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bambolae · 3 years ago

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HEADCANONS — CHAPTER I. the dolls of house beneviento.

so, everybody’s view on donna in relation to angie is very, very different. there’s a lot of interesting takes that i’ve read and discussed with friends and since the game does keep it fairly vague, i think that it’s important to establish how i view the dolls of house beneviento.

let me begin with the doll we all know and love, angie. here’s the history behind her.

angie was given to donna in her youth by her father who was a doll maker. donna has struggled with her mental health ever since she was young and she was likely selectively mute as a result. she took a very intimate liking to the doll she named angie and created a sort of persona as the doll to speak to people through her. later, after donna was adopted by mother miranda and implanted with a cadou parasite, she had part of the parasite planted within angie’s head and she is able to control angie through it to this day.

there’s a lot of questions surrounding angie’s level of sentience and how connected she really is to donna. the way that i’m portraying it is that i believe angie, alongside all of the other dolls, are extensions of donna herself. they do not have their own sentience. she has a set of dolls (angie being her main one) that represent her as a person. i’m making this clear because this is not to say that she has multiple personalities despite the dolls acting very different from one another. the dolls represent the parts of herself that she could never show from a young age and that never developed in a way that she could healthily display her emotions and thoughts without using them as a buffer. to know her dolls is to know donna.

side note: while angie is completely controlled by donna and does not have sentience, there’s still moments where angie will blurt something out that donna reacts to in an embarrassed manner. this is the equivalent of you blurting something out without realizing it LOL especially if youre somebody who doesn’t have a filter. donna doesnt have much of a filter, shes got a funnel that goes straight through whatever doll shes controlling. in VEEERY rare cases where she’s comfortable enough to talk, donna does blurt out things you’d generally hear angie say and the disconnect is kinda hilarious.

donna grew up in a very strict religious setting as one of miranda’s few “successful” experiments and subsequently one of the future ladies of the village. she was on a tight leash and it’s clear in the way she’s spoken about by miranda and the others that her mental illness was not treated well. any signs of it made her appear immature and childish, nobody took her seriously due to how she never felt comfortable speaking, and the expectations of essentially being a new prophet figure in the cult made it so that she had no childhood at all and no time to explore herself or her emotions. every semblance of emotion was treated like a problem and donna quickly learned that she could only express herself through angie without getting in trouble.

what was originally a soft blanket that comforted her and helped her with her anxiety was now a crutch. it was the only way she could speak without the fear of being shunned. angie became the truest version of herself - she is the life that donna is too scared to embrace. she is forever in mourning for her parents, her failures, herself. angie celebrates life, finds humor in things that nobody else does, says and does the things that donna would never say. everything she has repressed inside generally comes out through her.

now, some smaller details for the dolls. each and every doll in the beneviento household that has a part of donna’s cadou implanted into it was created by donna. the dolls will have the beneviento crest on them usually in the form of small buttons, embroidery, accessories, etc. she likely commissions any metal pieces from karl, but generally does it in bulk unless its a special project since they’re usually buttons, pins, brooches, and the like that are used consistently throughout her own clothing and the doll’s. many of her dolls rotate through an ever increasing wardrobe of clothes she creates for them.

her favorite dolls are regularly maintained and cleaned. angie herself is… nowhere near as grimey and nasty as she is in the game. as much as i love the creepy vibe, it makes no sense for a woman who loves a doll this dearly and clearly creates a PLETHORA of dolls herself. she is still cracked and stained from her youth before she learned the arts herself, but donna regularly cleans her and changes her into various white dresses. her hair has been rerooted as well because it… is not that hard to fix that either c’mon. it’s a curly blonde updo. she’s still a creepy little beast but she’s at least maintained.

donna can control any of her dolls and can control multiple at the same time, but the more she controls at once the simpler their actions will be. for example; if she’s fully focused on controlling angie, then the other dolls are likely idly walking around or turning their heads but they won’t do much else. she can focus on controlling one doll fully & switch between two others simultaneously before it becomes too much for her to handle. any doll with a cadou fragment implanted into them is a part of donna and will idly do things without her even thinking about it.

if you touch one of the said dolls, she’ll be able to feel it. hearing & sight are limited to the doll she has her focused on and she can’t really taste or smell through any of them which makes touch the only sense she can always feel through any doll. she has a similar connection to the mold - infested plant life in her territory where she can feel what’s going on - this makes sneaking up on her hard unless you can get through without touching one of the many dolls or one of the plants she’s connected to through the mold.

donna has made many, many dolls for the children in the village (without the cadou…. duh….) and it’s known that it was created by lady beneviento. that’s the most the village people interact with her, usually.

so, let’s go over the main four dolls that donna has fully developed “personas” for. i went over angie just a few paragraphs ago but as the “leader” of this quartet she needs to be in this roundup too

ANGELA “ ANGIE “ BENEVIENTO.

donna’s very first doll. represents her in her truest, unfiltered self. the child donna was never allowed to be, says the things she never got to say & does the things she never got to do. the doll she’s usually in control of. quote from earlier paragraph: angie became the truest version of herself - she is the life that donna is too scared to embrace. she is forever in mourning for her parents, her failures, herself. angie celebrates life, finds humor in things that nobody else does, says and does the things that donna would never say. everything she has repressed inside generally comes out through her.

GIANNA “ MRS. CHUCKLES “ BENEVIENTO.

the first doll donna created herself made in the vision of a clown from a book. the most playful of the lot, most likely to approach you to play a game with her or to crack jokes. similar to angie but with much less of a bite to her words. represents her repressed joy & humor.

LADY ELISA BENEVIENTO.

one of donna’s earlier creations made when she was a pre-teen going through one of the worst mental health lows she’s ever been through. she fixated heavily on this one to keep her occupied in her loneliness, very intricately sculpted & painted. made to look like a sad princess. she still considers elisa one of her best quality dolls, big comfort doll for her. represents her sadness, doesn’t get a lot of use unless she’s struggling with her depression more than usual.

GABRIELLA BENEVIENTO.

created in her early twenties and has debatably the best craftsmanship out of the four, only rivaled by elisa. made during a very angry time in her life after mother miranda said something to her that made something inside her snap for the first time. she stewed in her anger, isolated in her home & created a doll to cope with her emotions. she forgave & forgot but gabriella did not. doesn’t have any obvious, distinctive design but is regularly dressed in dark colors and has so many knifes under her skirt. much heavier gothic inspiration than the rest of her dolls. she’s usually the first one to attack an intruder. represents donna’s repressed anger & rage, the fight to her flight. doesn’t get a lot of use unless donna feels like she needs to be protected or you somehow managed to rile her up. extreme fear might bring gabriella out as well if she feels like she needs to attack.

#headcanon.#long post #long post /#dolls #dolls cw

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littleredwritinghoodxx · 5 years ago

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From the Ashes

Original Publication Date: April 12th, 2020

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Angst

Summary: Her hero loved adventures. Upon returning from his latest adventure, Link brings back something shiny for Zelda.

Word Count: 4,300

Her hero loved adventures.

It was something that came with the territory of holding the Tri-Force of Courage, and yet, it was something Zelda really didn't notice until after the Great Calamity – after one hundred years.

After her hero had completely lost his memory.

She supposed, in a way, some things never changed, and yet: she did not remember him to be as adventurous a century prior than he was now. It could be pinpointed back to his duty one hundred years prior: he did not have the flexibility before to drop everything, and take down that lone Talus, or to go help some random person in some far corner of the continent with some menial task. No, he had always been guarding her, always been assisting her, and thus had to swallow his pride and send his men off to take care of the quest, instead of having the opportunity to do it himself.

With the loss of his memories came the loss of his inhibitions: she found that Link was much more open with her now than he was as her appointed knight. With the threat eliminated, he no longer had the weight of protecting the world on his shoulders, and her need for an appointed knight was completely unnecessary.

Though, if you asked him, he would very clearly reiterate, once again, that he would protect her until the day his blade fell.

Her hero was also one for the theatrics.

She would always nod and smile, as he would tell her with great, swooping gestures of rumors he had heard of a long lost treasure, with only an antagonizing riddle as his guide. His enthusiasm was like a wildfire – constantly burning, and ceaselessly contagious. She would rest her head upon her hand, her eyes shimmering in complete adoration, as her knight would tell her of legendary quests, where the treasure was still undiscovered. Sometimes, she would join him on these quests – "You'll never be able to decipher these riddles without me, so I might as well go with you." – and other times, she politely declined – "You want to go fight that silver Hinox in the Lanayru Wetlands? Well, you be sure to be home by supper."

Her hero would always dive head first into whatever quest he had stumbled upon, and would always emerge with that same stupid grin on his face, even as he was covered in Hinox guts or scratched and bruised up from a dungeon. He would always return to their little home in Hateno with some grand story – probably a little over embellished. His smile would light up the room, as he trekked in monster guts and blood and dirt all over the floors – even after she had specifically told him to keep his boots outside after such an adventure.

But it didn't matter – any scolding she had on the tip of her tongue would vanish upon seeing the pure, unfiltered joy on his face: and that was something that, even a year after the Calamity was vanquished, she was always desperate to see.

Most of his adventures he would tell her about were fairly predictable: a Lynel here, a dungeon there, or helping out Koyin with their Bokoblin infestation down by the beach.

However, when he had suggested he venture into Hyrule Castle, she felt all of the blood drain from her face.

"Why would you want to go back there?" Zelda had blurted out, her heart racing in a way she hadn't felt since the months following the Calamity – waking in a cold sweat against some unwelcome nightmare.

"It's filed to the brim with treasures and secrets," Link was explaining, his eyes lighting up in a way she had never seen before, "When I came in to rescue you –"

"I never needed rescuing."

