. He doesn’t even know where the painful sounds came from, but that doesn’t matter because he wouldn’t just jump in to other people’s problems. What if there isn’t anything happening at all and that was just someone who tripped and fell?

    So he checks the time (for evidence purposes, just in case) and keeps walking straight, hyper aware of every little movement and sound around him, yet never turning his head. That is, until he jumps at the abrupt sound of sharp laughter coming from behind the boutique that’s closed for the night.

    “The fucker’s weak and already passing out! Who would’ve guessed! Ha!” a nasally voice taunts. Connor freezes against both his will and better judgement.

    “Should we call some place to pick ‘im up? We could get some extra cash?” a woman asks.

    “Hell no!” a masculine voice shouts, “Who the hell do you think would want an old, fat neko like him, anyway. We’d be doing everyone a favor by just killing it.”

    That gets Connor moving silently into the narrow alley towards the voices. He may be socially awkward and loathe conflict, but he grew up training in different types of combat and self-defense. If someone’s life is in danger, he damn sure will fight, and as long as none of these people have a gun, he will win.

    “Uh, I didn’t fuckin’ sign up for murder.” the nasally voice says uneasily, “I just wanted to go out and have a good time.”

    “Ugh, it’s not like we’d get caught. And even if we did for some reason, we would get a slap on the wrist at most.”

    “Are you actually that fuckin’ stupid, Damien?” the woman snaps. “If we kill him, that will be seen as worse than killing an animal. Even I’m not stupid enough to think that we’d get away with something that in a place out in the open like this. Someone’s gonna have to take out trash, and evidence of us being here is everywhere.”

    Connor finally lets himself fall still, ceasing his silent shuffling towards the corner. He presses against the wall in hopes to lower the chances of being spotted, and promptly rests his back on something sticky. He jumps forward just slightly, but not enough to be seen.

    “What was that?” the first guy asks.

    But is apparently loud enough to be heard.

    Connor braces himself for a fight, tensing up and getting into position–

    “Dude, you’re being paranoid. Let’s just get the fuck out of here. I’m bored, anyway, and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.” The supposed ringleader persuades, his boots thumping on the concrete as he walks away. Connor lets himself relax, thankful that nothing more is going to happen for now.

    “Same. C’mon.” The woman starts following him if the sound of clacking heels is anything to go by.

    There’s a relieved sigh, then one last set of footsteps walking away. Luckily, based off of the sounds of scuffling and skateboards from around the corner, there’s another way to get in and out of that place besides the one Connor is hiding in. He stays completely still and silent for several minutes after they’re gone, just to make sure they won’t come back. When he finally feels that it’s safe enough to look at the time on his phone, only twelve minutes have passed since he last checked it.

    Taking a deep breath, he moves himself out of his hiding place. He spots the large nekojin laying against a dumpster in the alley and can immediately tell that the 911 emergency responders won’t do much, if anything, for him because there’s no collar around his neck and no obvious lethal wounds. The poor guy’s got blood in his hair, which is grey with age, and there’s a bit of blood on the ground and dumpster where he was presumably knocked down. His wrist is also zip tied to the back handle of the dumpster, so his arm is raised high above his head and Connor can see where the zip tie is digging into his skin. He watches as the man takes a small breath with a small sigh of relief.

    That seems to make something in Connor click, because he’s suddenly dropping to his knees to check for any less obvious injuries. First thing’s first, Connor removes the zip tie from the man’s wrist by jamming his fingernail between the latch and tail slowly undoing the loop. He carefully puts the man’s arm down by his side. Connor only knows so much about first aid and injuries from past, admittedly extensive research for his books and comic scenes, but he does remember how to spot the signs of various broken bones. He also knows that won’t be enough to make sure he’s actually okay.

    Therefore, he yanks his phone out of his pocket and texts his friend, Kara, who is some kind of doctor, hoping that she’ll be kind enough to come and look this guy over herself. It’s not like Connor wouldn’t pay her for her expertise, after all.

        Connor Child Today at 19:28 (7:28)

Hey, are you busy right now?

   Connor doesn’t even have time to repocket his phone before it vibrates in his hand. She mustn't be busy, if she responded so quickly.

        Best Mom Friend Today at 19:28 (7:28)

i’m free. what’s up

        Connor Child Today at 19:29 (7:29)

You know how you’re a doctor? Are you, like, a general doctor, or are you specialized in something? And is there a difference between pure and partial humans medically/biologically?

        Best Mom Friend Today at 19:30 (7:30)

We’ll call it a general one. and no there aren’t major differences besides the tail and ears and heightened senses and all that jazz.

weren’t you just with luther? what happened?

        Connor Child Today at 19:20 (7:30)

I was, but I found an injured Nekojin that was beat up by these three assholes while walking home. It doesn’t look life threatening, but I’m not a doctor and I also have no way of getting him to my place.

    When Kara doesn’t respond immediately, Connor carefully lifts up the large man’s shirt, carefully avoiding touching his white, tan, and black blotched tail that’s draped protectively across his chest before he passed out. He notes that there’s a lot of bruising, which could mean a few things, some worse than others. He’s taking even breaths instead of short, sporadic ones, though, which could be a good sign. After checking a few other things tenderly and carefully, Connor decides that it’s probably okay to carefully lay the stranger down so he can check his back.

    It’s immediately apparent that they jumped him from behind. The entire back of his shirt has blood all over it, and some blood on the wall and dumpster where he was leaned against them. After a solid twenty seconds of processing what he’s seeing and choosing what to do about this first, Connor finally forces himself to tenderly lift the back of his shirt up. He notices that none of the cuts should be deep enough to do any lasting damage beyond scars. He doesn’t even think blood loss should be a problem, since the blood wasn’t even visible for the most part until he was rolled over. That doesn’t account for any possible internal bleeding though, and for the fact that Connor still isn’t a doctor.

    At that thought, Kara finally messages back with perfect timing.

        Best Mom Friend Today at 19:34 (7:34)

first of all, where are you?

second of all, you shouldn’t bring strangers into your home.

third of all, you should take him to a hospital anyway.

    Connor cringes at his phone at the last suggestion, then begins typing.

        Connor Child Today at 19:35 (7:35)

We both know he won’t get proper care at a hospital, especially since he doesn’t appear to have a collar or a way of contacting someone who will pay off the debt for the stay. Also, I’ve already thought about every other option besides bringing him to a hospital and they all end with him getting abandoned and/or hurt again out here. I don’t wanna leave him like that.

   It’s then that Connor realizes that he likely has most of the things needed to take care of these types of injuries at home in his jumbo first aid kit. Markus bought it for him on his birthday as a jab at how clumsy he is, but it’s come in handy multiple times since then and none of his friends let it die.

        Connor Child Today at 19:36 (7:36)

Besides, I think I have everything needed to clean him up at my apartment, I’m just not sure about any internal injuries or how to move him.

    Oh god damn it, apparently Connor’s going to be one of the dumbasses who brings injured strangers back home. He can’t just leave him out here and he can’t trust anyone else in this area– state, even– to not abuse this guy as soon as Connor is out of sight, though. He gently feels around the stranger’s head, carefully avoiding his tan and black ears, for any obvious injuries as he works things out in his head.

    Maybe he can call Markus to come over to help keep watch just in case? No, he and Simon are out in New York on vacation until Monday, and today’s Thursday. He can’t ask Carl or Luther to come over, since Carl is old and wheelchair bound and, as well as Luther can act and despite his massive size, he does much worse with conflict than Connor does. He’d be on edge from being around a wild card for the night, then stressed for days after. Connor knows Kara would come help him out, but she doesn’t get enough sleep as it is, with the weird hospital hours and helping with taking care of Alice. She doesn’t need to be more involved in this than she already is, anyways.

    This is either going to end surprisingly well or very badly, and Connor has a feeling of which it’s going to be. That is decidedly not a good sign, but Connor elects to ignore it anyway.

    Connor finds a rather large knot on the right side of the man’s head where the majority of the blood in his hair is, which is probably the same injury that pretty much knocked him out in the first place. He doesn’t even know if there’s a way to check for concussions when the person is unconscious.

    His phone finally pings an alert for a new message.

        Best Mom Friend Today at 19:37 (7:37)

fine, you win. tell me where you are and i’ll bring you guys to your place. who’s staying with you, cause it isn’t going to be me or luther.

        Connor Child Today at 19:37 (7:37)

Thank you so much!! I’m at the boutique near my apartment complex! And I have a friend that I’m going to message!

You’re the best!!

    Connor rolls the stranger into what he hopes is a more comfortable position, then finds a place where he’ll be able to watch the parallel parking lanes in front of the boutique and the unconscious nekojin at the same time. His phone chimes again, and he doesn’t bother opening it for the simple three letter in the message notification.

        Best Mom Friend Today at 19:41 (7:41)

Omw

    With that taken care of, all there is left to do is wait for Kara. He moves and sits down in his spot, and just a bit over ten minutes later, she pulls up. Connor glances back at the old stranger, making sure he won’t die or something in his absence, then quickly steps out of the alley so Kara will see him. She does and parks her blue SUV in the spot closest to where Connor is waiting.

    “Kara! You’re a lifesaver, really!” he calls after Kara steps out of her car.

    “I know, I know,” She shuts the door behind her, “Where’s the guy?”

    “He’s back here. I didn’t want to move him too much.”

    She nods in approval and silently follows him to the old nekojin, then starts looking over his wounds. She decides that the cuts on his back aren’t as bad as they could be and the bleeding has already slowed down a bit. At her request, Connor retells everything he knows. After a few more minutes of checking, she states that the stranger no doubt has a concussion and will need plenty of rest and another check up once he’s awake. Thankfully, she doesn’t think his wrist is dislocated or fractured or anything, and his ribs seem fine. Together, they carefully lift the unconscious man into the back of the SUV, and Connor climbs in the back to sit with him.

    They reach Connor’s apartment complex in just over two minutes (he swears he isn’t staring at the clock in the car), then fight to awkwardly lift the man out of the car and up the flight of stairs to Connor’s apartment. Once inside, they lay him on the bed in the guest room. Kara makes a comment about the sheets not making it through unscathed, but Connor disregards her with an obvious lie about needing new sheets anyway.

    Kara then washes the man’s back and arms then carefully tends to his plentiful superficial wounds with Connor’s help, since there was apparently glass in some of his cuts. By the time they’re finished with that and the man has a light blanket draped over him, a couple of hours have gone by. Kara leaves once Connor promises (lies) that the person he texted about staying over will be on their way very soon and isn’t there now because they have a shift at the grocery store.

    Now that Connor is completely alone and is starting to feel the nerves from having a large, presumably strong stranger unconscious in his home, he doesn’t quite know what to do. Normally when things get stressful or unusual, he’d write a short story depicting a character going through something that would make them just as uncomfortable and stressed as he is and post it on his Patreon, but he doesn’t want the click-clacking of his keyboard to mask any noises that the man might make.

    After a bit of thinking and standing around, he decides to paint the sunset he took a picture of earlier.

    He goes down the short hallway that connects his room, laundry room, and bathroom to the rest of the apartment. He opens the closet on the right side of the room and grabs a canvas and various paints and brushes. Going back out to the area of life, as Connor calls it (since the kitchen, dining room, and living room are all one large area, with the living room sectioned off by couches and the kitchen by a counter island and tiles on the ground), he sets up his stuff on his small, square table. He makes sure he’s facing the doors to his and the guest rooms with his back to the front door and the sliding door to his balcony/patio thing.

    He pauses in his painting every 45 minutes to an hour so he can check on the nekojin. When the sun finally rises in the morning, Connor’s finished two sellable paintings and is starting a third. He has officially reached the level of exhaustion where he no longer feels tired as long as he ignores the pressure behind his eyes and the headache starting to form. Sometimes his insomnia-like-symptoms flare up until he gets to this point, so he isn’t worried.

    After checking on the man yet again, Connor decides to fix a breakfast sandwich using his near-expired bacon and a tube of premade biscuits. He makes enough eggs and bacon for only one person, not knowing when the nekojin will wake up and if he even eats eggs or meat.

    He’s in the middle of putting his food on a plate when there’s a slight and distant creak. If he were alone, Connor would have been able to convince himself that it was the building settling or something of the like, but he isn’t. He quickly turns around and is relieved to see nothing behind him. He hastily scoops the last bit of eggs onto his plate before cautiously walking through the living area towards the guest room. He pauses right at the door and listens for movement, just in case the man woke up and is trying to do something stupid and/or dangerous.

    Connor may be trained in various types of combat and self defense, but he’s not stupid enough to think that makes him invincible. Especially against someone who is as large as that man was, and that’s excluding the chances that this stranger has training in some kind of combat as well.

    After a couple of seconds of complete silence, Connor hesitantly opens the door just wide enough to slowly peek half of his head through. He immediately sees that the man is no longer in his bed. He’s barely able to open the door wider to step inside before a heavy weight barrels into him from the side. Next thing he knows, he’s pinned to the wall by a furious nekojin, with his ears pinned to his head and fangs sharp as needles. It’s already getting hard to breathe and Connor, as predicted, can’t move the arm that’s pushed against his throat. Trying to move his right arm and both legs is useless because the man also has them pinned enough to where he can’t make any effective attacks on him.

    He must have some kind of training in combat as well, or has learned from personal experience. Connor is completely screwed if this man decides he is too much of a threat or isn’t worth his time.

    “Cause any trouble and I make your life painful, ya hear?” the man snarls lowly, and if Connor wasn’t already used to being pinned against walls and threatened, he’d probably be panicking right now. Connor rapidly nods as calmly as he can (which isn’t nearly calm enough) while being in this situation. “Who the fuck are you?”

    “Connor” he rasps painfully, “I’m– no harm. Please–”

    The older man hisses, and it sounds nothing like when cats do it. When cats hiss, it almost sounds like an air leakage from a pipe; high pitched and more breathy than anything. This hiss, though, is not unlike what demons sound like in horror movies. It’s lower and almost growlish and absolutely terrifying enough to make up for the lack of a small, agile body.

    It shuts Connor up to say the absolute least.

    “Where the fuck did you bring me?”

    “My–” Connor coughs and gasps painfully, “apartment.” That must have been the wrong answer because the pressure on his throat increases. Since moving the arm is impossible, he starts patting it to try to signal the stranger that he really needs air.

    “I can fuckin’ see that, dumbass. I meant where the fuck is this place?”

    “Not– far, fr-from… alley…” Huh, so the darkness not only invades from the sides of your vision, but the focus of it also dims too. And nobody ever mentioned in the books he read about how much pressure is building in his head right now, like it’s going to explode soon. Aw great, now he’s starting to mildly dissociate. Just what he needs.

    The nekojin is trying to say something to him, but the only things he can make out clearly from the sudden white noise are “you”, “better”, and “punk”. Connor doesn’t want to agree to something preposterous, but he also doesn’t want to try to ask for clarification or anything like that and make the man angrier. He suddenly has a fleeting thought of dying here, and his mind just as suddenly latches onto it and won’t let go. God he’s so fucking stupid. He knew this was a horrible idea, and he still fucking did it. Why doesn’t he ever listen to anyone?

    Just as Connor tries to reach his left arm up to damage the man’s face somehow and force him to let go, he’s abruptly released.

    Connor barely avoids dropping to the ground and instead leans against the wall because his legs want to function more like jelly than anything remotely solid. He coughs and gasps but locks his knees so he’s less likely to fall over into a more defenseless position. He distantly recognizes that the nekojin is trying to talk to him again, but he’s too preoccupied with getting air into his lungs and not falling over to even try to decipher it. Thankfully, whatever he said apparently wasn’t super important because nothing happens when Connor doesn’t give any kind of response, and nothing continues to happen until he’s breathing normally and standing up on his own again.

    “You said I wasn’t far from the alley,” the nekojin spits out, “How close is it?”

    Connor blinks the tears from his eyes. “Five minute walk, maybe.” he answers quietly, throat hurting.

    “Where are your roommates?”

    “Don’t have any.”

    “You live completely alone?” he asks, an eyebrow raised in suspicion.

    Connor silently nods.

    “Why’d you bring me here? Think you could tame some fuckin’ stray to be your personal pet? ‘Cause you’re very wrong.” he ends in a growl. It sends shivers up Connor’s spine and he can feel the sweat on him beading and rolling down. If this comes to blows again, there’s no way Connor will be able to win, especially not like this.