"– I passed by so many treasure chests and hidden passage ways," Link continued, as though she hadn't said a word, "Just to get to you sooner. Just so I could see you smile again. Just think of what we could find."

"Probably things that belong to me and my family, since it was our castle," Zelda said, pointedly, earning a bashful look from her knight.

"Well, yes, but if I don't go in and snatch all that for you, imagine who will. It will be thieves and robbers and people with not the best intentions at heart, and they will take things that had been yours, and you might never see them again."

"Oh," that thought hadn't crossed Zelda's mind, "Well, I hadn't thought about that."

"I've thought about it a lot," Link admitted, standing up and resorting to pacing. He always got like this, whenever he got too excited. He had to be moving, to get that energy flowing. Otherwise, he would completely burst, "It's been a year since we've defeated the Calamity – it's about time that we go back and take whatever relics survived the century and the malice."

"Link –"

"Just think," he rambled on, "the last time you were in the castle, you were fighting Ganon, and now, a year later, we get to go back and take back what is rightfully ours – I mean yours, of course!"

"Link…!"

"We could show him who's boss, one final time, and show him that he can't reign supreme over this land any longer."

"Link!"

Zelda's hands were shaking, her tone pleading as she stared at Link from across the kitchen. During this time, Link had all but strapped the Master Sword to his back – he had already donned his boots and his pack. He looked up from his spot near the front door, confusion evident on his face, until he saw Zelda's trembling form, and his face quickly melted into concern.

Her heart was pounding against her ribcage as she was brought back to the castle: back to the cold hallways with molding tapestries, back to destroyed rooms with broken chandeliers, back to the library – her library – with the pages of her books all faded away to ashes. The memories made her body tremble in ways she had yet to be able to control, and she found herself gripping the back of her chair and the table to stabilize herself.

"Oh Zel," he strode over to her in two long strides, kneeling down before her trembling form, "Shit, I should have known better."

"I'm not going back there," Zelda whispered, the promise like a mantra on her lips.

"And you don't have to," Link reaffirmed, rubbing the tops of her arms with his hands, "I didn't realize – I wasn't thinking. That was stupid of me, and I'm sorry."

He knew that memories of her constant vigilance against the Calamity still plagued her even a year after his demise. He knew that the thought of returning to the castle made her palms sweat and made her heart race despite any constant reassurance that the threat was gone. He knew better – he just didn't think half the time, and that was the problem.

When Impa had suggested not long after they had returned from the castle to Kakariko, that Zelda regain the throne and rebuild the castle, it had taken hours for Link to talk her down from whatever panic riddled notion she had set off in her head. From that moment forward, Link had kept Zelda clear of Impa's suggestions and foremost thoughts, and had to pointedly agree with the old hag when she had suggested that the two make for his little cottage in Hateno Village – away from the castle and away from any reminder of the past one hundred years.

Zelda sniffed, cooling her frayed nerves and giving her hero a brave smile. She was getting quite good at this, after all, "But don't let me stop you," she whispered, grasping his shoulder and giving it a little shake, "You – go – bring me back something shiny."

"Zel, I don't have to go, I can stay here with you," Link tried to reason, but Zelda had already made up her mind. She knew that her hero loved adventures.

"Who else is going to man down the fort while you're gone?" Zelda teased, the corners of her lips turning upwards despite the few lone tears still present on her face.

"I won't be gone long," Link promised, leaning in to press his lips lightly to hers in a chaste kiss, "You'll barely even know I'm gone."

"I'm going to hold you to that promise," Zelda said, the light from the candles shining off of her eyes.

"Alright," Link said, before he stood up, grabbing the Master Sword from its spot by the door, "Something shiny," Link whispered, almost to himself, before he ran out the door, a faint "love you," just barely audible on the wind.

Oh, her hero certainly loved adventures.

The next few days passed in a monotonous routine as Zelda kept herself busy. Most days, she went up towards the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab, as desperate to keep herself busy with the ancient Sheikah relics as she was for the company it provided. In the year that she had lived with Link in Hateno Village, she was reluctant to say she really hadn't made the attempt to make friends throughout the town. Her circle really only consisted of Link and Purah, with the occasional word from Symin. But to her, that was perfect. They were the only ones that she could be open and honest with.

Still, it didn't mean that she didn't long for the company of others from time to time.

Other times, when she didn't want to overstay her welcome at the lab – though Purah had made it quite clear to her that she was always welcome – she would busy herself around the house, either tidying their already immaculate kitchen and living area, busying herself with various tasks or chores that she probably could have done well enough without, or she would find herself with her journal in hand, under the canopies outside the cottage. Writing was soothing to her, and it was a way for her to cope through the trauma of the last one hundred years without the judgment she felt she received from others.

Again, it had been made very clear to her that she would never be judged for the horrors she faced, but still – she worried.

And then finally – finally – after days of isolation, she saw her hero coming up the hill towards their little house on Epona, his smile positively blinding in the late afternoon sunset. His satchel was bursting beside him, and Zelda could not help but grin that he had, indeed, brought back some trinkets from the castle.

He leapt down from the back of Epona and landed just before her, embracing her gently and placing a light kiss on her forehead. The gesture was enough to make Zelda swoon. She couldn't help but still be positively head over heels for him.

"Welcome home," Zelda whispered, tilting her head back slightly and pressing forward on her tiptoes, her lips inching towards his.

His lips met hers instantly, and Zelda felt the world stop spinning around them as butterflies erupted in her belly. He smelled of sweat and campfire, with a thin layer of grime covering his skin. He was absolutely disgusting, and yet she found herself pulling him in even closer, closing the space between their bodies.

It had only been a few days, yet it felt like a lifetime. She always felt like this every time he returned from one of his grand adventures. She never wanted another moment to go by without him if she didn't have to.

"I got you something," Link's breath fanned out over her lips and nose, and she giggled pulling back as he reached into his satchel.

"What did you find?" She asked, her eyes lighting up as Link began pulling things out.

"Well, I raided the Royal Treasury," Link began, pulling out silver and gold rupees, amongst various diamonds, rubies, and sapphires.

"Thief," Zelda shot back, the corners of her lips turning upward.

"Guilty as charged," Link grinned, "You had said to bring you back something shiny."

"Indeed I did."

"But this isn't it."

"No?" Zelda laughed, as she followed Link back inside their little Hateno home, as he placed the rupees and jewels down on their table.

"Not quite," a small smile brushed against his lips, his eyes glimmering with the prospect of a well-kept secret. He looked like a little boy with a gift for his beloved, "My intent was to simply raid the treasury, but then I got an idea."

"What idea was that?"

"Well, I went up into your room to see if I could find anything worth bringing back to you," Link began, "However, nothing in there would have survived a trip out of the castle and back to Hateno, so I left it all there. That is, until we can figure out a way to get them safely moved without destroying them."

"Okay…" Zelda prompted.

"So," Link said, his hand reaching into his satchel, "I went in search of other rooms, and I found this."

From his satchel, he pulled out an exquisite silver necklace, with the Hyrulean Royal Crest engraved on it. It was adorned in sapphires and diamonds, and Zelda would know that necklace anywhere because –

"That's my mother's necklace," Zelda whispered, tears springing to her eyes as she gently held the shining metal, watching the way the jewels glimmered and sparkled in the candlelight, "I haven't seen this in… well, over a century, of course, but before my mother passed away."

"I thought you might like it," Link whispered, his hand reaching up to her arm, his thumb rubbing small circles in it, "I wasn't quite sure whose it was, but I found it in your father's chambers, hidden in a jewelry box, and I had a feeling it must be important."

"Oh, it's more than important."

"Yeah, it's shiny too."

Zelda looked up at him then, a faint glimmer in her eye as the tops of her lips tugged upwards, clutching the necklace to her chest. She had nothing – nothing from her time before the calamity, save for Link and his lack of memories. This… this was even better. Not only was it something tangible – something she could feel and touch and smell – from her life so long ago, but also it dated even far enough back to her mother. The only thing she had from her mother were memories addled by time. She had only been six years old when she had passed on.

But now, she had her mother's necklace, which now roared to life in her memories, complimenting her royal blue gowns. Now, she had something tangible to remember her mother by. The sapphires reminded her of her mother's eyes – how had she forgotten them? The shape of it reminded her of how it rested on her chest, with shoulders held back, neck held high. She truly was divine, the pride and joy of her people.

It was no wonder that her death had sent her father spiraling, and he was from then on scarce to look at her.

The tears began falling before Zelda could stop them, each droplet hitting her hands and the pure silver of the pendant. Try as she may to convince herself that they were happy tears, anguish accompanied each sob that threatened to break her chest in half. Instantly, Link's hands were on her shoulders, and she was being led to a chair. He sat her down and knelt before her, his thumbs caressed away each tear, smoothing out each line of her face, calming each frayed nerve that threatened to explode in sparks.

"Oh, Zelda," Link whispered, his words like a prayer, and it only made Zelda cry even harder, clutching the necklace to her chest, fruitlessly hoping that in the next moment, her mother would be there, clutching her baby girl to her chest and singing her favorite lullaby.

She couldn't help but miss her.

"I'm sorry, Zel," Link said, his forehead creasing with deep lines. He looked regretful, almost, and looked towards the door of their little house, "I didn't realize. I thought you would like it."

Her head snapped towards his, eyes puffy and lips swollen. He thought she didn't like it.

"I do like it," Zelda whispered, looking achingly at the long lost necklace, "That doesn't do it justice. I love it, Link. This is the greatest gift you could have brought me."

Link looked in her eyes then, an understanding look on his face, "I understand. It doesn't make it hurt any less, though, does it?"