    “No. You’re hurt.” he says more sure, finally lifting his head to meet the other’s eyes.

    “You honestly expect me to believe that you brought an old, stray nekojin home just because he was a little hurt?”

    Connor nods. “Didn’t know if you were bleeding out or not–”

    He shuts his mouth with a click and braces himself for another attack when he sees the stranger move. It’s barely a shift to the side, but it’s enough to send Connor back into highest alert. The guy must realise this because he shifts backward a step.

    “What do you get outta patchin’ me up?”

    “...technically nothing?”

    “No one does anything without any reward, so fuckin’ spill it.” he spits.

    “A clear conscious, maybe?” There’s no bite in his words, only the underlying fear of giving the wrong answer. When the older man doesn’t immediately shoot another question, Connor continues. “Look, I just don’t like it when people’re in pain. I wanted to help, so I did.”

    “People.” When Connor stares blankly in return, he continues. “I’m not people. Won’t ever be, thanks to the ears and tail.”

    “You should be people.” he breathes. “A lot of others agree with me, nowadays.”

    “Ah, so you’re one of those activists? You realise you guys are going to get killed before anything substantial changes right?”

    “I’m– uh, I’m not really an activist? I don’t like all the attention.” Connor forces himself to loosen up a little, more to prove that he isn’t a danger to the wild card in front of him and less because he actually wants to. “It makes me nervous.”

    “Yet you supposedly bring home a dangerous stranger from the streets into your own home just for the sake of patching up a few scratches.”

    Connor stands at full height once more, his voice sharp, “You also have severe bruising and a concussion. And the hospital wouldn’t have done much for you because it wasn’t immediately life threatening and you don’t have a collar.”

    “If it wasn’t fucking life threatening then you should have left me out there! To hell with your hero dilemma or whatever the fuck you have!” the man snaps, waving his arms in wide, angry gestures, “How the hell did you even know where to find me, if you really aren’t with the fuckers who did this to me?”

    “I was walking home from work and heard someone get hit, then voices threatening murder. I just stayed until they left in case I needed to jump in and stop them.” Connor says gravely.

    The man sighs. Connor can feel his exhaustion from that one breath alone, but holds his ground. He doesn’t know what is genuine and what is an act to get him to lower his defenses. He’s suddenly aware that he’s shaking.

    “And how the fuck did you get me here?” His tone is slightly less angry.

    “Called a friend with a car. She’s the one who patched you up ‘cause she’s a doctor.” Connor tries to slow his trembling, and, to his surprise, it’s kind of working.

    The older man eyes him, “And why the fuck did she help?”

    “She thought someone else was staying with me last night so I wasn’t alone with you.” Connor blurts before reassuring, “No one else is here, but she doesn’t know that. She has her own things to worry about. I don’t want her involved.” With that, he stops his breathing exercises, confident he won’t start panting or hyperventilating.

    “And you don’t have one?” he can almost hear the raised eyebrow accompanying the nekojin’s question.

    “Not really.” He doesn’t really want to talk about this, especially not to someone he doesn’t know.

    “Nothin’ to lose by taking in a stranger, huh? Self destructive much?”

    “Not– not exactly.”

    There’s a few moments of tense silence. Connor still refuses to move a single muscle from earlier and it’s starting to get strenuous now, but he won’t lower his guard until he knows this nekojin isn’t a threat anymore. 

    “...You’re not gonna try to name me or some shit?” the partial-human asks warily and, if Connor isn’t wrong, with a hint of timidity.

    That… was not at all what Connor was expecting out of the gruff man after what has been going down. He didn’t even know that people did that to partial humans. It sadly makes sense, though, considering history. Animals have always been renamed with little issue, and back in the day, people used to do just the same to partial humans too. Connor thought that kind of thing died decades ago, though. 

    “No? I didn’t even fully realize that was a thing people still did…”

    “And none of these drawers have clothes of my size in them?”

    “I– No! Check if you want but–”

    Connor falls silent when the other man suddenly turns to the single dresser in the room and opens the first drawer. Every drawer after that was opened and reshut with great haste. Finding it all empty, he moves on to the closet and goes through the small shelving unit in there. He once again finds nothing, and shuts the closet with an obvious breath of relief. He sharply turns back to Connor. The man must see something in Connor because he sighs and shuffles towards where he’s still sitting against the wall.

    “You really don’t want any ownership over me?” The man sounds less angry and more skeptical.

    “If you don’t believe me, then you can always leave. I don’t want to trap you. But you’re still hurt.” Only silence follows, so Connor tries again to make this man trust that he won’t slap a collar on him. “I’ve never been interested in getting a nekojin. I hate what you guys have to endure, and I’ve always pretty much seen everyone as equals. It actually got me a bit of unwanted attention when I was younger.” He adds after a split second of hesitation.

    The stranger huffs in what seems like a mocking manner. Connor can understand why.

    “You sure you’re not an activist? Going out and parading and getting arrested by plan?”

    Connor fights the urge to squirm in shame and apprehension and shakes his head. “I’ve always been too shy for anything like that, and I don’t like a lot of attention focused on me. It’s stressful.”

    The man takes two steps closer to Connor, who instinctively tenses, not realizing that he ever relaxed just the slightest bit in the first place. The other pauses, then shuffles back half a step, putting his hands in his pockets in a way that makes it obvious that he’s forcing himself to do so, rather than keep them ready for a fight and out in the open.

    “How do I know you aren’t with those three brats and are gonna try your shot at taming my fugly mug into something sellable? Hm? How do I know that no one’s waiting to catch me if I try to leave like you offered?”

    Connor speaks without thinking. “You’re not fugly, just in need of a shower and new clothes.” Connor hates the tense silence that immediately follows, so Connor quickly moves on and fills it, “And, I– uh– I guess you don’t? I mean, I don’t know how to prove it? That I don’t think it’s a good idea to ‘tame’ anyone? I mean, don’t you need those life skills? To like, survive and stuff in our current society?”

    The nekojin only gapes at him as if he’s said something completely absurd, and knowing himself, he probably did without realizing it. When it becomes obvious that Connor isn’t going to continue, the stranger shakes his head incredulously.

    “Do you know how many people would call a nekojin’s feral state ‘life skills’? Even the damn activists have their own ideas about how our sanity should be managed. Are you fucking insane?”

    Connor winces at his tone. “Uh… I mean, you don’t seem feral to me, as such… But I know I’m socially awkward and I’ve been told I’m dense–”

    “I can’t tell if you’re shitting me or if you’re really trying hard to get me to not fucking hate you.” He suddenly sniffs the air and his expression becomes darker. “Something is burning. What the hell are you cooking?”

    Burning? Connor thinks, sniffing the air. He can’t really smell anything. A partial-human’s sense of must be substantially stronger than a pure human’s; a single truth within the many lies of the internet.

    “I was making a breakfast sandwich before you woke up… It might be the biscuits that you smell burning?”

    He should really go pull them out of the oven, but he’s still afraid that this guy will pounce on him again if he tries to make an unannounced move for the door, and he doesn’t want a repeat of that whatsoever. On another note, there is absolutely no way he’s going to have his back turned to an aggressive stranger for any amount of time, especially because this one has claws and fangs. 

    “Fine, I smell the eggs and bacon too, but I’m gonna go sit out where you’ll be cooking so I know where you are and what you’re doing.” He straightens up and crosses his arms defiantly. The post is practically begging Connor to refuse the guy so he can do something about it. Too bad Connor doesn’t want to.

    “That’s fine,” Connor pauses, then tries something bold at the last moment, “As long as you tell me what to call you.” The other startles at that, “I’m tired of calling you ‘stranger’ and ‘nekojin’ in my head.” Connor relaxes his pose just enough to seem like he isn’t ready to spring into any kind of action still, even though he definitely still is. “I’m Connor.”

    He scrutinizes the younger man, then sighs and untenses just a tad. “Fine. Lead the way, then. I’m Hank, and that’s all you’re gonna get outta me.”

    “I didn’t expect anything else.” He attempts a smile that he suspects looks more like a grimace.

    Now that Connor is somewhat confident that the stranger– Hank isn’t going to pounce on him the moment his back is turned, he’s able to exit the door and walk to the kitchen area without looking alarmingly tense and uncomfortable. Connor hears a door close as he finds and pulls on a pair of oven mitts. Connor still keeps a mental map of where Hank is by the sound of his footsteps as he grabs the pan of moderately burned biscuits out of the oven.

    He sets the pan on the counter so the cooked-to-dark-brown biscuits can cool so the trash bag doesn’t melt when he throws them away. Then he swiftly pulls out a stool from the kitchen island and takes the smoke alarm off of the ceiling, then deactivating it right as it begins beeping with the timing and grace of only someone who has done this a million other times can achieve. He gets down and puts the stool back. He moves back to the oven and turns it off all while avoiding having his back completely to Hank, who’s standing in his living room.

    There’s complete silence in the room that makes Connor’s nerves bristle. Connor glances over to the knife block next to the fridge, knowing that he would never actually use them to harm anyone, but he likes to believe he could bluff his way out of a dire situation. Although, now that he’s thinking about it, maybe he couldn’t. Hank would probably be unfazed or get angrier after everything he’s experienced in his lifetime, and that’s if he somehow believes that Connor would actually use said knife after everything he’s said and done.

    Connor jumps when Hank starts speaking.

    “Everything good now? You’ve been standing there starin’ at nothin’ like a lunatic.”

    Connor says nothing, choosing to just nod instead as he casually crosses his arms and leans against the counter next to the oven in a strained act of nonchalance.

    Hank studies him carefully. “Why are you helping me, really?”

    Connor can’t help but silently sigh. He may have already said this once or twice before, and he may not blame the guy in the slightest for not believing him, but still. It’s not like his answer is going to change from when he asked earlier. Although, that may be why he’s asking again, as some form of test or something.

    “Like I said before, I don’t think I’ll get anything tangible out of this. If you really need something, then maybe self-satisfaction or a clean conscious for helping someone in need, but nothing tangible like money.” Hank shoots him a blank look that he hates. He sighs. “I just– My gut told me that you needed some real help, and I was going to give it whether you were a pure human or partial. It’s just that after finding out you had cat ears and a tail, I knew that no hospital in the area was going to give you proper care so 911 was essentially useless. I generally have good intuition when it comes to people, so I trusted it and brought you home instead of leaving you tied down in that nasty alley.” What Connor doesn’t mention aloud is how he’s been regretting not leaving him bandaged up in the cleaner part of that alley ever since he couldn’t see the other man in the guest room’s bed earlier.

    His last statement catches Hank’s attention, who then turns his head to look away from Connor for the first time since being awake and looks out a window. He clears his throat, cutting off Connor’s growing panic. The guy’s head is down and his shoulders are slumped, but it’s still obvious that he’s still on edge and wary of his surroundings and Connor. When he speaks, it sounds like he has to force the sound from his lips.

    “Look, Connor, I’m sorry for snapping at you, even if I don’t entirely regret protecting myself like that. But I still don’t trust or like you, got it?”

    “Yeah. The sentiment is kind of the same right now, no offense.”

    “None taken,” Hank pauses and straightens up, “Do you at least get where I’m coming from, though?” he takes a step forward. “Like, according to society, I am an untamed animal or slave, and I wake up in a strange room and am getting checked on every god damned minute by a complete stranger when the last thing I remember is getting kicked around and beat with broken bottles.” He shakes his head and looks away.

    “I ain’t some starvin’, twink cat that you can just bring home and teach how to trust and love or whatever the fuck else books try to say. Hell, I’m not even a Persian or Maine Coon cat with those big bushy tails like people always love to give us larger people. I’m just an old, fat calico.”

    Hank suddenly stiffens upon saying that last word, but Connor ignores it and lowers his head.

    “I personally don’t agree with the stereotypes as well. But as I offered before,” Connor raises his head to meet Hank’s eyes again, “you’re always welcome to leave, The front door is right there. I’m not keeping you trapped here, and there’s not anyone after you or anything that I know of, so…” Connor shrugs.

    For the first time this morning, Hank looks more uncomfortable than anything else, and Connor doesn’t really have the energy to unpack that. He starting to feel tired because of the lack of adrenaline in his system, so he’ll probably need some caffeinated tea soon. Maybe a new breakfast to go with it, too; his stomach is starting to hurt with hunger because he forgot dinner last night.

    Still, Hank hasn’t responded, so Connor takes this opportunity to give him the explicit option to stay because he’s already given the nekojin multiple outs and, as stupid as Connor knows he can be, he doesn’t think Hank should be left on his own quite yet. Besides, he really doesn’t think that Hank will do any harm for no reason. His anger and violence earlier were understandable at the least, and neither of them seem to want a repeat of that any time soon. Connor doesn’t think he’s making the wrong decision by doing this since Hank’s already here in his apartment, anyway. Emphasis on think.

    “If you wanted to stay, though, I can make you breakfast? Or you can watch me make your breakfast, or just make it yourself if you want. I mean, because I’m willing to bet that you haven’t had anything decent in a while, yeah?” He chuckles awkwardly. It almost works to make the atmosphere less heavy. Almost.

    Hank stares him down, obviously still skeptical and wary of Connor. The creator tries to not do anything that could be taken as suspicious, but that in of itself could be suspicious in a way. A few more seconds pass like this in tense silence before Hank finally sighs and relaxes his shoulders the slightest bit.

    “What the fucking hell is my life anymore.” He mumbles, then raises his voice to a normal speaking level “Alright. I’m gonna sit on that stool,” He points to one of the two the kitchen island, “And I’m gonna watch you so you don’t poison my food. And then you can hear me if I even so much as shuffle, so you’ll know I won’t attack you from behind.”

    “Okay.” He watches as Hank moves with a slight limp in his left leg and sits with a poorly concealed wince. “Did you… did you want to maybe redress your wounds? I have over the counter pain meds if you want, but I doubt you’d trust that.”

    “You’re right. I don’t trust that a single fucking bit. This ain’t nothin’ I haven’t gone through before, so you can quit your worryin’.” Hank hesitates, then continues, almost meeker. “And you don’t need to worry about allergies. I’ll eat anythin’.”

    Connor simply nods in response, already getting used to Hank’s vulgarity and irritation. It’s probably not healthy why he’s already getting used to it, considering it’s mostly due to questionable parenting choices and plenty of childhood bullying, but no one really has the time or patience to unpack that right now (or ever, if Connor has any say in it). Therefore, he does what he does second best, and instead of slowly unpacking that box of troubles and sorting through it like any healthy person should, he simply tapes that box shut tightly with three layers of duct tape and shoves it to the back of his mental storage unit while he takes out his pan cleaner to wash off the remnants of his food before starting Hank’s.

    As he gathers ingredients and tools to the island so Hank can see exactly what Connor is doing at all times, he never once looks up at Hank. The why from earlier tries to rear its ugly head again, but he shoves and forces it down again with practiced ease. Unlike what it has to say about the damnable why, his gut is telling him that Hank isn’t really a bad person, that he’s just been dealt a shit hand in his life. It’s right about people much more often than it’s not, and Connor can only hope that this isn’t one of those times where it’s not.

    He finds himself almost wanting to like Hank, to show him that the world isn’t completely filled with stupid assholes, only mostly full.

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

~> Next

•◊•◊•◊•◊•

A/N: Hey guys!! I hope you didn’t mind the wait too much, but I ended up changing the plot to this story last minute and rewrote this chapter, like, 3 and a half times now? So, yeah, there’s that. This chapter was a bit angsty and I still kinda really hate it, but!! But!!! I am moving on because Protective Hank™ will be making an appearance next chapter!! The next chapter of The Drift Between Us may not come for a couple of weeks because I have to update the EXO x Reader I’m writing on a blog I share with my friend that I have been neglecting lately Lol. So, that’s pretty much it! Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you have a pleasant day/night! 😊💕

[thejollyroger-writer]

Opening Day, First Pitch

Who asked for some “Love, Baseball, and Other Things?” backstory?! Literally no one, but you’re getting it anyway, since this is where they story went in my head. Oops. This part can stand alone, but it adds to the baseball-verse well. Need to read that? Find it here: Part One // Part Two

Thanks to @welllpthisishappening and @profdanglaisstuff for sending me the prompts that started this story, @ultraluckycatnd for giving it a quick once-over, and @kmomof4 for loving the first part so much I couldn’t not give her more. 

Also on AO3!  

WARNING: Since it takes place ten years before “Love, Baseball, and Other Things,” this is very much not Captain Swan. Killian is very happy in his current relationship with Milah, and Emma is with Neal. If that’s not your cup of tea, then maybe this isn’t the story for you. There will be a follow-up to this, hopefully by the end of the day. 

At 22 years old, Killian Jones is sure of three things:

Though he’s only been dating Milah for two years, she is the love of his life, the woman he wants to marry and grow old beside.

When he graduates at the end of the next semester with his degree in international journalism, he is packing up the little he owns and moving back to England, following in the footsteps of his brother once again, leaving America and all the trouble it’s caused him behind.

Though baseball brought him a lot of comfort through the pain that took over his life as a middle schooler, and continued through high school, he only accepted the opportunity to play through college for the sizeable scholarship they offered him — and it was not something he planned on continuing once he walks across that stage.

At 22 years old, Killian Jones is sure of three things, waiting impatiently on deck for his chance to finally make decisions about his own life and knock it out of the park.

What he isn’t ready for is the curveball that’s waiting for him.

“Milah, darling, can you read over this article for me? I need to type the final copy for tomorrow so I want to make sure we catch all the errors now.”

But Milah doesn’t budge from her seat on the couch, much more comfortable than the piece of ship Killian found on the curb for his old apartment — and one of the things she likes the most about the new one.

“You’ve proofread it three times since I got here, Killy,” she whines. “Besides, it’s only week three and your professors already think you’re the greatest writer to ever cross the pond, so you have nothing to worry about.”

Neither of this arguments change his mind. “Please, Milah? I didn’t do too well on the first essay for his class last week, so I want the article to be the best it can be.”

Though he’s not turned to face her, he can still see the way she runs her tongue over her bottom lip, shaking her head at him.

“What classifies as ‘not too well’ for a man like Killian Jones?”

Killian can feel the tips of his ears begin to redden, growing warm, and he brings his hand up to scratch behind one of them. “A B-,” he grumbles, his voice low with embarrassment, and she sees through him in an instant — she always does.

“You are, without a doubt, the biggest perfectionist I have ever met.”

“Aye, but you love me for it.”

“I never claimed otherwise, but if you leave that article alone for a bit and come over here, I’ll even prove it to you.”

This is an offer he can’t refuse; between his classes, his homework, his games, and her new promotion within her law firm, they barely get the time to see each other anymore, nevertheless partake in more enjoyable activities, especially now that he’s moved across the city. So he does just as she asks, dropping the pen from his hand onto the desk before pushing himself out of the chair and climbing over her on the couch, caging her in. She smiles up at him, slowly running her hand down his cheek before he lowers his lips down to find hers. Within moments, he is sliding his tongue against hers, the tips of his fingers teasing the small expanse of skin exposed between her jeans and her shirt.

Pushing him away from her with her hands planted flat against his chest, she pulls back just far enough to smile up at him, pressing a kiss to the top of his nose.

“Roll over,” she commands, and he is useless against her in this state, so he does as she asks, maneuvering them on the couch so that she can straddle him, almost immediately leaning back to pull her shirt over her head.

“God, Milah,” he growls, pulling her back down him so he can taste the skin she just exposed. “You’re so bloody beautiful, I don’t understand how I got so lucky.” He drags his teeth along her collarbone, pulling a soft moan for her lips, and they’re both so caught up in the moment — and the fact that his new roommate, David, left for work just over an hour before — that they fail to notice the sounds of the key sliding into the lock, turning just as Killian reaches around Milah’s back to unsnap her bra.

Slamming the door open, she comes in like a hurricane, already talking before she even looks into the apartment: “Remind me again why I took another class with that same pervert—” she starts, but her eyes grow wide when she sees them on the couch, frozen at the sight of her.

“Who the fuck are you?” Killian asks, and Milah finds her shirt from the back of the couch to try to restore at least a little decency.

“Oh, fuck, you must be Killian,” she says at the same time, her face darkening until it matches the bright red shade of her leather jacket.

“Yes, I am,” he responds, and though Milah begins to climb off him, he tightens the grip of his hands on her hips, keeping where she is. This is already embarrassing enough, and this stranger seeing the tent currently pitched in his jeans would only add to it. “That doesn’t answer my question, though.”

Shit, yeah, right,” she says, and his eyes dart to where she begins to run her thumb over her wrist. “I’m, uh, Emma. David’s sister? He gave me a key last year since I started crashing on his couch so I didn’t have to drive all the way back to Radnor and — shit, I’m sorry, I totally forgot that he said you just moved in.”

“He did say you might be stopping by, but he, uh — he never said you had a key.”

“Fuck, I’m so— I’m, sorry. I’ll just… I’ll just go, and keep this incredibly embarrassing experience as a learning moment. I’ll never stop by without checking if David is here.”

She holds her hand up to wave at him, but before he can even open his mouth to form a response, she’s gone, the door closed quietly behind her and deadbolt sliding into place.

Her statement is a lie, though. Sure, she remembers to text David during reasonable hours, but when her and Neal get into yet another fight and she has a few drinks too many at a bar just a few blocks from their apartment, she stumbles in around one in the morning, waking both Killian and David.

Killian comes out into the living room first, wearing only a pair of dark blue boxers and armed with one of his wooden bats. In the moment, Emma thinks this is one of the funniest things she has ever seen — but when she wakes up on the couch with a wicked hangover and her arms wrapped around this same bat, it’s a lot less funny.

She only has one night class this semester, so Tuesday nights are the night she spends on their couch, plus nights she stays after class to watch Killian’s games when it becomes a point of contention between her and Neal.

February turns to March. The cherry blossom trees around Independence Hall start to blossom, a light in Killian’s life as the stress of the end of his junior year piles on to the expectations of his coach: You’re one of the best I’ve ever seen, Jones, he keeps saying, especially when Malcolm Pan, another pitcher for the team, is within earshot. It’s not that Killian isn’t thankful for the compliment, or that fact that John Silver seems to despise Pan as much as he does — it’s that Killian doesn’t want to be the best pitcher he’s ever seen. He wants to finish out his degree, pitch his last pitch, and move home to England, bringing Milah with.

That’s all he wants.

Why can no one see that?

Because you’re a damned good pitcher, Killy. He hears Milah’s voice in his head, sitting across from Silver as he tries, once again, to convince him to find a minor league to sign with. The scholarship they offered him is the only reason he’s still here — the scholarship, his customized degree track, and Milah’s job.

At the beginning of March, after Killian’s first no-hitter ever, he decides to propose to her. At first, he plans to keep it a secret from the world, especially since Liam is the only friend he has.

Except that’s not true. In the three months since he moved in with David, they have become good friends. Add Emma to that mix, and her shitty on-again-off-again boyfriend, Neal, and they’ve actually started to become kind of like a family, going for meals together and spending weekends at their apartment.

Killian hates Neal. Almost as much as David does. But Emma seems to love him, even though they fight almost every day and break up every few weeks or so, only to go running back to each other.

So instead of telling no one, he calls Liam to tell him — and then tells Emma and David at the bar a few weeks later, a few too many beers affecting his ability to keep his damned mouth shut.

Except… they’re all really happy for him. He expects someone to be against the idea, to try and talk him out of it. That was part of the reason he didn’t want to tell anyone in the first place.

But they agree with him. That has to mean something, right?

[nothingman]

South Park turns 20 years old this summer, meaning that if those foulmouthed, crudely fashioned 8-year-olds that were first introduced on August 13, 1997 followed the rules of linear time, they’d all be adults farting down the barrel of 30. Similarly, there’s now an entire generation of people—spanning high-schoolers to middle-aged people who remember watching its early seasons in college, and who can’t believe they’re reading/writing 20-year retrospectives on it now—who were actually raised on South Park.

The show celebrated this existential crisis-inducing fact last year with a tongue-in-cheek ad, depicting South Park as a sort of benevolent guarantor keeping reliable watch over a girl from infancy until her first trip to college. It was a typically self-effacing joke, but it’s true: Our world is now filled with people for whom South Park has always been there, a cultural influence that, in some cases, is completely foundational to their point of view. The ad doesn’t end with the girl logging onto Twitter to complain that social justice warriors are ruining the world, but otherwise, spot on.

After all, for most of its 20 years, South Park’s own point of view has more or less been this: “Everything and everyone are full of shit—hey, relax, guy.” It’s a scorched-earth, deconstructionist approach steeped in equal-opportunity offensiveness that’s made South Park one of the funniest satires ever produced, and particularly potent in the time in which it debuted. “When we started, [it was] Beavis And Butt-Head, and us, and in some ways The Simpsons, and Married With Children—shit like that,” Matt Stone told Vanity Fair last year, putting the Comedy Central cartoon in the company of other ’90s series that diverged from the “bland… shitty sitcoms that were just so lifeless” Stone and co-creator Trey Parker were reacting against. But South Park has now lived long enough to see the experimental become the conventional. And it’s outlasted all but one of those series not just by subverting formulaic TV, but by feeding directly off current events. As a result, for many of those raised by South Park, the show has functioned as sort of a scatological op-ed—in some cases, maybe the only op-ed they’ve ever been interested in.

To these acolytes, Parker and Stone have spent two decades preaching a philosophy of pragmatic self-reliance, a distrust of elitism, in all its compartmentalized forms, and a virulent dislike of anything that smacks of dogma, be it organized religion, the way society polices itself, or whatever George Clooney is on his high horse about. Theirs can be a tricky ideology to pin down: “I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals,” Stone said once, a quote that has reverberated across the scores of articles, books, and message-board forums spent trying to parse the duo’s politics, arguing over which side can rightfully claim South Park as its own. Nominally, Parker and Stone are libertarians, professing a straight-down-the-middle empathy for the little guy who just wants to be left alone by meddling political and cultural forces. But their only true allegiance is to whatever is funniest; their only tenet is that everything and everyone has the potential to suck equally. More than anything, they’ve taught their most devoted followers that taking anything too seriously is hella lame.

So while they’ve advocated, in their own fucked-up way, for stuff like the right to abortion, drug legalization, and general tolerance for others, they’ve also found their biggest, easiest targets in liberalism’s pet causes, those formerly rebellious ideals that had become safely sitcom-bland over the Bill Clinton years—all of which were steeped in actually, lamely caring about stuff. Taking the piss out of the era’s priggish, speech-policing, Earth Day-brainwashed hippies was the most transgressive—and therefore funniest—thing you could possibly do. And so, South Park joked, global warming is just a dumb myth perpetrated by “super cereal” losers. Prius drivers are smug douches who love the smell of their own farts. Vegetarians end up growing vaginas on their face. “Transgender people” are just mixed-up, surgical abominations. The word “fag” is fine. Casual anti-Semitism is all in good fun. “Hate crimes” are silly. Maybe all you pussies just need a safe space.

“Did South Park accidentally invent the alt-right?” Janan Ganesh asked recently in the Financial Times, articulating a theory that began gaining traction as an entire political movement seemed to crystallize around the show’s “anti-PC chic” and general fuck-your-feelings attitude. Way back in 2001, political blogger Andrew Sullivan had already coined the term “South Park Republican” to describe the supposedly emerging group of young people who, like the show, were moderate on social issues like abortion and gay marriage, but also rejected the stuffy doctrines of diversity and environmentalism. They also believed, as Parker and Stone would soon illustrate in Team America: World Police, that the world needed American dicks to fuck assholes, over the objections of liberal pussies and F.A.G. celebrities. That voting bloc never actually materialized—though to be fair, the show was only four years old at the time. It would take at least another decade of people with Cartman avatars just joshin’ about hating Jews before the South Park generation would truly come of age.

Let’s be real, though. South Park didn’t “invent” the “alt-right,” even accidentally. The “alt-right” is the product of lots of things—disenfranchisement; internet echo chambers; aggrieved Gamergaters; boredom; the same ugly, latent racism that’s coursed beneath civilization’s veneer for millennia; etc. The growing, bipartisan distaste for Wall Street-backed career politicians and the epically bungled machinations of the Democratic Party certainly didn’t help, nor did the frustrating inability of the social justice movement to pick its battles—or its enemies. Furthermore, it’s always dangerous to assign too much influence to pop culture, even something that’s been part of our lives for this long. And as South Park itself derided in “The Tale Of Scrotie McBoogerballs,” you shouldn’t go looking for deep sociopolitical messages in your cartoon dick jokes. (Then again, only three years earlier, it also argued that imaginary characters really can change people’s lives and even “change the way [you] act on Earth,” making them “more realer” than any of us—so you decide.)

Still, it’s not that much of a stretch to see how one might have fed the other, if only through the sort of intangible osmosis that happens whenever an influential artwork spawns imitators, both on screen and off. South Park may not have “invented” the “alt-right,” but at their roots are the same bored, irritated distaste for politically correct wokeness, the same impish thrill at saying the things you’re not supposed to say, the same button-pushing racism and sexism, now scrubbed of all irony.

There’s also the same co-opting of anti-liberal stances as the highest possible form of rebellion: Parker and Stone used to brag that they were “punk rock” for telling their Hollywood friends how much they loved George W. Bush; Parker even told Rolling Stone in 2007, “The only way to be more hardcore than everyone else is to tell the people who think they’re the most hardcore that they’re pussies, to go up to a tattooed, pierced vegan and say, ‘Whatever, you tattooed faggot, you’re a pierced faggot and whatever’”—a quote that may as well have been taken from 4chan’s /pol/ board this morning. “Conservatism is the new punk rock,” echoed a bunch of human cringes a decade later. Whatever, you faggot, a dozen Pepes tweeted a few seconds ago.

But well beyond the “alt-right,” South Park’s influence echoes through every modern manifestation of the kind of hostile apathy—nurtured along by Xbox Live shit-talk and comment-board flame wars and Twitter—that’s mutated in our cultural petri dish to create a rhetorical world where whoever cares, loses. Today, everyone with any kind of grievance probably just has sand in their vagina; expressing it with anything beyond a reaction GIF means you’re “whining”; cry more, your tears are delicious. We live in Generation U Mad Bro, and from its very infancy, South Park has armed it with enough prefab eye-rolling retorts (“ManBearPig!” “I’m a dolphin!” “Gay Fish!” “…’Member?”) to sneeringly shut down discussions on everything from climate change and identity politics to Kanye West and movie reboots. Why not? Everything sucks equally, anyway. Voting is just choosing between some Douche and a Turd Sandwich. Bullying is just a part of life. Suck it up and take it, until it’s your turn to do the bullying. Relax, guy.

Again, it’s a world that South Park didn’t create intentionally, just by setting out to make us laugh, or by Parker and Stone trying to get rich off a bunch of farting construction paper cutouts. But even Parker and Stone seem slightly, if only occasionally uneasy about the overarching life lessons they’ve imparted—often expressing that anxiety in the show itself. In “You’re Getting Old,” South Park’s most moving half-hour, Parker and Stone grappled directly with the cumulative effects of perpetually shitting on things—of allowing a healthy, amused skepticism to ossify into cynicism and self-satisfied superiority, then into nihilism, then into blanket, misanthropic hatred. That dark night of the soul later formed the through-lines of seasons 19 and 20, where South Park wryly, semi-sincerely confronted the series’ place as a “relic from another time” by putting the town under the heavy thumb of PC Principal.

Then—after hooking its red-pilled fans with an extended critique of the emptiness of neoliberalism, epitomized by a sneering, “safe space”-mocking character that was literally named Reality—it tried confronting the audience who had most embraced their ramped-up anti-PC crusades. Last season kicked off with Cartman admitting to Kyle, “We’re two privileged, straight white boys who have their laughs about things we never had to deal with,” a confession rendered only slightly tongue-in-cheek by the fact of who was saying it. And it culminated in Gerald, who’d spent the year gleefully harassing people online, squaring off with the Danish prime minister, a stand-in for every troll the show’s ever nurtured:

I want to stand here and tell you that you and I are different, but it’s not true. All we’ve been doing is making excuses for being horrible people. I don’t know if you tried to teach me a lesson, but you have. I have to stand here and look at you. And all I see is a big fat reflection of myself.