"No, it doesn't," Zelda nodded, before placing the necklace down on the table, leaning forward to wrap her arms around his neck, "Thank you for bringing this to me. You have no idea how much this means to me."

"You never told me what happened to her," Link breathed against her hairline, placing a small kiss there.

"No, I didn't," Zelda said, a tone of finality in her voice.

"I understand," Link said, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I understand far too well the pain that comes with reliving a memory."

She pushed back from his shoulder, looking him in the eyes for a moment before lowering herself to the ground beside him. They leaned back, so their backs were against the small little wall before the stairs, "I was young," Zelda whispered, "So at the time, much of it had been sheltered away for me."

She shifted, wringing her hands out in her lap, "Yet, by the next year, excavation on the Divine Beasts had come into full swing, and I was destined to unlock this power without a teacher. Without mother," she clutched at her chest, the lack of necklace jarring as it still sat upon the table, "Father called me to his study and explained that I was to learn this power, and quickly at that, for the same forces that killed mother would be out to kill me too."

She pulled in a shaking breath, and shuddered, a lone tear falling across her cheekbone. Her hands began to shake, "Father then told me that mother had been the target of a successful assassination attempt from the Yiga Clan. He told a seven year old this. He told a seven year old that the same people that killed mother were out to kill her too."

Her shoulders caved in, shaking with each sob she tried to suppress, and Link moved forward to grip her shoulders and steady her in his embrace, "And I… I never got to say goodbye. I didn't realize that my last memory with her would be my last."

Link pulled her into his lap, as he sat crisscrossed on the wooden floor of their little home. He rubbed her back gently, tucking her hair behind her ears to keep it out of her face, "You're the first person I've ever told about this. I didn't even tell you about this before the calamity struck."

Link breathed, in, his eyes once fixated on a point above the fireplace, turned back towards her, meeting her puffy, red eyes, with his own blue ones, "I'm glad you've told me," Link whispered, his thumb caressing her arm, "Has this been hurting you for the last century?"

"Well, I had been a bit distracted for most of the century," she bit out a laugh, pushing the heel of her hand into her cheek to wipe away the tears, "And really, I had kept most of this pain down for the last century. It only really bubbled up now upon seeing her necklace."

Link looked thoughtful for a moment, before hoisting her up so she sat up in his lap, "Tell me," he murmured, "What's your favorite memory of your mother?"

Zelda looked down at the floor for a moment, as she stretched her mind back – far back to her childhood. During her time sealing the Calamity within the castle, she had nothing but memories to sustain her. However, it was mostly memories of Link and the other Champions that fueled her onwards. Very rarely did she dive farther back into her memories – for most of her memories of her childhood were ill met with sorrow and rigorous training while the other children of Castle Town got to be just that: children. However, one memory popped out amongst the rest, something she hadn't thought about in over a decade – well, one hundred and ten years, to be exact.

"There was one night," Zelda began, "I must have been four or five, and I couldn't sleep. I had snuck out of my room that night – I was very good at sneaking out."

"I know you were," Link whispered with a knowing glint in his eyes.

Zelda rolled her eyes, "Anyways, I made my way to the library. It was my favorite place to be. Though I was young, I loved to read, and was slowly devouring every book that the library had to offer. I went in there, and made my way to where my favorite books were – the ones that comforted me the most. That's when I heard mother's voice echo out, 'young lady'.

"I was frozen. I was out past bedtime, so I knew I was in trouble, and I thought, 'well, maybe if I don't move, she won't be able to see me,'" Link laughed at this, adjusting his arm around her, "Well, she did, and she walked over to me, her skirts billowing and as majestic as every queen's should be. She had asked me what I was doing up, that 'Princesses should not be awake at this hour'. And I told her honestly that I couldn't sleep.

"I thought she was going to march me back to my room and make my nurse stay up and watch me with a careful eye. But she didn't. Instead, she held out her hand and said, 'Come with me'. She took me to the kitchens and began taking stuff out of the pantry. I said, 'Mother, what are you doing?' and she looked at me and said, 'When I can't sleep, I like to keep myself busy. Pass me the sugar, would you?'

"We started mixing things like Tabantha flour and sugar and eggs and butter and milk together," Zelda whispered, a light in her eye, "And then she showed me how to light the castle oven's fire and how to place the baking pan in the oven without burning myself. After twenty minutes of me asking her what we were making and her saying 'You'll see', we finally took it out of the oven, and mother gave me the task to frost the cake while she went to the ice box."

The corners of Zelda lips turned upwards, as the memory played in front of her, "Mother came back with grapes, raspberries, blueberries, limes, and oranges. She sliced up the limes and oranges and told me how to decorate the delicate cake. I had my first slice of fruitcake that night," Zelda whispered, "And to this day, it is still my favorite dessert."

She tucked her head under Link's chin, listening to the way his heart beat against her cheek, "That's my favorite memory of mother."

"That's what you should remember every time you look at that necklace," Link replied back, resting his cheek against the top of her head, "Never forget the bad things, of course, but never forget the good, either. It sounds like your mother loved you… so much. Also, it explains a lot about where you get your rebellious side from."

That earned Link a well deserved hit in the chest. He laughed.

She sighed, "I feel better, now," she said, lifting herself up from Link's lap. Link followed suit, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Link whispered, as he gently leaned in to steal a quick kiss, "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

"I know," Zelda whispered back, as she turned towards the table, picking up the necklace. She fingered the corner of the silver pendant, frowning, "Sometimes it's hard though, reliving past memories."

"But you don't have to do it alone," Link whispered, as he took the necklace from her, moving her hair out of the way. He gently clasped it behind her neck.

She turned around, placing her hand near the pendant on her chest, "Well? How do I look?"

"Divine," Link whispered, and it was true: she looked like a queen.

She sighed, her eyes lighting with joy, before they stole away, as they looked towards the door. Her fingers gripped the pendant lightly.

"I think…" Zelda whispered, her eyes tentatively coming back to meet his, "I think I would like to go with you… next time… to Hyrule Castle."

"Are you sure?" Link asked, "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

"I want to," Zelda whispered in reply, "Where there's one of my mother's things, there's bound to be more to have survived in the last one hundred years. And things of my father's. I want to recover them. I want to see them."

She looked at him then, a mischievous look in her eye, "And I know my way around that castle better than anyone, so you're going to need me if you want to find all of the secret passageways."

Link smiled then, his eyes shimmering with joy.

Her hero loved adventures.

#from the ashes #zelink #breath of the wild #breath of the wild fanfiction #legend of zelda #legend of zelda fanfiction #romance with a truckload of angst #or is it angst with a truckload of romance?#i just love them okay

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thatbluegibson · 6 years ago

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CH 69

The next day her doctor made his rounds again, checking Liz’s reflexes and speech before dropping more heavy news.

“You can leave in a couple days,” he said brightly. “But you’ll have to hang around jolly ol’ London for the foreseeable future. No flying, no long distance car or train trips.”

“Okay,” Liz said slowly. Dave could see the wheels turning in her busted head, trying to figure out how this was going to work. The doctor finished his instructions and moved on, leaving an exhausted Dave and Liz in his wake. He had slept in the chair at her side despite the extra cot that was placed in the far corner of the room for him. “I’ll have Andy get a hotel room nearby,” she said quickly, trying to calm the worry on Dave’s face. “I’ll hang out there until I can travel again.”

Dave stayed quiet, not sure what he could even say to her. He would be all over Europe that summer and then back in the States by September, he could only hope she’d be better by then.

“Will you sit with me?” she asked weakly. He dropped into the chair next to her bed, but she frowned at him. “No, I mean with me,” she said, scooting to the edge of the bed.

Dave eyed the tubes and cords surrounding her suspiciously, “You sure about that?”

“Yes,” she replied, adding an exaggerated, “Pleeeease?” when he hesitated.

He carefully climbed into the bed beside her, letting her situate the lines so he could put his arm around her. She curled up against him, resting her head against his shoulder and reached across him to grab the remote attached to the bed. As she flipped through the channels on the TV across the room, he quietly examined the gashes in her scalp. The one above her ear was jagged, angry and red where the surgical one along her hairline was clean, gracefully sutured and only a little pink.

“Stop it,” she whispered, knowing he was looking her over. “I’m okay.”

“Yeah, you absolutely look it,” he teased.

“Shut up,” she smiled and stifled a yawn, wincing at the pain when her skin pulled tightly.

“Go to sleep.”

“Yes, sir,” she muttered, settling further into his shoulder.

He waited until her breathing slowed before pulling his phone out and scrolling through his texts. Just as he finished replying to the most urgent ones, specifically his mother’s and one from Nate, a terrified looking nurse rushed into the room. Dave braced for more bad news. Fucking hell, now what?

“She has a visitor,” the nurse whispered, her eyes darting from Liz to the door.

“She just fell asleep,” he protested, checking the clock on the wall. It was late and visiting hours were long over. Maybe her parents decided to come over after all…

“No… no, it’s…,” the nurse stammered as the light from the hallway darkened. A massive security guard appeared and scanned the room before stepping aside to reveal Paul McCartney.

“Don’t,” Paul said, waving Dave down when he tried to get up. “They already filled me in. She did a number, didn’t she?”

“She’s not really one to do anything half-assed, I guess,” Dave said quietly, watching the nurse skitter out of the room.

Paul chuckled at that as he looked her over. “No, she’s not. I won’t stay long, I just wanted to see her breathing with my own eyes. I've got a flat on Cavendish just round from here. It’s a house, really. Nancy sent someone to ready it for you both.”

Dave felt as if he had been punched in the gut. “I have to leave in two days, I can’t…” He couldn’t just leave her alone in some unfamiliar house.

“Nancy and I aren’t far away and I’ll be at the studio for the next few weeks,” Paul assured him, “She can walk to the high street and there’s a private hospital just down the way. It’s already settled, mate. It’s the safest place for her.”