Ultimately, of course, Gerald comes to a familiar conclusion: “Fuck you, what I do is fucking funny, bitch!” he cries, before kicking the prime minister in the balls. Fair enough. South Park is, and always will be, funnier than any of the maladjusted creeps who have spent decades internalizing the show’s many false equivalencies and ironic racism, then lazily regurgitating them in an attempt to mimic its edginess—or worse, by treating them as some sort of scripture for living. And to be certain, there are millions of Poe’s law-defying viewers for whom South Park really is just a comedy, one that satisfies the most basic requirement of saying the things you shouldn’t say, in a far more clever way than you could say them. But regardless of their satirical intent, or the humanity that grounds even their nastiest attacks, it’s clear that even Parker and Stone sometimes question the influence they’ve had on the world, and who is and isn’t in on the joke.

Which brings us (as all 2017 articles must) to Donald Trump, the ultimate troll, and one that Parker sees as a natural outgrowth of South Park’s appeal to a nation bored with politeness. As he recently told the Los Angeles Times:

He’s not intentionally funny but he is intentionally using comedic art to propel himself. The things that we do—being outrageous and taking things to the extreme to get a reaction out of people—he’s using those tools. At his rallies he gets people laughing and whooping. I don’t think he’s good at it. But it obviously sells—it made him president.

Trump’s blithe offensiveness, rampant narcissism, and faith that everyone but him is stupid makes him a natural analog to Eric Cartman. But instead, South Park made him into Mr. Garrison—a decision that makes some logical sense (Mr. Garrison is of constitutional age, hates Mexicans and women, and doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself), though it also felt a bit like dissembling. Nevertheless, as the election wore on, South Park again seemed to acknowledge its role in helping to create a world where someone like Trump could seem like an exciting, entertaining alternative to conventional blandness. And it made a real, concerted effort to stymie any suggestion of support by having Garrison declare repeatedly that he was “a sick, angry little man” who “will fuck this country up beyond repair,” all while openly mocking those who still loved him anyway as nostalgia-drunk idiots.

“Is it just me or has South Park gone full cuck?” wondered fans on Reddit’s The_Donald immediately after that episode aired, and probably not for the first (or last) time. But in the aftermath of Trump/Garrison’s election, those same, vigilant cuck-watchers were back to crowing over how South Park had really stuck it to politically correct types in a scene where Trump/Garrison tells PC Principal, “You helped create me.” That South Park positioned this as less of a triumphant comeuppance than a suicidal backfire didn’t seem to matter. And the show more or less left it there—portraying Trump/Garrison as a dangerously incompetent buffoon, but also as the ultimate “u mad?” to all those liberals they fucking hate.

All of which makes Parker and Stone’s recent declaration to lay off Trump in the coming 21st season a real disappointment at best, cowardice at worst. The duo is, of course, under no obligation to tackle politics—or anything else they don’t want to, for that matter. They’re also right that mocking Trump is both redundant and “boring,” and also that everyone does it. For two dyed-in-the-wool contrarians, Trump comedy feels every bit as bland, lifeless, and sitcom-safe as an episode of, say, Veronica’s Closet. Furthermore, Parker’s complaints of the show just “becoming CNN now” and not wanting to spend every week endlessly restacking the sloppy Jenga pile of Trump-related outrage is completely understandable. Believe me, I get it.

That said: Man, what a cop out. South Park has already spent the past 20 years being CNN for its CNN-hating audience. Meanwhile, Parker and Stone have proudly, loudly thumped for a “fearless” brand of satire that’s willing to mock everyone from George W. Bush to Scientology to Mormonism to Muhammad, even under death threats. To shrug now and say, as Parker did, “I don’t give a shit anymore”—right when, by their own admission, the influence of the show’s worldview has reached all the way to the White House—feels especially disingenuous, and suspiciously like caving to the young, Trump-loving fans with whom they have forged such an uneasy relationship. (“South Park bends the knee on their fake-news-fueled portrayal of President Trump,” one The_Donald post gloated, followed by many, many more.) If they truly believe that those trolls in the mirror are “horrible people” who are helping to “fuck the country up beyond repair,” it would be truly fearless to tell them why, with no hint of ambiguous, everything-sucks irony that can be willfully misinterpreted.

Instead, Parker now says he’s eager to get back to “the bread and butter of South Park: kids being kids and being ridiculous and outrageous.” Which is great! South Park is absolutely at its best when it focuses on that stuff, and I look forward to watching it all on my hurting butt. Still, after 20 years, even they seem to realize that many of those ridiculous, outrageous kids for whom it’s “always been there” have long since grown up—and some of them have gone on to do some real, destructive adult shit. Like their inspirations, South Park’s generation of trolls are tiny but loud, and they’ve had the strange effect of changing the world. It sure would be nice if South Park would grow up as well and take responsibility for them.

Or, you know, maybe I just have sand in my vagina.

via A.V. Club

[scottlarouxwrites]

Style in Bakemonogatari (Suruga Monkey)

Suruga Monkey sets itself apart from the rest of Bakemonogatari by its execution. Where Hitagi Crab is slim and slick, and Mayoi Snail is careful and cryptic, Suruga Monkey is simply bombastic. The arc expands Monogatari’s stylistic palette, while managing not to take any sharp tonal turns or compromise on the artistic cohesiveness of the series. This allows for Kanbaru’s character and the events of the arc to flourish in their own unique way without seeming out of place. Suruga Monkey feels like a natural extension of the series, yet also different from anything we’ve experienced so far.

I would argue Mayoi Snail deviates in a similar manner, though not to such an obvious degree. Hitagi Crab is characterized by a darker, almost urban fantasy feel, full of religious artifacts and sobriety. Mayoi Snail jumps beyond that, presenting the viewer with a brighter and more satirical world (generally speaking). For this essay, I’ll just focus on the specifics of Suruga Monkey, rather than make a mess out of talking about everything. However, Mayoi Snail does exemplify the first major factor in this stylistic shift: the arc-specific opening themes.

Mayoi Snail’s OP, with its electric pop and chant-able closing lines, does not fit the style or tone of Hitagi Crab whatsoever. It doesn’t even fit Mayoi Snail. The school life narrative told through the visuals is reminiscent of a middle school slice of life series, and even the lyrics are cute if you plead ignorance to the events of the arc. Of course, the visuals and lyrics convey a double meaning once we know Hachikuji is a ghost, but that’s a different matter. What’s important is that this OP primes us for a different world than what was established in the first arc. Mayoi Snail is sillier, more energetic, and probably closer to slice of life than urban fantasy (not that it’s strictly one or the other, or even either at all).

This trend repeats in Suruga Monkey’s OP, which starts with an upbeat guitar riff straight out of a Sonic game and a shot of a basketball hoop. Again, I won’t analyze every little detail here, but this sports anime theme continues for a bit before blending with rom-com visuals and music, as well as further action series signifiers (such as fast cuts, close-ups of eager eyes, etc.). Besides that, the Revolutionary Girl Utena—and other shoujo or yuri shows—influence becomes overwhelming at parts. Obviously this OP is distinct from Bakemonogatari’s first two, but it’s also distinct from the feel of either previous arc. Someone who has never seen Bakemonogatari will expect something based on Suruga Monkey’s OP that isn’t directly delivered upon anywhere in the series. But more on that soon.

Let’s actually backtrack a bit to examine some editing and form from the first couple of minutes of the arc’s first episode.

Here we see some clear examples of how Suruga Monkey bends or reshapes existing stylistic themes for the arc’s unique purpose. Right after the typical title card opener, the camera sweeps wildly in towards a railing. This is one of the few (if not only) legitimate camera movements in Bakemonogatari and immediately signals a more dynamic and action-focused experience. The next shot of Kanbaru sprinting and her feet slapping against the pavement continue to set the pace, so to speak. This same cut of Kanbaru sprinting is then interlaced throughout Araragi’s conversation with Hachikuji, constantly reminding us of that faster pace. Keep in mind that this kind of discontinuity/aspect editing is a staple of Monogatari, and thus preserves a sort of stylistic homeostasis even as we’re primed for action.

The shots and editing of the conversation itself work to further integrate the idea of dynamic action. As before, there’s nothing shockingly new, just old style repurposed for a new idea: action. Araragi and Senjougahara flip-flopped all over the screen in Mayoi Snail, but this sequence is more pointed than the park scene. Hachikuji and Araragi walk across a still background; then a moving background “walks” across them.

The walking shot is spread throughout the scene, and the pair make their way to the middle and then the end of the frame.

The cuts also are wilder, with still shots of Hachikuji transitioning to dynamic shots of Araragi falling. Even within still shots, there’s a step up in action in the form of railroad crossing lights flashing. Then, of course, are the shots of Araragi and Hachikuji slapboxing, which feature some of Bakemonogatari’s best (most fluid, at least) animation. Finally, Kanbaru herself comes flying into the scene. Even if I’m reading too much into some details, this opening scene is undoubtedly designed to allow this arc to transition to intense action scenes—such as Kanbaru and Araragi’s final fight—as smoothly as possible. If nothing else, it is no accident that so much effort was put into the slapboxing cuts. This arc needs movement, and we need to be ready for it.

I think of this as stylistic permeability—within the “body” of the art, different moods/tones or focal points can permeate out into observable territory with different degrees of ease. Monogatari has high permeability (dramatic soliloquys, bloody brawls, comedic conversations can all take center stage easily); something like Serial Experiment Lain has low permeability (even when characters make jokes, they still sound bleak or mysterious or otherwise unable to distinguish themselves from the overall dark mood). Permeability tends to be why we condemn certain tone shifts but not others. The formal elements that lead to permeability are too complex a topic for this essay, but the editing described above is one good example.

This permeability is insured throughout the arc via near-constant movement within the frame—whether that be moving cars or walking sequences like the one discussed above or even just a comedic camera pan. Action is likewise primed through Senjougahara’s eye-piercing aggression towards Araragi, which allows for a heightened state of excitement moving quickly into a sequence of Hanakawa standing in the middle of speeding traffic, and then finally the Rainy Devil’s attack on Araragi. True, Senjougahara was similarly violent in Hitagi Crab, but her aggression here still benefits the transition to intense action. The question isn’t whether these details are absolutely necessary to the transition or absolutely unique to this arc, but simply whether they increase permeability.

Perhaps most importantly, the source of the arc’s apparition is as emotionally intense as the action is physically. In Hitagi Crab and Mayoi Snail, apparitions cause trouble as a result of quiet emotions or even a relinquishment of emotion. Araragi simply doesn’t want to return home after an argument with his sisters (among other subtle discomforts), so he meets Hachikuji. Senjougahara tries to abandon her feelings towards her mother, so she meets a crab. Although Senjougahara reaches a melodramatic peak upon accepting her feelings, and Hachikuji (a wake-up call for Araragi) experiences the same upon arriving at home, neither the crab nor the snail exist as a medium for intense emotion. They aren’t inherently connected to a character’s fiery passions.

The Rainy Devil, however, becomes a problem precisely because of Kanbaru’s passions—her anger, jealousy, and hatred specifically. The Rainy Devil is the medium through which Kanbaru channels those emotions. The tool she uses, you could say. On a basic level, the crab and snail are not associated with intense emotions, but the Rainy Devil is. It couldn’t be associated with much of anything else! This small change in the context of the narrative is possibly the key for transitioning into Suruga Monkey while preserving cohesion. The formal/editing shifts explained above smooth out any bumps and sew it all together, but the actual cloth of the patchwork is this emotional/motivational adjustment.

The actions and qualities of apparitions clue us into the psychological states of characters, and this is reflected directly in what we see on screen. I mean this quite literally. In Hitagi Crab, the grim hues, bizarre social interactions, and religious imagery result precisely from Senjougahara’s trauma. In Mayoi Snail, the vast emptiness of the park and the streets result precisely from Araragi wanting to be alone in the world. And in Suruga Monkey, the violence, speed, and overwhelming colors result precisely from Kanbaru’s jealousy and hatred. The inner and outer layers of the story and characters are bound together such that they demand this cohesion.

With the most intense action and violence spawning from the Rainy Devil, and snappy editing and dynamic cuts portraying said action, Suruga Monkey manages to transform our low-key psychological drama into something new. At its core, this arc is still Monogatari, so it’d be wrong to lump it in with other action or thriller or horror shows, but it is certainly distinct from its preceding arcs. Unique yet unifying, Suruga Monkey is a slam dunk.

Afternote:

I apologize for such an awful joke, but let me make up for it with some unnecessary analysis of a minor detail in the first episode of the arc. When Araragi and Senjougahara are studying together, Senjougahara is just writing the Gettysburg Address in English over and over again. I suppose it’s a decent speech to study if you’re learning English (middle schoolers all over America are forced to memorize it, after all), but I still found it a strange choice. So I decided to rationalize it by overanalyzing everything.

The Gettysburg Address was delivered by Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War at the battlefield remains of Gettysburg. “Senjougahara” means battlefield, and we could consider the two halves of the Valhalla Combo like two halves of a nation. Senjougahara and Kanbaru split apart and one scorned the other, leading to something you might call a feud or fission. So: the battlefield of Gettysburg, the civil war of the Valhalla Combo…the Gettysburg Address?

I can’t imagine this being intentional, but if it is, then someone at SHAFT is as much of a madman as Isin himself.

Delayed by an impromptu drinking party and hangover, but here now (with a bonus!) Style in Bakemonogatari (Suruga Monkey) Suruga Monkey sets itself apart from the rest of Bakemonogatari by its execution.

[lostandfoundstories]

Why I Say Soda Instead of Pop

It was a day that should’ve been like any other. I woke up, and I went to school. Being 8th grade, the only thing at the front of my mind was plotting the ways I could sneak note-passing or doing homework during SSR, or self-selected-reading time (book love), which we did for the first fifteen minutes of each school day no matter what class you were in. Lucky for me, or unlucky depending on how many rules you’re willing to break, I had algebra 1 first period in 8th grade. I always had homework assigned daily that I would wait till SSR to do. Classmates next to me would be reading Harry Potter: The Half-Blood Prince, and I would be unassumingly trying to find out what X equals in y=2x+3 behind an open The 5th Wave standing up to block my work. I was caught a few times, but no real punishment came from it. My teacher wanted to begin class just as much as any other teacher whose class-time is being eaten up by SSR.

I went through a day of linear equations, Civil War battles, rock cycles, spanish conjugations, and learning an arranged Lady Gaga medley for the end-of-the-year orchestra Pops concert. I’m waiting to be picked up by my dad; I’m ready to go home and play Destiny on my PS4 or jam to pop-punk and screamo music, like All Time Low, We Came As Romans, or Falling In Reverse like any 8th grader. But, I get home and everyone’s there already. My mom’s not cleaning like she should be on a weekday; my sister’s not at a friend’s house or working; and my dad doesn’t go to his office to work on whatever else he has to work on, on top of his day-job. They’re all at the dining room table like it’s the Last Meal. They’re gathered around. Sooner or later I hear the words that come with anything like this: “Aaron, come sit down.” Of course, I tentatively sit down. I don’t do drugs or drink or anything like that. I was still a virgin (and still am for that matter). But in that moment, I feel like I’m waiting for them to say something like, “Aaron, we found this in your bedroom” [pointing to used condoms or a big bottle of vodka]. However, nothing like that was said even though sometimes I wish it had. 

    “Aaron, you know Olivia [my sister] recently came back from Oregon.”

    “Yeah…?”

    “She was in a town she thinks we’d really like. As you know, she really wants to move there. She says there’s nature everywhere, people are friendly, it’s smaller than Grand Rapids, but not terribly small. They have a bus system-”

    “Cool.”

    “Well…-”

    I knew what was going to happen. This was going to be a giant-ass “Well.” 

    “Well, you know Olivia is only 19. She feels passionately about this city, Eugene, and Oregon in general. She strongly believes we’d love it, and we’ve been wanting to get out of Michigan forever. You always hear us complaining about the snow and jobs. So… we’re going to be moving with her as an entire family.”

    “Okay.”

    “We don’t know when yet. We’re going to start getting the ball moving by hiring realtors and what not. Don’t post about it on Facebook yet till it’s official and confirmed that we’re moving on a specific date. Okay? Did you get all of that?”

    “Okay.”

    I went up to my room, and messaged some of my immediate friends. The first being my crush I’ve had for the last two years and have gotten rejected by at least three times. After that, I wrote a post on Facebook, hid my family through the handy “custom audience” button, and saw the comments, messages, and “sad reacts” flood my notification feed.