Dave pulled their car off the avenue and pressed the gate button on the keys Paul had sent him. The black iron gates protecting the property swung open and he furrowed his brow. The drive up to the garage was overgrown with weeds and most of the gravel had been washed away, leaving large patches of mud in their path.

“This is it, right?” he asked.

“Well, the gate opened…,” Liz said slowly.

The past two days had been spent in the same hospital room, watching Liz come and go from more imaging appointments than he could count. He felt like he had seen more of the inside of her head than the outside at this point, though he was assured that she was healing properly enough to be sprung from immediate care.

He parked the car just outside of the closed garage and hurried around to help Liz out. They stood together between the open car door and the passenger seat, staring the front garden of Paul’s ‘Apple House’ as he had lovingly called it. It was situated almost perfectly between Apple Studios, the High Street, the private hospital appropriately named St. Elizabeth’s and St. John’s Wood Gardens. She had everything she needed within a three block walking distance, but Dave’s stomach was still in knots. They made their way towards the house, picking over the front garden that was overgrown and neglected, the spring grass having long ago crept into the edged garden beds. The porch was covered with dead leaves and branches, and some of the wooden railings were missing. Dave quickly unlocked the front door, hoping the inside would be better, but they were greeted with a dark, dusty foyer along with a strangely earthy smell that he hoped wasn’t black mold. Liz immediately set off into the house while Dave scrambled to close the automatic gate and lock the door behind them.

The old wooden floors creaked beneath his feet as he made his way to the back of the house, finding Liz in the kitchen staring out into the back garden through the eating nook’s bay window. The kitchen was comfortable, all butcher block and open cabinets with a small breakfast table to the side. Beyond that was a small sitting room with a tiled fireplace, original artwork and a wall of overflowing bookcases. Two overstuffed and well-loved armchairs were positioned next to the fireplace with books stacked on their seats and an upright piano was placed against the remaining wall.

“There’s no dishwasher,” Dave said quietly. Her silence was killing him, reminding him that he was an asshole for attempting to leave her alone in a dilapidated old house in the middle of an unfamiliar city with a fucking brain injury. She finally turned away from the window, but only smiled at him. “We can always get you a hotel room, Liz. Just say the word.” Please, say the fucking word.

“Paul told me he bought it during the Help Sessions,” she finally broke her silence, skirting around both his offer and the butcher block island to a back staircase. He followed her up the narrow stairs, the knot in his stomach growing tighter at the thought of her using these sketchy steps every day. One wrong move and she’d be at the bottom in a pool of her own blood. He tried to clear his mind of that gruesome image as he made it to the landing, the three open doors around him revealed bright bedrooms with sheet-covered furniture.

“If you take all the blankets off the beds, you might be able to make a nest,” he said as he leaned his head into the smallest bedroom. Liz’s hand brushing his shoulders caught him by surprise, but he automatically turned to pull her close. “I’ll call Paul and tell him you’re better off in a hotel.”

“Please don’t,” she whispered against his neck. Was she crying? He pulled back to see the tears rolling down her cheeks in steady rivers. “I love it here.”

“Liz, it’s…,” he hoped he wouldn’t have to explain all the ways he felt it wasn’t the place for her to recover.

“It’s perfect.”

He wanted to disagree, but her eyes sparkled with something other than tears and her smile was genuine. “You get why I’m a little sketchy about leaving you here, right?”

“Oh, Dave,” she laughed and brushed away her tears, nodding to the wall behind him where the paint was peeling. “It’s just a little lead poisoning and potential mold infestation. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Then why the hell are you getting my shirt all wet?” he glanced down at his tear soaked shoulder when she pulled away from him.

“It’s just… I’m a little overwhelmed at how much I love it,” she left his side to look into each bedroom. “I just wish you could stay here with me.”

“Yeah, that makes two of us,” he said bitterly, pressing his palms into the small table on the landing.

Liz sucked in a sharp breath and hurried back to him, wiggling herself between him and the table even though he was reluctant to let her. “Stop,” she admonished, taking his head in her hands to force him to look at her. “That’s not what I meant. There are thousands of people out there literally counting down the days until you damage their eardrums. I refuse to be the person that ruins that for them. Do you know how badly that would fuck up my career?”

A smile pulled at his lips as he raised an eyebrow at her. “Why do you care? You’re quitting anyway.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, “You know what I fucking mean. I’ll be fine... and it’s not like I’m totally alone. Andy will be here.”

Dave put his arms around her and pulled her even closer, carefully kissing her forehead. He was too tired to argue any more, he just wanted her somewhere safe where he didn’t have to worry about her.

#thatbluegibson

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brazenautomaton · 7 years ago

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Fixing Heart of the Swarm’s Story, Part 4

Last time we covered Zerus, where Kerrigan gets her purple suit back. Once Kaldir, Char, and Zerus, are completed, it’s time to go on the offensive. Mengsk’s/Narud’s mole in the Golden Fleet has been ensuring any planet you can build up on has been cleansed (and since we don’t want to extinct the Primal Zerg, we need to mention that that’s half the reason we’re not establishing a force on that planet, the other half being that any brood we leave behind will be eaten). So we need to go after his shit instead of building sand castles for him to kick over. At this point we unlock Skygeirr Station and Dominion Space.

We have the Primal Kerrigan upgrade at this point, but Abathur reminds us, we don’t now nor will we ever have the raw power of the Queen of Blades, who could micromanage billions of Zerg with the raw force of her psychic power. We have superior resilience, superior adaptability, superior ability to mold ourselves to the situation we face. Like, you know, the Zerg.

Skygeirr Station

Skygeirr is a station orbiting around in the atmosphere of a caustic, inhospitable planet that’s hidden by virtue of the fact it’s so inhospitable to Terran life nobody wants to go there. In it, “Emil Narud” / Samir Duran performs secret experiments on Protoss/Zerg hybrid, with Mengsk’s blessing and material support. There’s Tal’Darim Protoss in the core of the station platform that I guess the Dominion workers don’t know about?

We’ve had more time for Stukov to talk to us about how much he fucking hates Duran and all the suffering and chaos he’s caused, AND we’ve hopefully established a strong, or strongER, link between Duran and Mengsk. Between Kaldir and here and Mengsk smugly calling back to him, we should think he’s a smug little cocksucker who hides behind others and turns them against each other because he can’t stand up in a fight, and we’re going to fucking pwn his face.

Also, for Mission 3 to work, we need to have Kerrigan throw a bone to / be shown working with each of her 3 action-capable underlings, or at least Zagara and Stukov. Because we could have got each one of the in the mission immediately previous, it might be jarring if it looks like they become super loyal right away.

Mission 1 of Skygeirr, “Infested” has one big change that would have to happen no matter what, and then some other ones to fit in this story. The big change, of course, is that the mission can’t be about infesting Terrans, because Kerrigan and Stukov both had that happen to them and it’s driven them to revenge; they can’t inflict it on others. Instead, we’re going to say that this facility makes a lot of Zerg biological waste -- they do lots of experiments with it, after all -- and it’s kept in silos on the outside of the facility, isolated for safety’s sake, until a periodic ship comes to pick it up and dump it into the star. Sending the Infestors to make virophages on these silos causes them to basically infest all the dead Zerg sludge to pull out any useful biomass, resulting in a stream of Broodlings that spit acid, and by sheer coincidence have the stats of the infested Terran units from the previous iteration of the mission. The Broodlings are described as “little more than a living shard of anger”, which Kerrigan will say can add up into a river, and she knows she can point it in the right direction. Because controlling Zerg, flow of emotions, etc. They still fall apart when the Terran mystery gas leaks, because they’re unstable and have low constitution.

Narud should have more of a presence in this mission, mocking or taunting Kerrigan and by extension the player. It should go without saying, this can’t be Azmodan-tier “you may have defeated the last 67 of my invincible guys but guy 68 is INVINCIBLE!” taunting. It should be stuff about Kerrigan throwing her life away, being unsubtle and unable to understand what’s going on, can only interact with things by smashing them so all she wins is destruction and ruin, etc. Kerrigan can shoot back about his cowardice, hiding behind other people, all his men are terrified and disloyal and when they flee there’ll be nobody to hide behind, etc. (Easter Egg conversation when you get the “kill 60 units with Neural Parasite dominated units” achievement: “Of course my men are going to be disloyal, you keep flinging neural parasites at them!” “If they actually felt any connection to your side, they’d be able to fight it off in about ten seconds.”)

Also, we gotta throw a bone to Zagara, but it’s hard, because we also need Zagara to be missing for the duration of one mission and we cannot yet tell the player why. So, ideally, this mission would have playable Zagara alongside Kerrigan, and they’d have battle dialogue showing respect for each other and a connection. But you need a suite of abilities for Zagara to be a hero Queen (I think an independent mobile supply of larva like a Hatchery, Creep Tumors that don’t need to go on Creep, and either free Transfusions or faster energy regeneration), and if you do, the mission needs to be something that highlights those abilities. If I could do that, I’d make it something like “the mystery gas health-drains all your units except heroes, workers, and larva (maybe burrowing saves certain units, like infestors and swarm hosts), mineral patches are gold and you have more gas, so it’s about using the Zerg ability to build units simultaneously instead of a queue and react to the type of army your opponent has in order to support the Broodling stream, and Zagara helps with that by being your mobile building base.” But I’m afraid I’ve already used up enough of my “change mission credits”.

So if I can’t change that mission, then before the mission, Kerrigan needs to have a conversation with Zagara and send her on a mission. Problem is, we can’t yet tell the player what that mission is. So she has to lay it on a little thick, I need you to do something special for me, you’re the only one who can do it, because you led your brood to flourish on Char for years with no support, through lava trenches and acid swamps, against the Dominion opposition, etc etc etc. And then she’s gone for a mission. That could be the bone thrown to Zagara, but it’s pretty blunt. If I can change mission 1, then an abbreviated version of this happens during the mission, and she’s absent from the Leviathan in mission 2.

After completing MIssion 1, Stukov also finds there’s a bunch of infested Terrans who are already there, because they’re either experiments, or results of insufficient lab safety by the Dominion. He wants to take those guys in and see if there’s something he can do for them or with them, clearly having A Thing about his own infestation and feeling as though he’s abandoned or betrayed his men, or humanity in general. Kerrigan says “Alexei, that isn’t really how the Zerg work, they don’t have their own thoughts any more... But there is a chance they could be brought back to their own consciousness, and if anyone can do it, it’s you. I’ll have Izsha clear some of the Leviathan out for you to hold them in. I’m warning you though, if they go crazy and attack the rest of the crew, I’m gonna be really miffed.” She acknowledges his feelings and that this is important to him, and empowers him to pursue his own emotional resolution, showing she respects him as a person and respects his capabilities. She presents the idea they could be a danger, which makes it have weight that she lets him do this, but understates her anger, showing that she doubts it’s going to happen. This is her bone thrown to Stukov.

Okay, that was a lot! Mission 2, “Hand of Darkness”, needs less changing. We can’t say it’s identical (all of the mission dialogue is bad, so it all has to change to be in line with the things we’re doing), but it requires few high-level changes, they’re mostly “make dialogue that is in line with what we’re doing”. You’re in the heart of the Terran facility where they have Protoss/Zerg hybrids, you need to kill them, and when they’re sprung from containment cells, they start a timer before Kerrigan dies so you gotta kill them first.

Now, the whole “timer on psychic attack” thing works fine and doesn’t need changing on its own -- but it’s redundant with a change I wanna make in mission 3 to fix something that doesn’t work, so it has to change to accommodate that. Off the top of my head, there could be a fail-safe system that does something Kerrigan doesn’t want (floods the level with a super-concentrated version of the gas from mission 1? if it crashes the station into the planet, she could in theory just pop a containment cell and leave to kill Narud, but then her unwillingness to do that could be explained later). Anyway, it’s some other mechanism causing the 5-minute death timer. We can have Dehaka, not playable but giving dialogue, running around in the ductwork, tearing and chomping wiring in an attempt to break the security systems, and that’s the tiny little bone we throw to him.

Other than that, this mission just needs more presence from Narud being a slimy fuck who we want to stab, and dialogue from the Terran units indicating they’re paranoid and holing up and not sure who to trust, which plays into Narud’s theme and hints to the player “hey, drag those hybrids over to the Terran units, they’ll fight!”

MIssion 3, “Phantoms of the Void”. This is the only other ZvP mission, because somehow a bunch of Protoss were hiding in this high-security Terran facility. Roll with it, or use it to show how manipulative Narud is. Anyway, this is the mission with the stupid fucking DBZ Beam O’ War between Kerrigan and Narud while Stukov runs around and deactivates temples, then the stupid fucking fight with Narud where she gets owned by basic shapeshifter tricks. In addition to being stupid, the order of this is wrong. She overpowers him in beam o war, then gets fucking humiliated by him afterward, in a way that doesn’t flow. She also gets picked up by her minions and saved, off screen, abruptly.

So instead of that, you’re going into that mission with just Kerrigan, and she’s telling Narud somethign like “You’re almost out of bodies to hide behind. I’m going to make you beg me to spare your life, Narud. Then I’m going to make you beg me to end it.” Narud is clearly nervous, has one last ditch attempt, etc. He attacks her psychically, using the power of all those temples you have to disarm. If she was the Queen of Blades, she could no-sell it and keep going, but she’s not, so she crumples. Narud taunts her unconscious body, “Now, your Swarm will consume itself, and then I will dissect what remains of you.”

Zagara, Dehaka, and Stukov all notice this, that you’re fallen and defenseless. And then Zagara and Stukov say “We have to save her!” (Dehaka wants to consume your essence but they put the kibosh on it.) Zagara’s on a friendly AI team, her unit is on the little platform with Kerrigan, constantly casting Transfusion on her and throwing out drones to spawn Zerg buildings that can ablate some of the damage (Kerrigan’s HP takes the place of the beam timer). Stukov has the same role, he’s your hero unit and he is the one who disarms the temples, but he’s less “the hand of Kerrigan” and more “oh God how am I supposed to do this I am not good with the Zerg” in tone. The whole moment is about your friends coming together to save you. Because these fucking weirdo space monsters are your friends and your relationship means something and it pays off. And emphasizing that they’re kind of uncertain how to do the thing shows why they need you, too, but having them triumph shows how determined they are to save you even if it’s hard.

So you fight off the Protoss and destroy the amplifier temples and save Kerrigan. At this point, you’ve taken everything this conniving, manipulative fuck can throw at you, so when you kick open the door to his inner sanctum, he should be terrified. He runs from Kerrigan and trips in panic. She grabs him and he turns into Raynor, says something like “Wait, It’s me! You don’t want to hurt--” and she slaps the living shit out of him with her spiky, clawed Zerg hand. Maybe do the gag where he cycles through forms that should have meaning to Kerrigan, and she keeps slapping him through them. Because we’re showing “Hey, this guy has a ploy to use her emotions against her, and it doesn’t work!” He fights futilely and she juuuust owns the shit out of him, until he’s on his knees. He begs for his life like a pathetic, mewling wretch, promising that he’ll work for her against Mengsk, just please don’t kill him. And she says “Why are you worried? I’m not going to kill you.” and steps to the side to reveal Stukov, smiling evilly. Stukov is all “Hello, ‘Samir’,” and then Narud starts begging Kerrigan not to let Stukov get to him, as we zoom out and/or cut away.

#starcraft 2 #fixing stories

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agentlexie · 5 years ago

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Dear white people, let’s talk about violence

First, lets make it clear, the protesters are far from violent. In fact, the majority of protesters are peaceful.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/01/george-floyd-violent-rioters-america-police-officers

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/george-floyd-death-protests-unrest-disorder-2020-06-02/

There are some people who are more upset about violence when it comes to the destruction of property than they are about the murder, torture, and genocide of people. They are more upset about broken windows and burning buildings than they are about the economical inequities that have become the fabric of life in America. What these people fail to see is that the violence has never ceased. Violence against black & brown people. Violence against Muslims. Violence against union workers. Violence against the LGBT community. Violence against and the exploitation of the working class poor. Where was that voice when you saw all the other videos of black people being murdered by cops &/or white vigilantes? Where was that voice before property got involved?

Covid19 revealed the America that I've always known: Unequal, racist, and a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. People have been taking the knee for several years to no avail. People have been protesting for decades to no avail. People have been asking for issues to be addressed & they haven't been. Amy Cooper May have struck the match and George Floyd ignited the flame but Covid19 poured gasoline on the fire. Black pain is consumed as entertainment & then once the 24hr news cycle is over, the status quo prevails. We watch the wealth gap increase and find ways to vilify and blame the poor for their own exploitation while at the same time celebrating greed and excess. Violence begets violence. America is a violent country. It always has been. It was only a matter of time before it exploded, if not to stand against racism then to stand against inequality. Either way, it was coming.

I’ve read comments from people who didn’t think that racism was a problem in America despite witnessing the mistreatment of black & brown people, despite their black & brown friends telling them that it’s an issue. It’s always, they must have done something to deserve being murdered while handcuffed, while minding their own business, while sleeping in their beds, while eating ice-cream in their living rooms, driving their cars, while walking in their neighbourhoods, and the list goes on.

It's not that people didn’t realize that this is the America that we live in, it’s that we’ve been conditioned to ignore it because some of us benefit from systemic racism and white supremacy. The rest of us have been conditioned to internalize the pain and inequity, identify with our oppressors, & blame ourselves. For some of us who actually experience it on an almost daily basis, pre-pandemic, it’s a lot more difficult to ignore it. There comes a point when enough is enough. And nothing has been done about injustice for decades and decades. If you want to find out more about injustice, educate yourself on native American history, slavery, the school to prison pipeline, redlining, generational wealth, lack of job opportunities in black & brown communities, the impact of Jim Crow, food deserts, lack of adequate education, genocide, police brutality, institutional racism, the vilification of black people & people of color, beauty standards, colonialism, and the list goes on, but if you were interested you would already know that.

People are fed up. There isn't a riot in our lifetime that can ever equate to the amount of lives lost because of white supremacy. There isn't a riot in the world that will ever be as brutal as slavery, genocide, and institutional racism. Violence is as American as apple pie. America was founded on violence. Whether it was the genocide of native Americans, slavery, Japanese internment, Jim Crow, Civil War, the Tulsa massacre, or rape culture, It’s a violent country. We celebrate slave owners & rapists and display them on our currency, immortalize them in the form of monuments as if they were valiant and honorable men & continuously suppress the stories of the minority. American violence is in the form of government sanctioned violence against union organisers and members, (See: Pennsylvania mine workers killed by Luzerne county sheriff, Ludlow massacre…

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/01/us/tulsa-race-massacre-1921-99th-anniversary-trnd/index.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-1897-massacre-pennsylvania-coal-miners-morphed-galvanizing-crisis-forgotten-history-180971695/

https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-ludlow-massacre-still-matters

America is a place where some ceo’s make more than twice what the median U.S. worker makes in one week in a second.

https://www.businessinsider.de/international/how-rich-is-jeff-bezos-mind-blowing-facts-net-worth-2019-4

History has taught us that significant change doesn’t happen without violence in America. For all those mentioning Dr. King, it was violence that created a need for the Civil Rights movement in the first place & violence that took MLK’s life. The events leading up to the civil rights movement included open lynchings of black people. It was violence that made the globe take notice of the Civil Rights movement when the international community saw images of peaceful protesters being assaulted by white angry mobs. It is unfortunate that violence and destruction has to take place for people’s voices to be heard, but one thing that is consistent throughout U.S. History is that the oppressed are not the instigators of the violence.