    Nothing was the same after that. I could no longer talk to my best friends as if we would walk across the graduation stage together; I could no longer talk to my best friends as if we would even walk the halls of the giant high school that we had planned 8 years for together. I was sort of numb. I didn’t cry. I didn’t punch a hole in the wall. I didn’t necessarily blame anyone or completely reject the idea and outright refuse orally, Instead, I was over the moon. A week after my secret announcement and messages, I had my first girlfriend last more than 48 hours, and it was no girlfriend off of Tinder or from recess. It was the girl I had my sights on since the beginning of 7th grade when she transferred from another school district. Real feelings or not, she eventually sent a bunch of message about her feelings for me too over the school year. I had a puppy-love and nothing connected. I had the false idea that it’d be a happily-ever-after. I completely forgot that I’m moving within the year. Instead of those thoughts and ideas, I just started fantasizing about my first kiss with her and first time holding hands with someone romantically. 

    These ideas went on for the rest of the school year or few months. It wasn’t until the end-of-the-year field trip we take annually that’s complete fun. We went to Cedar Point, or the biggest amusement park in the U.S.. It was, and still is, the best day of my life. I met Josh Dun, drummer of Twenty One Pilots coincidentally, I hugged my now-ex girlfriend for what seemed like hours, and I held her hand for the first time while on a roller coaster. I thought we might kiss, but me being the introvert I was and still am, every time the thought came to initiate it, it was replaced with a loud “NO WAY JOSE.” I would wait for her. 

    It never came.

    Instead, the trip ended. We were on the bus heading home (it was a 4-hour ride). It was then that I got the infamous text. Yes, text. We were on the bus. She was like 10 rows ahead of me. It was then that she said something vague like, “We’re done.” I replied with, “What? What’s done?” I don’t know if I knew and was unconsciously oblivious and purposefully ignorant, or if I was just plain dumb. After my reply, she made it plain and clear: “We’re breaking up.” I would later learn that she had planned it all along. And we had even sort of talked about it previously, but I was just so oblivious and in a fairy-tale. She/We planned this to be a 3-month fling right before I moved. We weren’t going to do long-distance, which I wouldn’t have done anyways. I had just completely forgotten subconsciously that I’m moving 2400 miles away. It was then that everything hit like a brick. For the rest of the ride home, I cried under my best friend’s blanket that he let me borrow. Also, the things I said about it being a fling, I know that now in 2019. I didn’t know that right then. I had the usual thoughts of, “what did I do wrong?!”. 

I go through the first month of the summer doing packing and last-minute arrangements for moving. My family has sold the house and signed off on it. We have a date. We have to be out by June 30th. I see my closest friends for the last time. I cry (not in front of them). I have no idea what to expect. I know nothing about Oregon besides rain and trees. You’d think I would’ve researched it a bit more, but I was in a fairy-tale and then shock/denial immediately after. I had no time. 

    One thing, however, that’s stuck with me is how much pop I drank. We didn’t buy groceries because we’d be moving and we didn’t want anything to go to waste. So, we constantly ate out buying sandwiches and pop. Now, I say pop because that’s what it always had been to me growing up in Michigan/the Midwest. The first seven years on the east-side near Detroit or near the “thumb”. The second seven years on the west-side near Lake Michigan. The pop vs. soda debate hadn’t happened, or at least I hadn’t heard of it. I didn’t even know the word soda existed. So on I went, drinking a lot of pop and eating a surprising amount of BLT’s. 

    Finally, on June 30th, we pack the car with the bare essentials, like toiletries and snacks that didn’t go on the moving truck (we hired a driver for). We make the three-day road trip with hotel stops along the way to sleep. Finally, we arrive in Eugene, Oregon on July 3rd, 2016. 

I don’t know what to make of it. I just know that I miss my ex-girlfriend (we were on speaking terms again and I sort of began realizing that it was a kind-of fling). So what do I do? I begin catching up on America's Got Talent episodes that I missed while moving and packing. We order pizza since our stuff hasn’t arrived, and we’re too tired to go grocery shopping. We order 2 medium-sized Domino’s pizzas and a pop. 

Life goes on. I get through the following months with my family since we know absolutely no one in Oregon. We go on hikes, we decorate and unpack, and we discover the staple grocery stores like Fred Meyer, Grocery Outlet, and Winco (none of which exist in Michigan). We discovered coffee places like Dutch Bros., which didn’t impress us. We were happy to find that Eugene had many Starbucks places, which we still stick to. 

It comes to September. I’m at Freshman orientation in the noisy gymnasium. My knees are shaking and I’m on the verge of tears. However, an ecstatic teacher with in-between wavy/curly hair like mine comes out and introduces himself as Mr. Kostechka. He announces his poetry club and everything else blocks out. Poetry. Poetry was my escape during 8th grade both before and during the moving process. I was like every other emo middle schooler, but I still wanted to take it places and everyone who would read it complimented me whether genuinely or not. So, I find out when and where, and I cling onto it. I don’t have many friends, and the friends I do have I end up losing around January. I’m a wandering ghost lost in the socialness of high school. I don’t have my friends who I sat with for 3 years straight. The only thing keeping me going is poetry club once a week. 

At home, we’ve finally bought groceries like any other family. We’ve finally established ourselves and we have roots. My dad has his day-job, and my mom is finding new clients to clean for like in Michigan when she cleaned other’s houses by herself for under-the-table money. They’re waiting for me to bring home friends, but I haven’t yet. It’s still just, “how’s school going?” and the usual reply of “fine.” They’re not worried because I do have all A’s, and I still snuggle with my mom every night, falling asleep to BBC Earth, Masterchef, and America’s Got Talent, all shows we watch together before I go in my own bed (Right now we’re watching Stranger Things together). 

However, the shift happens in Geometry at my table group. Somehow, the pop vs soda debate comes up, and it’s at the peak of popularity. Everyone in my group says it’s soda, and I still call it pop. Still, even then it feels weird. I refuse to stand-down. We agree to disagree. But throughout the following weeks, I slowly start saying soda, and it feels much more natural. I learn that it’s a midwest and east-coast thing to call it pop and a west-coast thing to call it soda. That’s all it is. It’s just one more thing that I’ve given up since moving to Oregon. It’s not a bad thing though. As I’ve said, saying soda felt much more natural.

Just like switching to soda felt more natural, over the three years that I’ve lived here now, many things have felt more natural. I’m comfortable here. I still miss my friends in Michigan of course, but I don’t miss them with every waking moment. I’ve made a strong group of friends here: Maggie, Jozie, Andrea, Alison, Petra, Ada, and Melody. I have teachers, like Mr and Ms. K, Ms. Taylor, Ms. Downey, Ms. Chylek, Ms. Lawless, and Mr. Sheaffer, I consider friends and even best friends. I’ve developed my emo middle-school poetry and writing a lot. I went through what I consider a real relationship with kissing and more, many more conversations, dates, and a real break-up. I’ve grown more in these three years of Oregon than I did in the fourteen years in Michigan. That might just have to do with my age, but the truth still stands. I’ve also learned that I like Oregon and west-coast culture a lot more. Let me explain.

Just like they say soda here and pop in Michigan, other things are different culturally. In Oregon, strangers will say hi to you at a supermarket or on a bus even if you’ll never see them again; teachers will be your friend and sort of tear down barriers that always existed for almost every teacher in Michigan. Of course I’m not going to hang out with my teachers outside of class and play the newest Call of Duty together or watch the newest season of Stranger Things while I’m a student, but I can talk to them after-class and even in-class and say personal things. I can make jokes that might get me detention in Michigan. My teachers can make jokes that might get them fired in Michigan. I can send my teachers this paper. I can show them my emo poetry. I can write out all of my thoughts and feelings and not hold back. I can talk about my genuine excitement for the symphony in a week, rather than hold back and say “I’m happy it’s Friday” out of embarrassment. I can easily develop a friendly yet professional relationship with my teachers. I don’t know if it’s just a North thing, a high school thing, or a West-coast thing, but I like it.

Not only could I let go of pop, but I could also let go of embarrassment and social awkwardness that held me back a lot in middle school. Now, I’m still an introvert, don’t get me wrong. But, I’m an introvert in a healthy way. I can go to get-togethers/parties, have random outings, see a symphony on my own, play in a symphony on my own, solo, join a poetry club, join the Youth STEM Equity Club, join Mock Trial, etc. But I still sometimes need a night-in where I don’t want to talk to or see anybody, and I just want to read and/or write. 

That is why I say soda instead of pop

[nh935]

Creepy America Episode 6: Myths & Legends

Creepy America Episode 6 Myths & Legends Clifton, Virginia

I had a roommate in college, Jonas something-or-other, who tried to get me interested in Dungeons and Dragons. The idea was that you’d make up a character with all these different abilities and stats and whatnot and someone running the game would tell you what was happening and you were supposed to tell them what you wanted to do. Then you’d use some dice and the numbers on paper to figure out if you were successful.

I never really got into it, it was just too strange, but one of the things that was interesting to me was the stats. They were numbers to determine your characteristics, things like Strength, Dexterity, and so on, and there was one for Intelligence and one for Wisdom. Intelligence was supposed to be your regular smarts, like math and history, but Wisdom was your street-smarts, your gut, and it let you do things like notice things in the background and tell if someone was lying.

I liked that, and I feel like it describes the difference between me and Zoey. Zoey wasn’t the smartest; whenever she didn’t understand something, she came to me, and that happened often. But she was wise. It was Zoey who could tell when someone was lying, when something was out of place, and when things weren’t right. If there was something spooky going on, she picked up on it way faster than I did, and to this day I believe that’s why some people can walk through haunted locations and feel nothing while others see shadows and hear screams. Some people are just better attuned. If that truly is the mechanism behind sensitivity to the supernatural, then Zoey was certainly much wiser than I. Virginia alone proved that.

***

We entered Clifton sometime in the afternoon. The town was small, smaller than Hurricane, even. The actual downtown area had less than fifteen buildings in it, and as I pulled off to the side of the road, Zoey stretched in her seat.

“Goodie, lunch time. I could use a break.” she said.

I shook my head. “Nope. This is the next place we’re setting up.”

“Why?” she asked, looking at the small cluster that was Main street. “This place barely has anyone in it.”

“No idea. But it’s on the itinerary.”

She frowned and opened the glove box to retrieve the stack of papers we had our roadmap notes on. After flipping through them, she withdrew a paper and read “Clifton, WV, Creepy America location. Home to the ‘bunny man’ bridge.” She put it back in the stack. “Well, that explains that.”

I groaned. “So you’re telling me that we just spent all that time just to drive somewhere that we know has nothing?”

“I think I’m telling you it’s time for a lunch break.” She opened her car door and climbed out.

Part of me wanted to get back on the road and keep going, but I exited the car with her and crossed the street to a pub-style restaurant. Halfway across the road, though, she stopped.

I paused and looked at her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just… weird cold spot.” She shivered.

I raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing and continued into the pub, a large place made out of dark wood. Despite my desire to get back on the road, I couldn’t help but feel my mouth water as the scent of deep fryers and seared meats hit my nose. A sign said “Seat Yourself”, so we took a table near the bar.

At the bar was a man, disheveled and distraught, with red eyes and the shiny trail marks of tears running from the corners of his eyes. He brought the bottle in his hand up to his mouth, swayed and then barked “Anofer!”

A different man behind the bar shook his head. “You’ve had enough Tom.”

“You can’t tell me wha’s enough, not wif’ my daughter in the ground and nobody worryin’ ‘bout the killer.”

“You know that’s not true. The police…”

“The police are blind fools!” he yelled. “I told ‘em who it was. I told ‘em it was the Bunny Man! I saw ‘im, axe an’ all, an’ now Janice is dead an’ everyone thinks I’m crazy, or did it, an’... an’...” he broke down sobbing and the man behind the bar took him by the shoulder and escorted him out.

Zoey and I exchanged looks.

“So…” she began.

I shook my head. “No. We are not staying here.”

“C’mon Liam, why not?”

“Because it’s just going to be a waste of our time. Like the dogman was.”

“The dogman was different.”

“How?”

“There’s just… I don’t know. Call it a hunch.”

I raised an eyebrow. “A hunch?”

“Yeah.” She waited for me to respond, then sighed. “Alright, alright, I know it’s not a lot to go on. But we’re already here, and we already budgeted the time and money to stay here for a bit. So why not?”

I thought about it for a bit, then shrugged. “Alright, I suppose we can stay a bit longer than just lunch.”

***

We couldn’t talk to Tom; when we tracked his house down and asked to interview him, a woman I presumed to be his wife cussed us out then slammed the door in our face. But after asking some of the locals, we learned that Janice was in high school, and, well… you know how high schoolers are.

I’m going to skip most of the interviews, because they simply weren’t very helpful. Too few of the details were corroborated, and too many people spent time talking about irrelevant issues and potential theories. The more kids we talked to, the more obvious it was that we were hearing rumors and not facts.

We did hear some things repeated often enough to seem true. Janice’s body was found out in the woods. The murder weapon was an axe. Janice’s father, Tom, had gone looking for her after she hadn’t come home for several hours after school, and it was him who found the body. He also saw a figure nearby, a tall, bearded man in a bunny suit, standing a ways away with a bloody axe, who disappeared when he looked away for a split second.

And everyone knew who that was: the bunny man.

Which is where things disintegrated into speculation again. The bunny man was a lunatic, he was a prisoner, he was a ghost and he was a hobo who lived out in the woods. It was the typical contradictions you would find among any local legend. Even more problematic, there were some people who thought the bunny man wasn’t real, or at least, Tom’s story wasn’t, and there was a more sinister motive behind it.

There was also a smattering of stuff online. Apparently, there was a weirdo who had threatened some people with an axe while wearing a bunny suit, but that was about it. The main version of the legend, that he escaped an insane asylum into the woods and was never caught, had been thoroughly disproven by a local historian. Beyond that, there was only hear-say.

“Well,” I said as the high-schooler who had been eager to share in his theory that Janice’s former boyfriend was somehow involved scurried off to parts unknown, “that was a bust.”

She frowned at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s nothing here. Just a children’s campfire tale and an unfortunate dead girl stuck to it.” I started to pack up the camera we had been using back into its carrying case.

“And that means what, exactly? That Tom just made up the story about the axe man in a bunny suit? There’s a lot saner ways to deflect guilt.”

“Well I never said he was sane.”

I started to lift the bag off the ground, but Zoey grabbed my arm, forcing me to look at her.

“Can’t we stay here for a bit longer?” she pleaded. “Please, Liam?”

I sighed. “You still have a hunch, don’t you?”

“...yeah.”

“Alright, but just until tomorrow morning. Once nothing happens, we pack up and leave.”

***

When we made it back to where the R.V. was still parked, there was a small crowd of people gathered at one end of Main Street, blocking the road, backs turned to us to stare at whatever it was that held their attention. Zoey and I traded glances at each other, then moved to join them.

“Alright everyone, I’m going to need you to back up a bit” a man in a brown sherrif’s uniform said, waving his arms in front of the crowd.

“It’s Tom, isn’t it?” someone called.

“Now we don’t know that” the sheriff replied. The unknown voices continued to gossip.

“Well, it’s either him or the bunny man.”

“You can’t believe that nonsense, can you?”

“Well just look at it!”

We were close enough to see now. There, in the middle of the road, was a body. At least, I assume it was a body. By the time we got there, it was covered in a white sheet, edges and corners turning red from soaking in blood.

That was hardly the most interesting part, though.

Surrounding the body on the far side were several stakes in the ground, no higher than three feet in the air. Pinned to them, like some bizarre diorama of Roman crucifixion, were rabbits, nailed into the wood stomach up so that their paws were outstretched in a position of defensive fear. The wounds from these nails all leaked blood into the dirt.

“Look!” the sheriff shouted, face visibly turning red, “you’ve all had a nice oogle. Now I need you to scurry off so we can wall off this scene!”

Begrudgingly, the people left in twos and threes. A breeze passed by and Zoey shivered again.

“Creepy, huh?” I asked as we meandered to one side of the street.

“It’s not that,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s just so damn cold.”

I moved my hand through the air. It didn’t feel too bad; it certainly wasn’t warm, but it was by no means cold. “It feels fine to me.”

“Really? You can’t feel that?”

I shrugged.

“Anyway, that’s not important” she declared with a wave of her hand. “What is important is that there’s something here.”

“Yeah, I can’t argue with you there.” I scratched my head. “But why now? I mean, the bunny man urban legend has been around for decades but this seems to be the first time it’s gotten a verified body count.”

She smirked. “Well, that’s our job, right? Finding out. Question is, where do we start?”