Roughly 1/2 of the U.S. population is considered poor or low income, many of them black, and everyday they wake up to see excess and abundance, whether it’s on their screens, radios, in their workplaces, and schools, or fake influencers & celebrities flaunting their lavish lifestyles, they are confronted with a lacking: a lacking of adequate nutrition, healthcare, housing, schools, opportunities and they are left out of that even if they work hard. Many people are quarantined in small dilapidated spaces with poor living conditions, roach infested apartments, mold, and the list goes on. Flint still doesn’t have clean water. Nobody cares. It’s a great talking point for intellectuals, the 24hr news cycle, and for outrage politics that we can post about on facebook and carry on with our lives.

So many people are hopeless. Currently over 40 million people are unemployed. Hundreds of millions staying home because of the pandemic. Cases of domestic violence have spiked. Child abuse is at an all time high since the pandemic. Some children don’t even have food to eat because they’re not in school and the only meals they have for the day are at school. We are a nation of downtrodden & mistreated people. According to the 2010 census report 48% of the population is considered poor or low income in the so-called “greatest country on earth.” That’s a whopping 146.4 million people. And according to a recent article published in the New York Times, we can expect an increase in poverty as well as a widening of racial disparities as a result of the pandemic. That’s on top of what has presumably taken place over the last decade since the 2010 census.

https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Poverty-Fact-Sheet-Feb-2015-final.pdf

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/census-data-half-of-us-poor-or-low-income/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/upshot/coronavirus-prediction-rise-poverty.html

We shouldn't have a system in which one could end up homeless if they're out of work for a couple months because of a pandemic. A system that punishes people for crime based on their skin color. A system in which someone works 40hrs or more per week and still can't afford a shitty apartment without roommates, let alone buy a home. We shouldn’t have a system in which we worship the wealthy and they have license to use the bodies of others for their own enrichment by not paying people a liveable wage. Without labor, ideas can’t be executed, so why is there such a huge discrepancy in compensation and the extreme devaluing of one in favour of the other when the ceo can’t exist without the laborer and vice versa?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/26/state-of-the-unions

Yes we’ve gotten rid of plantations but working just to pay for food and basic shelter isn’t really that far off from slavery. You’re still working for the same thing: basic shelter and scraps of food, and we might not be being whipped but we’re far from free. We’re being stopped and frisked, shot in our cars, shot in the streets, even children are being handcuffed and murdered.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/orlando-6-year-old-arrested.html

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865261916/a-decade-of-watching-black-people-die

Our institutions have taught us that the way to get what you want and accomplish anything is by brute force and a total disregard of human life. Instead, value is placed on all things material and people are more outraged at the destruction of property than they are at murder, genocide, the torture of human beings, and the lack of a liveable wage. In the 1950’s a doctor, milkman and factory worker could afford homes in the same neighborhood but that’s not the case in 2020 America.

The idea that we had peace is a fallacy. America has always been unequal since it’s inception. It’s ironic that people fleeing persecution in Britain ended up committing genocide and persecuting others. The idea that things are good in America & that everyone is able to accomplish the American dream is a fallacy that is evidenced by the ever diminishing middle class and the growth of the working class poor. This violence was always there, it's just out in the open now without pretence. If 45 did anything during his presidency it's taking off those blood-tinted-rose-colored glasses from our eyes & for showing us, in full unadulterated color, who we are as a nation. Because of the pandemic, black’s aren’t the only ones really feeling the gross inequities that exists in our country, whites are feeling it too. The two groups most impacted by white supremacy in America are Native Americans and African Americans & none of us are even talking about the former. The two groups most impacted by Covid19 are Native Americans and African Americans and again we’re not really talking about the former. Let that sink in…

#NojusticeNoPeace

“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

– James Baldwin

One thing this whole chain of events has done is reopen the dialogue between different communities. It has allowed us all to come together. It has revealed who our friends are. It has shown us that we have a long way to go but it’s a start & that’s good!

#NoJusticeNoPeace #BlackLivesMatter

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nostalgiachan · 7 years ago

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Had an impromptu Bad Movie Night™ with Fresh. Ended up watching The Last Vampire on Earth, Aeon: The Last Vampyre on Earth (no relation) and 13 Demons.

tl;dr Last Vampire and 13 Demons are worth the watch. Plenty of magic moments, though there are occasionally stretches of boring in between. Aeon has its moments of legitimately interesting stuff, but most of the film is a nihilism monologue. It’s a maybe. Spoilery, lengthy thoughts below the cut.

Fresh decided he wanted to watch The Last Vampire on Earth, since I’d told him the full movie was up on Youtube, and I figured I’d joined him. Boy howdy, did we not know the night we were in for. As you know, we saw the latest Best of the Worst where it was featured, but Good God Almighty, that review does not truly prepare you for just how bad some of the acting gets. Aurelius is spectacularly creepy, Chloe can’t emote her way out of a wet paper bag, but the real prize winner are the Literature classmates. I don’t think I’ve ever heard somebody say they were excited to put on a play while sounding like their serotonin levels decided to tank at that very second.

Most of what I can say about the film has already generally been said by RLM: Twilight with the serial numbers filed off, horrible acting, horrible dialogue, horrible sound mixing and lighting. But I feel like there was one thing that was overlooked (or maybe they just weren’t reading as much into things as I was): I feel like Vitaliy Versace was attempting to use Chloe’s AIDS progression as a mirror for the process of vampirism (loss of appetite, bags under the eyes, getting sick at the smell of food). God bless him for trying, but hot damn did he miss the mark. Also the fact Chloe decided to get turned during the Dracula performance at the end is pretty funny considering that in most modern vamp fiction, you have to get completely drained and feed from your sire in order to turn. I really hope they were planning to end the play there because otherwise, uh...somebody’s going to have to prop up Chloe’s exsanguinated corpse for a while. I mean, no matter what, it’s going to get kinda messy up there, you know? After watching the film, I’m still tempted to buy the book and do a serious performance of it, but I’m now slightly concerned that a serious read would take the story from being hysterical to kinda boring.

- - - - -

So after that, in the related videos, we saw more fully-uploaded terrible vampire films. Since I needed to stay up until the morning so I could get some errands done, we figured we’d make a night of it. We jotted down any titles that looked like winners, and the first movie to get picked was Aeon: The Last Vampyre on Earth. We’ll both admit, we got a little suckered in by that cover up there. I mean, the top half promises schlocky post-apocalyptic action, while the second at least had an interesting looking character. As it turns out, while it is taking place during an apocalypse, the entire film is set singularly in that room shown at the bottom, and unfortunately the only time the featured character looks like that, he’s sitting directly beneath a light and most of his features are obscured. That was only the beginning of the letdowns.

The basic setup is a woman, Catherine, takes shelter from the apocalypse in a building and finds a container from which The Last (nope, his name’s not Aeon, and the word never even comes up once) emerges. He then alternates between telling Catherine they should help each other and saying that humans are parasites, God’s not real, and whatever’s causing the apocalypse is going to wipe out the entire human race and there isn’t shit anyone can do because fuck humans. He likes shooting himself in the foot like that. As soon as The Last started monologuing in vague, grandiose terms about how great vampires are, how humans suck and are destructive, and how there’s some other nebulous “creature” that’s better than both, I was like “This guy made the movie, didn’t he?” Sure enough, I was right: he was the director and one of the writers. It didn’t help that Catherine’s points for holding onto her belief in God or not just giving up and letting The Last eat her were one- or two-line answers compared to The Last’s ENDLESS paragraphs of dialogue.

As for the make of the film, the acting was pretty serviceable. Despite being a big ol’ straw nihilist, watching The Last and wondering whether a solid answer for anything would ever come out of his rapidly decaying mouth did hold my attention, and I did enjoy how the part was acted. Catherine did what she could with the lines she was given, but it was pretty clear it was the Daniel Falicki Show. As mentioned before, the film takes place in a single room, and it’s overall pretty low budget, but I feel like they put forth a good effort for what they had, and there was one moment towards the end that was actually genuinely creepy. Overall, it didn’t feel like a necessarily bad movie, you could see some definite effort shine through, but the one-sided philosophical debate dragged on far too long and didn’t really offer much in the way of actual answers as to who was out there, why things were really happening, and so on.

- - - - -

So after that, I looked at other films the uploader, Worldwide Multimedia had uploaded, and let me tell you, they looked like a cavalcade of terrible. But the one that caught my eye was 13 Demons, for two reasons: 1) Because the cover was a pretty blatant ripoff of the Warcraft film poster, and 2) Because of the tagline of both the trailer upload and the cover itself. The title of the trailer upload is “13 Demons: Not Doom, Not Warcraft, When you play 13 Demons you play to the DEATH! - WATCH!” and the tagline is “You Play...You Die.” So I was thinking “A bad Warcraft knockoff with a YOU DIE IN THE GAME YOU DIE FOR REAL angle? Well shit, let’s see what this is.” So we clicked the trailer and...you know what, I’m just going to put it here because please watch it.

youtube

We lost our goddamn minds at that last bit, so of course, we had to watch it. Sure enough, this was also a film by Daniel Falicki and pals, and you know? This one was honestly better. Still not great by any stretch, but it certainly wasn’t an hour and a half of HUMANS R BAD. So despite what the advertising would like you to believe, it’s got nothing to do with Warcraft. It’s more along the lines of a Satanic Panic-style D&D horror story where a group of friends get a hold of a banned tabletop game and, as you can gather from the trailer, it takes over their minds and makes them kill people. Now, the actual “how” of it is really easy to miss...that is, unless you are familiar with how mold infestation smells. And to be honest, I would’ve completely missed that if it weren’t for an IMDb review spoiling it specifically because of how easy it is to miss and because it’s brought up all of once.

The second scene was actually surprisingly entertaining, just a bunch of friends smoking pot and dicking around with a game, though it was pretty obvious that they were shooting in a very tiny space what with everyone being shot in tight close-ups. That or Falicki just really likes tight closeups. I’m thinking “little of A, little of B.” Anyway, we were pleasantly surprised; the acting seemed perfectly fine and the characters (whom I’ll refer to as Daniel, Kylo Ren, and NECKBEARD) all seemed relatively enjoyable. But then things started to lull about the time the mold started to kick in. Things really slow down when they’re reading the book or directly playing the game, and things don’t really get as tense as they were intended to. By far, though, the worst scenes were the hallucinations. The costumes were incredibly cheap (I have a hard time believing this movie cost a million dollars), there was no setting to speak of other than “solid color and smoke machine on max,” and there was this CONSTANT tunnel-strobe-effect over the shots that was incredibly annoying and was clearly an attempt to cover up the terrible monster costumes.

But for all the lulls and annoyances, there were moments that made the whole thing worth it, particularly Daniel’s solo crusade at the midpoint (which was equal parts honestly weird and fucking hilarious) and Kylo Ren and NECKBEARD squaring off in the apartment. I thought Kylo Ren showed some solid skill, but good lord NECKBEARD’s inability to close his personal portal to the ham dimension was charming. It’s just a shame the movie doesn’t have any real resolution to speak of. We return to the beginning, and then BOOM it’s over. If nothing else, 13 Demons definitely raised my opinion of Falicki after Aeon made me think he might be a Neil Breen-style director, making himself the lead so he can spout personal philosophies. Now, he just seems like a guy with a legitimate want to make entertaining films and a hint of an ability, though he’s just not quite there yet; that is, until I find somehow stumble on something that proves nah, he’s just a dick (that tends to happen to me).

So all in all, The Last Vampire on Earth and 13 Demons were pretty magical, though not without their boring stretches. Aeon I’d only really suggest if you love straw nihilists, not terrible but doesn’t have quite enough charm to put it on 13 Demons’s level.

#not art #nost sez #bad movies #the last vampire on earth #aeon: the last vampyre on earth #13 demons

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riting · 6 years ago

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Johanna Hedva and Lucas Wrench on the durational performance of Machine Project

When Machine Project closed a year ago, on January 13, 2018, we wondered: what if what just ended was a show that was fifteen years long? Perhaps a bunch of artists had visited there as unwitting collaborators in, and audience to, an ongoing performance disguised as discrete events? We asked a couple Machine regulars to write about the show and reflect on how it might help them think about issues specific to performance.

Johanna Hedva: If Machine Project wasn’t a big ol’ performance, what was it?

Was it a science-fiction movie? It had (was) an imaginative concept that foregrounded innovation and exciting technologies, and was entirely populated by extraterrestrials.

Was it a catering service? When I worked there, every day we’d scoot the tables together and squinch our IKEA folding chairs in close and eat the takeout lunch Mark Allen had bought for us out of company funds, and this is the number one reason, of so many reasons, why it’s still the best job I’ve ever had, and I imagine I can speak for my fellow colleagues in saying that it’s one of the best jobs they’ve ever had, simply because eating together day in and day out for several years builds community and trust and friendship like nothing else.

Figure 1: Claire Kohne as Kalypso the vengeful sorceress who chases after Odysseus as he is being rescued in the VONS parking lot. From Odyssey Odyssey (2013).

Was it a really long Vine? ‘Twas a zany goofball slapstick premise exceptionally executed in an unfathomably pinched amount of time, and also served as a vessel for cultural criticism and commentary, while birthing a zillion trends.

Was it a tabletop role-playing game? Maybe not exactly, but in essence it was a bunch of people who could be called players rather than competitors, creating their own characters who participate in a collective narrative within an agreed-upon (fictional or non) setting, which follows guidelines and rules of that agreed-upon world, but which is not necessarily and probably quite different from the rest of the world, and which is great fun and probably addicting. Also, once they got that great website, they sort of became a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), because of those brilliant animated avatars (drawn by Tiffanie Tran) of an octopus (representing the artist), a cactus with a beret (poets), and a pineapple with a mustache (representing the public).

Was it a Hollywood blockbuster? Because it pretty much fits film critic Tom Shone’s definition of a blockbuster being “a fast-paced, exciting entertainment, inspiring interest and conversation beyond the theatre (which would later be called ‘buzz’), and repeated viewings,” and, for a nonprofit, it was pretty damn financially successful.

Was it a book of aphorisms? Fits the Online Etymology Dictionary’s definition for aphorism as “a concise, terse, laconic, and/or memorable expression of a general truth or principle,” and it would be more than just one aphorism, more like a book of them, a very long book, because there were way more than just a few.

Figure 2: Joe Seely as Clay, an old bitch who's been waiting in the desert for 100 years to see the symbol of her desire again. From Ancient Monuments to What (2015).

Speaking of books! Was it a cookbook? Chock full of recipes that simultaneously include careful measurements and room for error, for how to make various dishes, from soupy liquids to layered cakes to multi-plated entrees?

Was it an example of magical realism? Political critique folded into phantasmagorical otherworldly otherworlds, with intricate metaphors, animals, witches, forests, and shipwrecks, and strange objects and doorways that may or may not take you to another dimensional realm that may or may not be 100 years from now or in the past.

Was it a PhD thesis on how certain forms of sociality feel better than others, but strangely it’s hard to articulate why?

Was it an attempt at utopia? Isn’t utopia inherently a failure? Then, but, so, didn’t it succeed?

Was it a puzzle that refused to be solved?

Figure 3: Nickels Sunshine as Yama-uba, a crone with mouths under her hair who feeds on young girls. From Ancient Monuments to What (2015).

Was it a distant island that we tried to voyage to, but alas, our ship ran aground and our beards grew wildly and became entangled in the rigging and, thin with scurvy, we watched the sun go down as the skies roared with thunder and some of us howled at the future while others listened to the wind?

Was it a petition or a vow?

Was it a love letter? It loved me. I loved it. Am I the only one, I don’t think so.

Should these questions be answered? Can they? But why would we want to?

Was it a promise covered in tiny musical notes that when all played together made the big, resounding chord of curious joy?

Was it a dream? It was one of the best dreams.

Johanna Hedva is a fourth-generation Los Angelena on their mother’s side and, on their father’s side, the grandchild of a woman who escaped from North Korea. Hedva is the author of the novel, On Hell (2018, Sator Press). Their fiction, essays, and poems have appeared in Triple Canopy, The White Review, Black Warrior Review, Entropy, Mask, 3:AM, Asian American Literary Review, The Journal Petra, DREGINALD, and Two Serious Ladies. Their works of performance, design, and sound have been shown at Human Resources LA, PAM, the Getty’s 2013 Pacific Standard Time, the LA Architecture and Design Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon. Most of their performances in Los Angeles were hosted by Machine Project, including The Cave series and Odyssey Odyssey, their adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, which was performed in a Honda Odyssey being driven down the freeway.

Lucas Wrench: Notes on Vermin

The Machine Project Mystery Theater was originally built in 2013 for Chris Weisbart’s Alvarado Caverns project - which transformed Machine Project’s storefront into an amalgamation of a 99 cent store, gas station bathroom, hologram-laden indoor cave, and a faux-victorian seventeen seat basement theater, replete with velvet curtains, gold foam molding, and clamshell stage lights. Most importantly, Machine Project’s Mystery Theater featured a drop-tile foam ceiling, painted gold, leaving a ten inch gap between Machine Project’s rapidly deteriorating ground level floorboards and the precariously adhered foamcore below. Due to Machine Project’s penchant for spontaneous trapdoor construction, by the time I arrived in the summer of 2014, this once benign buffer zone had transformed into a kind of snack graveyard, home to pretzel crumbs, gummy bears, stray popcorn, spilled Tecate, and several bags of chips.

I’d like to examine the multi-year rat infestation that followed through the lens of what our founder refers to in donor presentations as “grass roots porosity”. It’s the philosophy that a small, nimble art space like Machine Project can be host, partner, and collaborator with a wide range of fellow art spaces, community groups, and institutions, creating a network that’s arguably more generative than those of better funded, but less porous institutions.

Figure 1: “Pro-Porosity / Grass Roots Culture”

Porosity is a liability for museums. While Machine Project’s vermin offerings were limited to Snyder’s pretzel rods and various gas station snacks, the sustenance provided by collecting institutions is far more valuable. Anthropological materials offer a protein rich food source, full of keratin, wood proteins, and plant matter. Works on paper can be considered simple sugars - easily digestible starches beloved by louse and silverfish. Painting offers a mixed diet - glues and varnish, wood and canvas. In anticipation of these threats, the borders of the institution are vigilantly policed. Giant freezers inoculate unseen intruders. Inspections and traps hunt for “visitors” like lady bugs and house flies, that can indicate a breach in security and become food for more malevolent vermin. Black lights scan for eggs and insect trails that warn of pending invasions.