“Well, there was that bridge…” I remarked.

***

Bunny man bridge was… anticlimactic, all things considered. The supposed hot-spot for the maybe maybe-not ghost of the serial killer was little more than a short white brick tunnel than ran under a railroad. It wasn’t even long enough to get properly dark in there. Supposedly he had hung himself here, but I didn’t see how because there was nothing nearby to hang a rope to. But with the whole rabbit-pole thing, I supposed all bets were off.

Originally, we were going to stake the location out in our car, but after only a half hour there, the same sheriff from before rode up and told us that we couldn’t park our car in the middle of a roadway, so we were forced to park it about three miles away at a general store and walk back. He also told us that we couldn’t hang around the bridge, but we ignored that part.

We stayed as the sun went down and continued to stay as the night dragged on. Once the sun had disappeared, the trees lengthened into long shadows, tall and slender entities whose silhouettes hid the inside of the forest from us. What we could see was what was illuminated by the moon and stars, as well as the occasional house light from deep in the woods, shining like ��will-o-wisps; a floor of leaves, small ridges and hills, and the dark shapes of man-made signs and fences were all painted in a sheen of gray that is night light.

As ten dragged to eleven and eleven to midnight, the air got oppressively cold. My breath was visible and I was shivering now. I turned to Zoey and cleared my throat. “Ready to…”

“Shh!” She grabbed ahold of my shirt and dragged me into a shadow under the bridge. Her camera was pointed into the woods, so I followed its end and pointed mine at the same spot.

There, in the dim light, was a figure. Tall, how so was impossible to tell, but it was obvious even from this distance. The darkness blocked most of his features, but there was no hiding the most obvious one: the dirty pale purple of a full-body suit with two ragged rabbit ears at the top of it.

Its route took him closer to us and we both stopped breathing, stopped moving as he passed. Now we could see a dark black beard pouring out of the mouth area, dark eyes where the suit was cut out to allow for vision, and a large dull and chipped red axe hanging from his side. His footsteps were shuffling plods that kicked up the leaves. His other hand was dragging something large and brown and with relief I realized it was a deer carcass. Its eyes were stuck in glassy panic and its throat was slit so deep that the dragging almost threatened to tear the head off. He didn’t so much as look at us as he moved deeper into the woods.

Without a word, we followed behind.

It was nerve-wracking. There’s no way to move silently in a forest and every leaf crunch and twig snap sounded like the boom of a cannon. Most of them he ignored but when the noise was particularly loud, he’d stop and look up. We’d have to duck behind a tree or rock and wait until we heard those plodding shuffles again, then quietly resume trailing him. It continued in this way for what must have been hours, but with every moment spent hiding, he got just a bit farther ahead until he crested over a ridge quite a ways away. When we caught up, he was gone.

After waiting five minutes to confirm he was no longer near, Zoey whispered “I think we lost him.”

I nodded. “Time to head back, then.” I turned around and stopped. “Um, where exactly is back?”

She squinted into the night. “I can’t tell, none of this looks familiar to me.”

“Same here.”

She cursed. “Alright, follow me.” Zoey climbed down the ridge and started walking in the direction we came. I walked behind her.

Suddenly, Zoey tensed up and held her hand up to me to stop.

“What?” I asked.

“Movement, up ahead.” She pointed to some trees.

“Maybe it was just a deer?” I couldn’t even convince myself with that tone of voice.

She twirled and stared at a spot behind me. “It’s… circling.”

I swallowed and moved with her, back to back to cover blind spots.

“Do you hear that?” she murmured to me.

“Hear what?” I replied.

“Silence. The animals have gone quiet.”

There was a sudden explosion of leaves and dirt to my left. I spun to face it. It was the bunny man, and up close, he was even more terrifying. Now I could see the wild and mad look in his eye as he swung the axe, blunt-end first, towards me. I yelped and tried to bring my arm in front of it but it was too late. The metal end hit my head with the force of a truck. My ears rang. I saw stars of white in my vision. I tried to blink them away and backpedal, but my foot caught on a branch and I fell. All sounds morphed into weird echoes, like I put my head in a fishbowl, and there was a tunnel of black crawling around the ends of my eyes. I saw the strange bearded rabbit man bend over and grin at me and I just couldn’t take any more.

My eyes forced their way closed.

***

I felt the sensation of warm air licking my face. I twitched my cheek in response and the motion awakened all of my nerve ends, bridging back all my pains and aches in full force. Groaning, I opened my eyes.

I was still in the woods. Around my hands was a rough and scratchy rope tied to the tree at my back, holding me up in an uncomfortable half-sit. In front of me was the orange glow of a campfire, the source of the warmth. Outside of that was just shadow.

I saw movement to my left and I turned to it. The bunny man. He was walking back, axe hanging from one hand, pieces of wood in the other. He threw one into the flames and sat across the fire from me. As he did, he picked up a small object, my camcorder, I realized, and opened it up.

“What is this?” he asked, pointing it at me.

“I-i-it’s a camera."

He stared at me with a total lack of recognition for the words."

"It records things," I clarified.

He pressed a few buttons. I saw the little red recording light come on just as he grunted and threw it away into a pile of leaves, taking a seat across from me at the fire and staring at me.

I did the same. Now, in proper light and with no distractions, I could see the smaller details. He was a white guy, hard to tell in the full-body rabbit suit. The only places his skin showed through were in the various rips and tears in the suit that lived alongside stains of all different colors, as well as his hands, which were large and gnarled. His beard was scraggly and unkempt; chunks of dirt resided in it. And the smell… it was the scent of an outdoor outhouse, only worse.

I got my feet from under me and stood, slipping one or two times from the fatigue as I did so. He watched this awkward display while remaining immobile, following me only with his eyes.

“Wh..who are you?” I asked.

“I’m surprised at you. Can’t you tell?” His voice was deep and rough. It reminded me of the sound of tires on gravel.

“You… you look like the bunny man…”

“There you go then.” He rose and lifted the axe up.

My heart leapt into my chest. “Wait wait! Y-you didn’t answer my question!”

He stopped, towering over me and staring down at my crouched form. He didn’t say anything.

“I mean...” I licked my lips, “you act like you’re him, but the legend looks fake. Mismatched details, and things. A-and this is the first time there’s ever been bodies. So are you him or are you pretending?”

He continued to stare.

“You know,” he said at last, “I wish more of your kind just stopped to think, like you just did. You really have gotten dumber over the years.”

“So you’re not then?” I wanted to keep him talking, mostly to buy time until I could think of a way to escape… but part of me was truly curious.

He turned to his axe, then to me. After making what looked like a shrug, he sat the axe down near the tree and turned away from me. “No, I wasn’t. This flimsy… shell is a matter of necessity. I used to be great, a god, even. Leshy, man of the forest. They worshiped me. They feared and loved me all at the same time. Some even gave their lives in my name with a smile on their face.”

“So what happened?” I twisted my hands around the ropes, looking for weak points.

“The god of light.” He spat on the ground and turned back to me, making me stop my escape attempt. “He and his ilk entered my land, turned my people away from their own religion. There was not enough to sustain my form. I had to hop from one shell to the next, trying to find enough to sustain me.”

“Enough what? Faith?”

He nodded, dark eyes twinkling in the fire light.

“That… that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe not to you.” He jabbed his finger hard into my chest and his tone turned angry. “You were made with a spirit, a life force, so much so that you feel free to waste it on whatever grabs your attention. I am only soul, a personality alone, forced to feed on your scraps like some kind of dog.”

I winced. The area he poked me at was sore; I was sure it was bruised. “So... you’re taking the faith people use on this urban legend? And stirring up more with the murders?”

He nodded once again and grabbed the axe at his feet, beginning to raise it. “It’s a shame I have to kill you. You possess a rare intelligence.”

“Wait! Wait, just please one second, I can help you!”

He lowered the axe to his feet and waited.

I gestured to the camera on the ground with my head. “I m-make stories. I-if you let me go, I can tell people about you. Show you to the world. Get people to believe in you.”

He shook his head and chuckled. Then he laughed, loud and hard. “So that’s your game. You had me going for quite a bit with the clueless act. Very well done. But I won’t let you bind me to a form, not so close to the time of ascension. Though,” he said as he raised the axe above his head, “thank you for removing my guilt for this act, you piece of warlock scum.”

“No, please, I-I-I didn’t…”

A sudden flare of orange filled the forest as a towering pillar of flame suddenly erupted deep into the forest. The bunny man turned around to watch it rise, then glared at me. “Friends of yours? No matter. I’ll be back for you.” He trekked into the woods in the direction of the fire, leaving me alone in the small camp.

I strained against the ropes at my wrist. No use. They were too tightly tied and too thick. Panicked, I scanned the camp for something, anything to help me out. It wouldn’t be too long before he came back.

“Psst!” Zoey’s voice hissed from behind me. I looked back to see her standing behind my tree.

“Zoey?” I whispered. “Was that you?”

“Yeah. If camping with my family has taught me anything, its how to build an irresponsibly large fire.” She withdrew a pocket knife and sawed through the rope. “C’mon, lets go.”

“Wait.” I ran back over to the camera on the ground, picked it up, and then began to follow her. We did an awkward crouch walk through the trees, trying to move fast and stealthy.

“Did you figure out who the hell that is?” Zoey murmured to me.

“Not who, what.” I gripped the camera tightly as I went. “I think he’s an old pagan god of some kind. Needs faith to live. Nobody believes in him any more, which is why he’s squatting out in the bunny man’s skin. He’s stealing that faith.”

Just as I finished, I heard a roar from behind us. No mere growl, this was a roar you would hear on something primal and ancient, like the battle cry of a T-Rex. Hazarding a glance behind me, I saw his silhouette. Except it couldn’t be. No silhouette could reach that tall like that, and you can’t see shadows in the dark.

Or against the night sky.

There was a tug on my shirt as Zoey grabbed me out of my trance and yanked me onto the road, bunny man bridge directly in front of us. “C’mon!” she yelled. “There’s a safe spot two miles up the road!”

“We’re not going to the car?” I asked, wide-eyed.

“Trust me.”

There was another ear-splitting howl behind us and I nodded.

We took off as fast as our legs could carry us. Neither one of us were in particularly good shape but adrenaline made up for the slack and turned us into Olympic sprinters. Around us, the wind started up, whipping the trees around like a hurricane. The shadow continued to chase us, darkening the forest into a void, swallowing any lights from the houses or ambient light from the sky.

Zoey kept going, past the bridge, past the intersection we had our car parked away from, and further north. I pushed myself to follow, but it was getting harder. My lungs burned. My sides felt like stitching threatening to burst and spill my insides out. My legs were burning too, and the protest they gave was making it hard to keep the rhythm up. Zoey was feeling it as well. At one point, she started to stumble and I had to grab her and stand her upright.

And still the shadow continued to advance. It was no more than five feet away now.

“How much further?” I barely managed to pant.

“There!” She pointed to a building about fifty feet away. “We just need to get to the parking lot.” I could barely make it out in the fading light, but I couldn’t see anything special to it. Certainly no reason to believe it could protect us. But I was far beyond questions at this point.

I gave one last push. This wasn’t adrenaline, this was pure willpower at this point. My body was threatening to break, I could feel it. Just to the parking lot, I told myself. Almost. Just to the parking lot…

I bounded over one last hurdle, a small patch of grass, and I was there. I turned around to see Zoey three feet behind, still struggling to make it. The darkness, practically a pure void now, was right on her heels. Some of it had gathered into a hand and was reaching out to grab her, mere inches away from her head.

I reached out my hand and she grabbed it. I pulled with all my might, toppling us both over onto the pavement just as the hand tried to snatch at her. It instead collided with the empty air in a shower of white sparks. Golden-colored crackles of lightning burst from the spot as the sound of sizzling and the smell of fresh ozone ripped through the air, causing the shadows to rush back and retreat inwards until all that was left of the advancing threat was the bunny man,

“You…” His voice quivered with rage. “This is who aids you?”

I couldn’t say anything. The only thing I could do was lay on the pavement and force air into my aching lungs.

He brought his fists up and pounded on the invisible barrier, causing another shower of sparks and lightning. When he lowered his arms, I could see the smoking burns on them.

“I’ll remember your faces” he vowed. “I’ll remember and I’ll tell the Parthenon, old and new. There will be no mercy for warlocks who ally themselves with the god of light.” He turned his back to us and walked into the forest just as the sky began to brighten into the twilight before dawn.

For the longest time, neither of us did anything. We just sprawled on the pavement, gasping for air, feeling the burn of our unhappy muscles. Once my breathing became more controlled and burning sensation faded into a less intense ache, I looked around at my surroundings.

The building was large and white structure, with a spire reaching into the air. I couldn’t read the blue korean letters written above the doors, but the large cross on the steeple let me know where we were.

“A… church?” I gasped.

“Yeah.” Zoey panted for a minute before continuing. “I remember when my old church did this whole ceremony to turn the ground holy before building a new wing. Did the parking lot too.”

“How did you know it would work?”

“I had a hunch” she replied.

I stared at her. Then I laughed. Zoey joined in too, and we filled the morning air with the sound, celebrating the bizarre victory.

I’ve gotten some flak from trusting Zoey’s hunches and her “spooky sense”, as the fans liked to call it. Most people chalked it up to lazy script writing. But those people never got to see it in action, and I did. And it wouldn’t be the last time it saved our lives.

[kennethherrerablog]

Quench Your Wanderlust (And Save Some Money) by Teaching English Abroad

Maybe you’re stuck in traffic on the commute home from a job you don’t like. Or maybe you’re a fresh-out-of-college grad who is hesitant to jump into the corporate world.

Whatever your situation, you’ve probably said this at some point: Something’s got to change.

Blowing your savings on an international trip isn’t the smartest move. Taking a gap year doesn’t sound like a good fit, either. But you know you want to see the world.

If you are a native English speaker, there’s a really practical solution to this dilemma: teaching English abroad. You won’t have to forego a full year of job experience or drain your bank account to do it. In fact, you’ll boost your resume and very likely save hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars while traveling.

I personally saved up to a thousand dollars a month teaching in South Korea, and my case isn’t unique, either. Jessie Smith, an expert in teaching English abroad for the International TEFL Academy (ITA), saved a similar amount each month when she taught overseas.

It all depends on what your goals are, Raneem Taleb-Agha said. She taught English in Spain shortly after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, and said the experience jump-started her career in writing and editing.

“This is your chance to go and see the world and experience life in another country,” she said.

How to Teach English Abroad

If you were born in an English-speaking country, consider yourself lucky. English is the world’s business language, and many countries are scrambling to learn it. That means jobs teaching English are in high demand.

There are a plethora of teaching programs, countries, certifications and jobs to choose from. Below are some of the biggest considerations and steps you can take before booking those plane tickets.

Standard Requirements to Teach English Overseas

When you think of teaching, you might think it requires a bachelor’s or even a master’s degree in the field. That’s because degrees are needed for typical grade school teaching jobs inside the U.S. But because the demand is so high for English teachers abroad, a degree isn’t always needed.

Of course, the requirements vary for each individual job listing, but it’s fairly easy for most U.S. citizens to get into the industry.

To meet basic requirements for international teaching jobs, you must:

Be a native English speaker.

Be at least 18 years old.

Have a high school diploma.

If you prefer to teach in Western Europe, chances are you will need a bachelor’s degree. (Two notable exceptions are Spain and Italy.)

“If you don’t have a four-year degree,” Taleb-Agha said, “I would recommend looking particularly at Southeast Asia or Latin America.”

Even though several countries don’t require a related degree or previous teaching experience, it’s very important to make sure you have the necessary teaching skills for the job.

“Be someone who is going to put in the work, time and effort to give the children a good experience,” Taleb-Agha said. “At the end of the day, their education is most important.”

That’s where certifications come in. And there are a ton of them.

Find the Right TEFL Certification Program

When searching for English teaching programs, you will come across a lot of acronyms, namely TEFL and TESOL. TEFL stands for “Teaching English as a Foreign Language.” TESOL means “Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.”

The terms are often interchangeable, but you’re more likely to see TEFL associated with certifications.This certification is all about practical English-teaching and classroom-management skills.

You can find certification programs, completed mostly online, at universities or through providers like ITA, who offer certification courses and job assistance in the destination country.

The University of Cambridge’s English teaching certification is referred to as the CELTA, short for Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults.

Though it costs more than most TEFL certifications, the CELTA is widely recognized internationally.

“CELTA is the global gold standard,” said Peter Novak, country manager for the U.S. and Canada at Cambridge Assessment English, a nonprofit English-language certification department at the University of Cambridge. “You can hop into any language school and start teaching the next day — and start teaching confidently.”

Not all situations require a certificate from the University of Cambridge, but it certainly won’t hurt. In many cases, it will boost your salary. At the very least, make sure the TEFL program includes a practicum component where you are in a classroom teaching real students.

Both Novak and Smith noted that there are a lot of less-than-reputable, bargain-bin programs, which aren’t accredited.

According to Smith, legitimate TEFL certifications should consist of:

100 hours of coursework.

In-person teaching practicum with a non-English speaker, up to 20 hours.

Curriculum accredited by Accrediting Council for Continuing Education & Training, College of Teachers or Training Qualifications UK, or through a university.

Courses taught by a credentialed professor or instructor of TESOL.

Smith said to be wary of Groupo TEFL certifications taught by “TEFL coaches” instead of professors. Any too-good-to-be-true pricing is also a red flag.

“A true university-level TEFL class could not possibly run under $1,000” or so, Smith said. Sometimes, “you’ll see the words ‘self-accredited,’ which — needless to say — means just about nothing.”

Choose the Country That’s Best for You

Ask yourself what type of experience you want.

Do you want to save a lot of money? Break even financially? Travel to a particular region? Learn a certain language?

“It’s important to keep an open mind,” Taleb-Agha said. “Consider destinations that you never thought you were interested in. Go somewhere even if you don’t speak the language.”

It’s also important to consider the requirements of most jobs in the country. Your qualifications are important to determine which country to teach in.

Smith broke it down into a few categories:

For experienced teachers or master’s degree holders, try the United Arab Emirates. She said the pay is high and they really “roll out the red carpet for teachers.”

Fresh out of college? Taiwan, Vietnam or South Korea are great Asian options. Germany and the Czech Republic are top European destinations as well.

For less experienced teachers, there are plenty of options in Latin America and a couple in Western Europe, like Spain and Italy.

Novak said it may be a little harder to break into the English teaching industry in Northern European countries.

“English is so highly integrated in their societies,” he said, noting that they still require English teachers, just at a very advanced level.

And as with all international travel, make sure to check out the U.S. State Department’s travel advisory scale. Countries are rated on a scale of one to four — the higher the worse. A four rating simply reads, “Do not travel.” Pretty self-explanatory there.

Start Your Job Hunt

You’ve done your research and picked a country. You maybe even got a TEFL or CELTA certification. Now you have to find a job.

Some TEFL providers like ITA and Teach Adventures Asia help or even guarantee you employment after you’ve completed the program. Some countries have government-run English teaching programs, like Japan’s JET program or South Korea’s EPIK program, that place you in a public school.

But most of the time, the job hunt is up to you. Forums, Facebook groups, blogs and travel websites are all fairly good ways to find work overseas.

Taleb-Agha found her teaching job in Spain on her own.

“Using Google, I found a lot of helpful blogs,” she said.

If you’re doing the research yourself, she recommends using Young Adventuress and Go Overseas, which offers program and job reviews. She also writes several helpful articles on teaching abroad for Go Overseas as a topic expert.

And once you’ve found a school, make sure to vet it properly. After all, you’re about to move across the globe to work there.

“Request to speak to another teacher on staff,” Smith advises. “That is standard operating procedure.”

If they say no, that’s your cue to keep hunting.

Adam Hardy is an editorial assistant on the Jobs Team at The Penny Hoarder. He previously worked in international education at the University of South Florida and taught English in South Korea to grade-schoolers and North Korean refugees. Read his full bio here, or say hi on Twitter @hardyjournalism.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.

Quench Your Wanderlust (And Save Some Money) by Teaching English Abroad published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[kidsviral-blog]

I'm Mending My Broken Relationship With Food

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/im-mending-my-broken-relationship-with-food/

I'm Mending My Broken Relationship With Food

After a lifetime struggling with disordered eating, I’m still figuring out how to have a healthy relationship with my body and what I feed it.

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Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed

It’s a late night in winter, and I am standing over my gas stove heating a metal spoon. I hold the handle gently in my fingers, carefully rotating the bowl over the tips of the indigo flames as the pale yellow pat of Smart Balance butter inside begins to liquefy. The sleeves of my oversized sweatshirt graze the middle of my palms and I step on the hem of my baggy sweatpants as, slowly, I pull the spoon away. A tiny drop of hot liquid falls on my toes as I tip its contents over the edge of a plain white bowl filled with sugar. I add flour, some milk, a few drops of vanilla, and a handful of chocolate chips. I stir. I taste.

I take the bowl to the couch, balance it precariously on the edge, and lie down on my side, my fingers the only utensil, pinching stray sugary flecks off the velvet dark gray fabric as The Real Housewives of New Jersey blares on the TV. It’s been nearly three years since a therapist told me I’m a disordered eater. Yet, after one personal trainer, over two years of therapy, three juice cleanses, four gym memberships, 20 pounds lost, 30 pounds gained back, and thousands of dollars spent on healthy groceries and high-end cookware, I am 24 years old and spending another night, like so many nights before, eating a bowl of last-minute, mediocre cookie dough alone in my apartment at 11 p.m. And I hate myself for it.

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Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed

I’ve been overweight — or bordering on it — nearly my entire life, at least since my family moved to the U.S. when I was 4. When I was a child, a routine fight between my Hungarian mother and me was over how much I ate for dinner. Propping my elbows on our scratched dining table, I’d watch her petite, pale hands hovering above me, ladling spoon upon spoon of rice on my father’s plate. “NO FAIR, DAD GOT THE BIGGER ONE,” I’d cry out when my own would finally land, unable to grasp why a 5-foot-10-inch, 200-plus-pound Nigerian man would need to eat more than I did. Seconds, for me, were a must. Thirds weren’t unusual.

Growing up in a white, affluent neighborhood in Lubbock, Texas, I was the only Anita in a sea of Amandas, Brittanys, and Tiffanys. I was biracial, brown and round, with a puffy ball of hair that sat squarely banded in the middle in my head. The boys called it a “burnt marshmallow” and “tumor.” Isolated and othered, I began using food as a coping mechanism around middle school, when my parents began letting me walk home (across the street) alone. I’d spend the two hours until my mom got off work by myself. My best friends had “boyfriends” in the way suburban preteens can — notes, stuffed animals, dates at the roller rink on school skate night. I had a gallon of Edy’s chocolate chip waiting in the freezer for me each day.

Eventually, my mom realized I was sneaking food and she started hiding sweets in the kitchen in hopes of curbing my steady weight gain. Instead, I became an expert at climbing on countertops, calculating how much I could eat of something before she would notice, and burying wrappers in the trash. Often, I’d throw away the balanced, nutritious lunches she’d pack me — whole wheat wraps and sandwiches, fruits, veggies, hard-boiled eggs — in favor of pizza and curly fries. “You ate your lunch today, right?” she’d ask cautiously, waiting for the “yes” we both knew was a lie. She was careful not to tie my weight to my worth, but rather reminded me constantly that what I was doing wasn’t healthy. Looking back, I can’t blame her, but at the time I felt betrayed. Though I couldn’t articulate it then, taking those foods away from me was taking away the one thing that made me feel like I wasn’t alone. I was already the chubby black girl; I didn’t want to be the chubby black girl on a diet.

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Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed

As I grew older, I prided myself on being good. I volunteered. I got straight A’s. I didn’t drink, smoke, have sex, or do drugs. But I ate.

What had begun as a way of burying my insecurities morphed into a way of self-medicating full-blown depression and anxiety. Food was my salve and my secret. By the time I was a high schooler in Arkansas, where we had moved when I was 14, I was regularly driving through the local Chinese restaurant, eating crab rangoon alone in my car in the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall. Overwhelmed by a laundry list of extracurriculars that I hoped would get me into the “right college” — student council, cheerleading, theatre, National Honor Society, Key Club, jazz, tap, ballet — I ate until I was too full to worry. When I was cast in my senior musical, I ran to my car after last bell and sped up the highway to Sonic to buy Cinnasnacks (think mini-cinnamon rolls, but more gross) and a cherry limeade in the half hour before first rehearsal. I realized what was happening wasn’t normal when I thought more about what I’d eat when I got to my friends’ houses than the time I’d spend with them.

At the time, I tried to figure out what was wrong with me the same way I tried to find solutions to all of my problems as a teen: magazines. Yet, in article upon article, all I saw were stock images of thin white girls with whom I seemed to have nothing in common. I was obviously not anorexic. I never could throw up after eating, though god knows I tried, so bulimia was out. And while my habits were definitely in line with bingeing, which wasn’t recognized as its own disorder until 2013, I never felt like I ate quite enough to qualify. I had a tendency to buy a lot of things on impulse, take a few bites, then throw them away. I once read somewhere that Lindsay Lohan poured water on her food after she was full so she’d stop eating; I’d subsequently watched many half-eaten tubs of ice cream swirl down the drain.

I hoped going to my dream college would somehow absolve me of my lack of self-worth and, with that, my eating habits. Instead, I spent much of my freshman and sophomore years at Brown feeling like a fraud and making full use of my unlimited meal plan by stuffing to-go containers and eating alone in my dorm room.

Eventually, I began seeing a therapist, who diagnosed me with dysthymia — a low-grade, chronic form of depression — and generalized anxiety disorder. I also began seeing a personal trainer. By senior year, my body finally felt like it fit my 5-foot-2-inch frame. I spoke in class like what I had to say actually mattered. Instead of ruminating alone and in doubt, I opened up to friends and socialized. I went on spring break in Florida and took pictures in a bikini for the first time ever. I felt more in control of my life than I ever thought I could. I was finally, finally, happy.

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Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed

But, despite my progress, there was one hurdle for which I couldn’t shake my anxiety: finding a job. An aspiring journalist, I had carefully checked off all the necessary boxes — writing courses, writing and editing for campus publications, three internships — but was terrified of rejection. So instead, I joined Teach for America after graduating in 2012, rationalizing it as a necessary experience to one day write about social justice issues. After a few months teaching third grade at a charter school north of Providence, I was miserable. Inexperienced and ill-equipped to handle the needs of my students, I began yo-yoing between jars of baby food that I’d eat as meals and cartons of Chinese food and quickly gained back half the weight I’d previously lost.

So, I finally sought out a second therapist who specialized in weight and body issues.

“The only reason you felt happy your senior year is because you were thin,” she told me during one of our first sessions. It was then when I learned the name for what I’d been struggling with my entire life: disordered eating, in my case chronic enough that it was periodically a full-blown, though unspecified, eating disorder (the distinction between the two is the frequency and severity of patterns). My therapist coaxed me to recognize how my entire identity and self-esteem seemed dependent on what was on my plate at any given moment. She pointed out that even when I had felt my best, I was undercounting calories, considering a couple dozen spears of asparagus or a couple of eggs to be adequate dinners, despite running regular 5Ks at the time. Instead of becoming healthier during college, I had swung from one extreme to the other. Now I was bouncing back and forth between the two.

Yet, as thankful as I was to have a more concrete understanding of what was going on with me, I rejected her theory. After all, I thought, much more had changed that year than just my weight and diet. The real problem was my job. The real problem was Rhode Island. So, I quit and I left. And, like a bad movie on loop, within a few months in New York I was juice cleansing and takeout bingeing, with a job at a fashion magazine where I was thankful for a cubicle so that that no one could see me inhale the finest Midtown’s hot buffet delis had to offer. Then, for a host of reasons, I quit that job after half a year and spent my “funemployment” obsessively looking for another one, watching all of Breaking Bad, and ordering Seamless at midnight.

Pause. Play. Rewind. Repeat.

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Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed

I’m now nearing the end of my second year in New York, and by and large my life has begun to stabilize. I’ve moved out of a claustrophobic apartment I shared with roommates when I first got to the city into one of my own, and have both a job and a boyfriend I love. I cook more and, overall, eat much better, often Instagramming the meals I’m most proud to have made.

And yet — two weekends ago, I visited my parents in Arkansas, and it went badly: My boyfriend and I were fighting, the flights were changed because of bad weather. Exhausted, I spent much of my airport layover on the way back to NYC agonizing over what to eat, wanting nothing more than to drown myself in a combo plate at the King Wah Express, yet ultimately settling on a sensible salad from the glaringly obvious sensible salad place (“green to greens…” “earth fresh…”). The canned salmon was too pale, the dressing too much like something out of a Kraft bottle, and I was too aware of being the overweight woman eating a salad. I pushed it over to the side and grabbed my wallet. After another lap around the food court, I was back in front of King Wah Express.

“How much is just a side of lo mein?” I asked the woman behind the counter.

“$4.99.”

It wasn’t a lot, but I was frustrated that I’d already spent $13 on something that was going in the trash. I changed course.

“I’ll take two crab rangoon, please.”

I sat back down and ate them my usual way: crispy corners first, then soft, squishy middle full of filling. As I dribbled duck sauce out of individual packets and wiped grease off my fingers, I wondered, like so many times before, if my eating habits will — can — ever really sustainably change. I pulled up the waistband of my leggings, aware of the strings already unraveling at the seams in the thigh and that I’d just bought them a little over a month ago. Packing for this trip was easy; I am at the heaviest I’ve ever been and most of my clothes didn’t fit anyway.

The last time I ate crab rangoon, it was 2013 and I was still living in Rhode Island. After failing to go to the YMCA that was across the street from my apartment, I had purchased a membership at a discount gym in a small town 10 minutes away because, somehow, that seemed like a better motivator than a building I could literally stare at out of my bedroom window. I can count the number of times I went to that gym on two hands and have few memories of it, but I do remember the Chinese buffet that was in the shopping center next door. I went to it twice: one time to eat inside, in a pleather booth near a couple and their annoying kids, the other to eat takeout, in a red plastic Ikea chair in my kitchen.

I can’t believe I am fucking here. Again. I thought, as I thumbed crumbs off the airport table.

But that was two weeks ago.

I’ve come to realize I eat the same way I hit my snooze button every morning: just a little bit more. Tired when I should feel energized, so empty despite being so full. Food is still the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about before I go to bed. I still spend much of my time trying to hide just how much I eat it. After nine months in my own place, I’ve yet to buy my own microwave, hoping the lack of ease with which I can heat things will keep me from eating myself out of control. I’ve also yet to find a therapist in the city, an endeavor I’ve embarked on most weeks since I moved here and feel wholly overwhelmed by. However, I’m slowly, finally, acknowledging that my disordered eating — though inextricably intertwined with other issues — is also its own source of unhappiness, rather than a symptom of it.

And now I’m trying a new routine. Today was my fourth day starting my morning curled on my couch, sipping a cup of tea before I reach for the handle of the fridge. Before I leave my apartment, I pack lunch — a proper serving of “pad thai” made with spaghetti squash and shrimp, which I relished making earlier in the week, plus blueberries — in a plastic teal bento box with dorky handles. I feel equal parts embarrassed and ecstatic about carrying it on the subway and into my office, mindful of what my co-workers might think of such a marked departure from the spread of constant, countless snacks I’ve carted to my desk, but knowing after I’ve finished what’s inside, I’ll feel better somehow. This time, I won’t throw it away.

Resources

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, here are some organizations that have trained support staff available by phone:

National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders Helpline: 1-630-577-1330

Binge Eating Disorder Association Helpline: 1-855-855-BEDA

National Eating Disorder Association Helpline: 1-800-931-2237

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/anitabadejo/confessions-of-a-disordered-eater

[skymarkventures-blog]

Why is Entrepreneurship Hard

“I can’t possibly do that,” quipped the bartender. “Entrepreneurship is hard.”

After coming back from my consulting engagement in Madrid, I settled down to have a cerveza at my favorite tapas bar in Barcelona. Yoda’s words still echoed in my mind, and on the plane back to Barcelona, I sketched out my business idea on a piece of napkin.

“Muy duro, my friend. Muy duro.” He smiled politely and went back to cheer on the local soccer team with the rest of the crowd.

I held onto that napkin, which had the greatest idea in the world for a startup - at least in my mind. But this bartender thinks it’s too hard. Why bother?

I pocketed that idea of mine. Sipping my beer, I watched the crowds go “ooh” and “ahh” at the soccer match between F.C. Barcelona and Real Madrid. Not only was Yoda’s Spanish voice ringing in my ears, but now it got me thinking:

Why do we think Entrepreneurship is sooo hard?

I get that there’s a lot of financial and business risks to entrepreneurship, especially when you have to quit a good paying job:

But it’s like anything else we think at that moment is hard. Once upon a time, I really thought it was hard to get up and take my first step as a baby. Once upon a time, I really, really thought, writing a 500 word essay for 4th period English was hard. Once upon a time, I thought leaving New York to study and work in a Spanish-speaking country (when I didn’t speak the language) was sooo hard. But guess what? I did it.

According to a published work in the Forum for Research in Empirical International Trade (FREIT), we develop a biased perception of entrepreneurs. Non-entrepreneurs “maintain laudatory portraits of ‘entrepreneurs’,” when in fact they are like everybody else. Hence, we develop this self-defeating attitude of “why me?”

I kept sipping my beer and watched the crowd cheer the local team. Questions in my mind only led to more questions:

Is entrepreneurship really any different? Why are we afraid of change?

Formal education breeds conformists

“Things were getting to me. Just how people are. How they always expect you to be a certain way…” 

-- High schooler Angela Chase from My So-Called Life (1994)

Rise and shine honey - it’s time for school. Eat your bacon and eggs. Don’t forget your bologna sandwich! Don’t be late. Come home right after. Do your homework! No more TV after 8:00. Goodnight, sweetie.

Sound familiar? It’s a typical day in a student’s life in America. Kids all over America are thought to wake up at a particular hour in morning, be at school at 8:30 and leave at 3:30. Yearbook activities from 4:00 to 5:00. Go home. Then homework. Dinner at 6:30ish. Bed. Wash, rinse, repeat. You can’t blame the parents - they’re even more predictable:

Wake up the kids. Drive kids to schoolwork. Work at desk job from 9:00 to 5:00. Pick up kids. Make them do homework and cook dinner. Eat. Seinfeld and Friends. Turn off TV. Sleep.

We are taught as kids and as adults that there are grave consequences if we deviate. If you don’t get an A, you won’t get anywhere. If you don’t show your face from 9:00 to 5:00, then how can you possibly retire by age 65? You have to be a lawyer. You have to be a doctor. Why don’t you want to be a doctor? Do you wanna be poor?!

According to the New York Times, education is a path to conformity. Pre-college kids are programmed for twelve-hour days, and taught that going to Harvard and having the initials M.D. at the end of one’s name are the ONLY keys to success. Parents ignore how Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Michael Dell boot-strapped billion dollar businesses from their garage.

Granted, Gates and Jobs are exceptional thought leaders. But the first step - even for Jobs and Gates - was a mental one. They told themselves: I can do this.

I won’t critique how to fix the American educational system, as that would take a research paper that would rival War and Peace. But what we can start doing is telling and believing these four words:

I can do this.

It starts with breaking from that hive mentality from 4th grade. Success is NOT linear.

“The secret of life is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” 

-- Paulo Coelho

We fear the unknown

We laud entrepreneurs because they are fearless. I can’t possibly do that!

Our fear of the unknown stems from our fear of the dark. There’s an evolutionary reason why we fear the dark. Back in the age of cave people, men and women didn’t have flashlights and iPhones, and they had to hunt for a living. This meant hunting in dark forests, where bigger predators could be hiding in a dark corner.

Moreover, as humans we have five main senses - sight is one of them. Darkness impairs our ability to see; hence, we fear anything that blinds us from assessing our environment.

In psychology, Sigmund Freud posits our fear from darkness stems from the childhood trauma of separation anxiety. Parents would abandon their kids at night (to sleep in their own rooms), leaving their kids to sleep alone. This separation is why we invent monsters under the bed, or the boogie man that will jump out of the closet.

In history, explorers were afraid to sail west to reach India and China. They didn’t have established routes across the Atlantic making navigation difficult. It took the courage of Christopher Columbus (and the Vikings before him) to sail west and discover a whole New World.

We praise entrepreneurs for their fearlessness because of our inability to overcome our own fears. Hence, our own self-doubt leads us to this inevitable conclusion:

Entrepreurship is hard.

Just like we looked up to our big brother who would check the closet for the boogie monster. Just like we loved our mothers for checking under the bed for that oogly, boogly bed monster. In time, we learned how silly we were for having these fears because we learned this:

“Only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Entrepreneurs are no different from you or I. We all have the same five senses. 

Why am I special?

We watch movies and read tall tales about Bill Gates, displacing IBM in the 1990s. Then we watch movies of how Steve Jobs resurrected Apple, Inc. to become the world’s most valuable company. We watch Social Network, and wonder in awe at Zuckerberg’s development of Facebook.

Indeed, these entrepreneurs had exceptional skills. Gates was great at software. Jobs is a legend in design. Zuckerberg had the technical know-how to build a social network. Non-entrepreneurs create self-doubt because they think they have no skills.

I can’t possibly do that!

Consider this guy with a niche for reviewing fast food.

In today’s Youtube and Pinterest world, you can do almost anything and build an entire business around it. You can be a Star Wars channel, an SEO blogger, or a fashion maven on instagram. What’s the common theme in all these successful entrepreneurs?

They found their niche.

Do you think your ability to put on make-up without using your hands is silly? If done right, a video on this unique ability could go viral on Vine or Youtube. Do you like eating decades old military rations? Guess what - there is someone out there making money on it.

In this blog article for Skymark Ventures titled “What Startups can learn from ‘shock’ Donald Trump win,” the section ‘Know your market’ details Trump’s path to electoral victory. Peter Thiel suggests “start small and scale upwards.” In other words, Trump picked a niche (populism for middle-America and blue collar workers) and built an entire marketing campaign around it. He didn’t care about the liberals on the east and west coast; he used populism to win the battleground states that helped him secure a victory in the November elections.

Lack of knowledge is no longer an excuse in today’s world. There is a WEALTH of information in how to take action steps to build a business around your niche. How to build a website? Try this. Need SEO help? Go here. How to budget and raise money? Try Skymark Ventures’ FREE budget tools.

At one point in their lives, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg were just like you and I. For them, it just clicked. They identified what they’re good at, what they’re interested in and had the courage to build it.

In short, they had dreams like everybody else. Do you have dreams?

As I sip my beer in that fateful day in Barcelona, thoughts of dreams, fears and wants swirled in my mind, like cream melting in an expresso.

I watched the crowd in that bar go “ooh” and “ahh,” even though the game was at a stalemate at 0-0. THEN - almost at once - everybody stood up...

Barcelona star Lionel Messi broke free from the pack. He zig zagged down the field… Twisted around a defender… Shot a fastball past the goalkeeper for the winning goal. It was a beautiful display of finesse and courage.

Indeed, not everyone can be Lionel Messi. But once upon a time, Messi was just a little boy, like everybody else. He had hopes and dreams, like everyone around him. He had a unique talent, like you and I. He believed in himself.

That last part is muy duro.

In a world, where we’re taught to be like everybody else… where we’re all expected to get Harvard degrees and have the initials M.D. at the end of our name… where we’re expected to go 9-5 for forty years until we collect social security… It’s hard to think we can be different.

This is why we laud entrepreneurs. They think different. They actually believe!

To enact change in one’s life, it’s first important to believe you can be different. You have a unique talent that’s waiting for a global audience. Consider these words from Jobs in a PBS documentary:

“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your job is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is - everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

I finished my beer and said my goodbyes to the bartender. I walked out of that bar, and realized the napkin was still in my hand. I looked at it again, thinking it was the greatest idea in the world.

I glanced up at the Spanish sun. I remember thinking: here I am, a New York native, living and thriving in a non-English world.

Who’d have thunk it?

Why is entrepreneurship hard? I guess I’m about to find out.

[scottlarouxwrites]

Style in Bakemonogatari (Suruga Monkey)

Suruga Monkey sets itself apart from the rest of Bakemonogatari by its execution. Where Hitagi Crab is slim and slick, and Mayoi Snail is careful and cryptic, Suruga Monkey is simply bombastic. The arc expands Monogatari’s stylistic palette, while managing not to take any sharp tonal turns or compromise on the artistic cohesiveness of the series. This allows for Kanbaru’s character and the events of the arc to flourish in their own unique way without seeming out of place. Suruga Monkey feels like a natural extension of the series, yet also different from anything we’ve experienced so far.

I would argue Mayoi Snail deviates in a similar manner, though not to such an obvious degree. Hitagi Crab is characterized by a darker, almost urban fantasy feel, full of religious artifacts and sobriety. Mayoi Snail jumps beyond that, presenting the viewer with a brighter and more satirical world (generally speaking). For this essay, I’ll just focus on the specifics of Suruga Monkey, rather than make a mess out of talking about everything. However, Mayoi Snail does exemplify the first major factor in this stylistic shift: the arc-specific opening themes.

Mayoi Snail’s OP, with its electric pop and chant-able closing lines, does not fit the style or tone of Hitagi Crab whatsoever. It doesn’t even fit Mayoi Snail. The school life narrative told through the visuals is reminiscent of a middle school slice of life series, and even the lyrics are cute if you plead ignorance to the events of the arc. Of course, the visuals and lyrics convey a double meaning once we know Hachikuji is a ghost, but that’s a different matter. What’s important is that this OP primes us for a different world than what was established in the first arc. Mayoi Snail is sillier, more energetic, and probably closer to slice of life than urban fantasy (not that it’s strictly one or the other, or even either at all).

This trend repeats in Suruga Monkey’s OP, which starts with an upbeat guitar riff straight out of a Sonic game and a shot of a basketball hoop. Again, I won’t analyze every little detail here, but this sports anime theme continues for a bit before blending with rom-com visuals and music, as well as further action series signifiers (such as fast cuts, close-ups of eager eyes, etc.). Besides that, the Revolutionary Girl Utena—and other shoujo or yuri shows—influence becomes overwhelming at parts. Obviously this OP is distinct from Bakemonogatari’s first two, but it’s also distinct from the feel of either previous arc. Someone who has never seen Bakemonogatari will expect something based on Suruga Monkey’s OP that isn’t directly delivered upon anywhere in the series. But more on that soon.

Let’s actually backtrack a bit to examine some editing and form from the first couple of minutes of the arc’s first episode.

Here we see some clear examples of how Suruga Monkey bends or reshapes existing stylistic themes for the arc’s unique purpose. Right after the typical title card opener, the camera sweeps wildly in towards a railing. This is one of the few (if not only) legitimate camera movements in Bakemonogatari and immediately signals a more dynamic and action-focused experience. The next shot of Kanbaru sprinting and her feet slapping against the pavement continue to set the pace, so to speak. This same cut of Kanbaru sprinting is then interlaced throughout Araragi’s conversation with Hachikuji, constantly reminding us of that faster pace. Keep in mind that this kind of discontinuity/aspect editing is a staple of Monogatari, and thus preserves a sort of stylistic homeostasis even as we’re primed for action.

The shots and editing of the conversation itself work to further integrate the idea of dynamic action. As before, there’s nothing shockingly new, just old style repurposed for a new idea: action. Araragi and Senjougahara flip-flopped all over the screen in Mayoi Snail, but this sequence is more pointed than the park scene. Hachikuji and Araragi walk across a still background; then a moving background “walks” across them.

The walking shot is spread throughout the scene, and the pair make their way to the middle and then the end of the frame.

The cuts also are wilder, with still shots of Hachikuji transitioning to dynamic shots of Araragi falling. Even within still shots, there’s a step up in action in the form of railroad crossing lights flashing. Then, of course, are the shots of Araragi and Hachikuji slapboxing, which feature some of Bakemonogatari’s best (most fluid, at least) animation. Finally, Kanbaru herself comes flying into the scene. Even if I’m reading too much into some details, this opening scene is undoubtedly designed to allow this arc to transition to intense action scenes—such as Kanbaru and Araragi’s final fight—as smoothly as possible. If nothing else, it is no accident that so much effort was put into the slapboxing cuts. This arc needs movement, and we need to be ready for it.

I think of this as stylistic permeability—within the “body” of the art, different moods/tones or focal points can permeate out into observable territory with different degrees of ease. Monogatari has high permeability (dramatic soliloquys, bloody brawls, comedic conversations can all take center stage easily); something like Serial Experiment Lain has low permeability (even when characters make jokes, they still sound bleak or mysterious or otherwise unable to distinguish themselves from the overall dark mood). Permeability tends to be why we condemn certain tone shifts but not others. The formal elements that lead to permeability are too complex a topic for this essay, but the editing described above is one good example.

This permeability is insured throughout the arc via near-constant movement within the frame—whether that be moving cars or walking sequences like the one discussed above or even just a comedic camera pan. Action is likewise primed through Senjougahara’s eye-piercing aggression towards Araragi, which allows for a heightened state of excitement moving quickly into a sequence of Hanakawa standing in the middle of speeding traffic, and then finally the Rainy Devil’s attack on Araragi. True, Senjougahara was similarly violent in Hitagi Crab, but her aggression here still benefits the transition to intense action. The question isn’t whether these details are absolutely necessary to the transition or absolutely unique to this arc, but simply whether they increase permeability.

Perhaps most importantly, the source of the arc’s apparition is as emotionally intense as the action is physically. In Hitagi Crab and Mayoi Snail, apparitions cause trouble as a result of quiet emotions or even a relinquishment of emotion. Araragi simply doesn’t want to return home after an argument with his sisters (among other subtle discomforts), so he meets Hachikuji. Senjougahara tries to abandon her feelings towards her mother, so she meets a crab. Although Senjougahara reaches a melodramatic peak upon accepting her feelings, and Hachikuji (a wake-up call for Araragi) experiences the same upon arriving at home, neither the crab nor the snail exist as a medium for intense emotion. They aren’t inherently connected to a character’s fiery passions.

The Rainy Devil, however, becomes a problem precisely because of Kanbaru’s passions—her anger, jealousy, and hatred specifically. The Rainy Devil is the medium through which Kanbaru channels those emotions. The tool she uses, you could say. On a basic level, the crab and snail are not associated with intense emotions, but the Rainy Devil is. It couldn’t be associated with much of anything else! This small change in the context of the narrative is possibly the key for transitioning into Suruga Monkey while preserving cohesion. The formal/editing shifts explained above smooth out any bumps and sew it all together, but the actual cloth of the patchwork is this emotional/motivational adjustment.

The actions and qualities of apparitions clue us into the psychological states of characters, and this is reflected directly in what we see on screen. I mean this quite literally. In Hitagi Crab, the grim hues, bizarre social interactions, and religious imagery result precisely from Senjougahara’s trauma. In Mayoi Snail, the vast emptiness of the park and the streets result precisely from Araragi wanting to be alone in the world. And in Suruga Monkey, the violence, speed, and overwhelming colors result precisely from Kanbaru’s jealousy and hatred. The inner and outer layers of the story and characters are bound together such that they demand this cohesion.

With the most intense action and violence spawning from the Rainy Devil, and snappy editing and dynamic cuts portraying said action, Suruga Monkey manages to transform our low-key psychological drama into something new. At its core, this arc is still Monogatari, so it’d be wrong to lump it in with other action or thriller or horror shows, but it is certainly distinct from its preceding arcs. Unique yet unifying, Suruga Monkey is a slam dunk.

Afternote:

I apologize for such an awful joke, but let me make up for it with some unnecessary analysis of a minor detail in the first episode of the arc. When Araragi and Senjougahara are studying together, Senjougahara is just writing the Gettysburg Address in English over and over again. I suppose it’s a decent speech to study if you’re learning English (middle schoolers all over America are forced to memorize it, after all), but I still found it a strange choice. So I decided to rationalize it by overanalyzing everything.

The Gettysburg Address was delivered by Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War at the battlefield remains of Gettysburg. “Senjougahara” means battlefield, and we could consider the two halves of the Valhalla Combo like two halves of a nation. Senjougahara and Kanbaru split apart and one scorned the other, leading to something you might call a feud or fission. So: the battlefield of Gettysburg, the civil war of the Valhalla Combo…the Gettysburg Address?

I can’t imagine this being intentional, but if it is, then someone at SHAFT is as much of a madman as Isin himself.

Delayed by an impromptu drinking party and hangover, but here now (with a bonus!) Style in Bakemonogatari (Suruga Monkey) Suruga Monkey sets itself apart from the rest of Bakemonogatari by its execution.