Figure 2: Document Freezer at the Gilcrease Museum - Tulsa, OK

Figure 3: Insect trap collection at Gilcrease Museum - Tulsa, OK

To be clear, i’m not advocating for more rat-infested art spaces. Machine Project’s infestation was traumatizing. It demanded weekly visits from Karl The Exterminator to remove glue traps from the drop ceiling. I had a rat chew its way through the secret trapdoor in the upstairs apartment and fall some sixteen feet into the storefront. I saw rat tails dip low between the foamcore tiles, nearly brushing the heads of unsuspecting audience members below. Mice crawled over my feet as I attempted to run sound from the back of the theater. More traumatizing still was the constant, audible scurrying, the threat that at any moment the flimsy tiles would fall, unleashing the barely contained plague above.

Figure 4: Diagram of Machine Project Rat Migration

But with a year and a half of distance between me and the rats, I recognize that the conditions that enabled this gnawing torment are the same conditions that made Machine Project such a valuable resource for artists. It was a space where you could cut a trapdoor in the ceiling without hesitance, and install gold foam tiling without concern for the ensuing trash accumulation. Where a temporary basement theater could stay up for a few more years so other artists can use it. Where the solution to a three year rat infestation was removing the floor of the storefront entirely, then reinstalling it at a 30 degree angle to present a play.

I’m now living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, working at a museum with a giant freezer and insect traps, in an office that requires key-cards to access, where no food is allowed, and the trash is dutifully removed every night. I am protected here - a beneficiary of the museum’s commitment to preserve their collection in perpetuity, and a casualty of the fact that crumbs in my office could spell disaster for some Xth century manuscript stored a floor below. But from a public programming perspective, tasked with bringing the outside in, I can’t help wondering what it would look like to create some space here where a bit of infestation is tolerable. The only problem is how to keep it from spreading.

Lucas Wrench is a 2019 Tulsa Artist Fellow. He was Machine Project’s operations manager (2014-2017) and associate curator (2015-2017).

Machine Project was a place for artists to do fun experiments, together with the public, in ways that influenced culture. It happened at 1200 D North Alvarado, Los Angeles, CA 90026, and elsewhere, from 2003-2018.

Photos by Laure Joliet and provided by the artists.

#machine project #Long Riting #johanna hedva #lucas wrench

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whereiscaroline · 8 years ago

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer Saved My Life

When Buffy premiered on the WB on March 10th of 1997, I was a 6, almost 7, year old girl. I wish I could remember how or why Buffy caught my attention so young, but I’ve gotten older and with that my memory has gotten hazy. I can speculate though. I was a weird little kid.

Some of my favorite kids shows were of the more strange/unique variety like “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”, “AAAHH!!! Real Monsters”, “Power Rangers” and “Sailor Moon.” I, also, watched and loved “Animaniacs” which just so happened to be on the WB….so I have a feeling I saw a trailer for Buffy at some point. Also, being that I was raised by a single mother, I got away with a few things, like staying up to watch a teen show. But how or why I found Buffy really isn’t the point, what’s more important is that I stayed.

The first two seasons are a blur in my memory (though for some reason I clearly remember watching Spike get out of his wheelchair…don’t ask me why that one stands out…lol), but my love for all things Bangel is embedded deep within me. They were my first OTP. Being the strange little girl I was, I was also a hopeless romantic. Buffy and Angel’s love affair will always have a special place in my heart, for making it break so damn much!! It also gave me some of my first unrealistic expectations for future relationships. So thanks for that Joss! Lol.

While the first two seasons are hard for me to remember watching, Season 3 and beyond is as plain as day. Especially, the back half of Season 3. That’s when I started to escape into the show….

I didn’t have the greatest childhood, I spent a lot of it either in court or therapy. My parents divorced when I was 4, they were a volatile pair. They were both crazy and did their best to screw me and my 3 older sisters up. I won’t get into the personal details but they were bad…trust me…my mind took those memories and shut them behind an impenetrable door. So you would think my mother would have learned her lesson when it came to men…..

My mother re-married a man we hardly knew, just a couple days after my 9th birthday. The union was anything but happy. He was an alcoholic and they fought heavily. Sometimes yelling at the top of their lungs outside of the house. He even attacked me just a few months into the marriage. (I would like to point out that, after all this, I grew to connect heavily with the episode, “Ted.”) You would think she would have left him after that…..but she stayed with him another 3/4 years. What made matters worse during that time was my father continued to fight with my mom and I learned the truth of all that happened to me as a child.

Suffice it to say, 1999-2003 sucked beyond the telling of it.

And I needed an escape.

Buffy was that outlet for me. I couldn’t fight the demons plaguing me and my family…but I could watch Buffy fight hers. The show and the character were a beacon of light for me during an extremely shitty time. I could escape inside Sunnydale, where Joyce was my TV mom, Giles was my TV dad, and the gang were my TV friends. Buffy, however, was a lot more than just a TV friend.

She was/is my idol. My all-time favorite superhero. I wanted to be her. She had shit thrown at her all the time. Whether it took her an episode or a whole season, she would beat back the evil and become stronger for it. Being that I was just a child, I couldn’t deal with my problems yet. So I watched and learned from her. I sure as hell wasn’t going to learn those life lessons from my mother at the time.

Not only was Buffy my idol, but by extension Sarah Michelle Gellar was too! But unlike most young kids, I knew the difference between the two. And I loved them both for different reasons. I made sure to see all the movies/shows/music videos she was in (even ones, like Cruel Intentions, that weren’t kid appropriate) and buy anything related to her. My sister even gave this to me on my 9th Birthday…..

And once I got it, I found out the best news a 9 year old can learn….I turned to the last page with all the fun facts and something popped out at me…..

WE HAVE THE SAME BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I ran around the house yelling, “IT’S FATE,” over and over again. I felt even more connected to my favorite show and person.

As I have said, I have daddy issues. So I was happy to have that connection with Buffy and, as I found out when I was a little older, Sarah as well.

After my step-dad attacked me, my hatred for him was cemented deep. But since my mom didn’t leave him, I had to look at and be around him for years. Any chance I could fight and yell at him, I did. He made my blood boil. He became my own Big Bad. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t beat him. So I cherished my Tuesday nights with Buffy. It was only one night a week, but it got me through until the next episode/week.

It kept me sane.

And that’s my main point here, my sanity. With the mental issues I was just starting to deal with (due to what went on in the years I’ll never remember), coupled with the hell my mother was putting me through by staying married to a man I hated, I probably wouldn’t be here telling you this now.

The pain I kept inside during that time was unbearable. I desperately wanted to jump through my TV and be in a demon-infested town. I would have gladly taken that over what was happening inside my home. The happiness the show gave me took away that pain, even for just an hour. My mind could be clear of all the bad things life threw at me. It was my medicine.

Funny enough, in the fall of 2003 just a few months after Buffy ended, my mom decided to finally divorce him. Buffy came and went just when I needed it. Thankfully, I had all the DVDs for when all hell broke loose in High School…..but that’s another story for another day. But I will say it played a major role in my sanity during that time as well. But that is the way it will always be. It’s my comfy security blanket. When life is going wrong, I’ll just pop it in and escape all over again.

So here we are 20 years later…

I have a show I will never stop loving, that I base all my current shows against (it has to meet my Buffy standards if I’m going to commit to it), a show that molded me as a child and gave me valuable life lessons, a show that is still teaching me on every re-watch I do, a show that gave me many strong females to look up to both fictional and real, and most importantly saved me from the deep end. I really don’t know where or who I would be without it.

So thank you to anyone who wrote, directed, was a part of the crew in any way, starred in or just guested on the show, was an extra, whoever was involved in any way during the shows run….THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART…..

But I especially want to thank two people in particular…..

THANK YOU, Sarah Michelle Gellar, for portraying with such grace and strength, my favorite TV character and superhero of all-time. And for portraying yourself in real life with the same grace and strength. I am so glad I had you as one of my role models. I hope one day I will actually meet you, but I guess this thing that I got in 5th grade will have to tide me over until then….

And THE BIGGEST THANK YOU to Mr. Joss Whedon, you created this world and these characters and are partly responsible for raising me as a child. Yes that sounds weird, but you did. You taught me through your characters. You are one of the few writers that I have complete faith and trust in. I will follow you anywhere, sir. And if one day we meet, I apologize if I cry the entire time…lol.

HAPPY 20th ANNIVERSARY BUFFY!!!

Here are some Buffy related things I kept from over the years….

No joke when *spoiler* Buffy died the second time, I cried and tightly held on to the Buffy emblem piece from this game....lol...good times!

Another funny story...I totally stole this from step-dad’s daughter....she didn’t even like Buffy, she didn’t deserve to have it! I know, I know stealing is bad. I was just using this horrible piece of advice from Faith....Want. Take. Have. LOL!

This is the most interesting piece I have. It’s the best thing my father ever bought me (of course I pointed it out when he told me I could have anything I wanted in the store). I sadly lost the stake that went with the doll and I gave her a makeover. I thought she looked better with a skirt....I used staples by the way....I realize now that I should have left her alone, but hey she’s a lot more unique now...lol.

#Buffy the Vampire Slayer #BuffySlays20 #BtVS #My Buffy Story

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trazskil · 5 years ago

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Siharath

“Siharath!”

Nine days was all it took for King Girru’lm to reach Tü. Well, not him personally, but his influence was undoubtedly present. Nine days from his coronation to the time his army arrived there to terrorize our King and leave the city in shambles.

“Siharath, where are you?”

My mother shrieking my name in the background as I sat in the dirt in shock. My pointed ears heard perfectly, but my brain not registering all that was happening. I was about twelve back then. Helped my mother all around the home, especially when father was away at work. Just like he was then when King Girru’lm decided to introduce himself. When he got back, if he ever got back, he would have been left wondering what had happened to his home, where his family had gone.

“Siharath! Please, please! I need you.”

My brain finally decided to register what was happening. My head jerked in the direction of my mother’s screams and I saw just the last bit of her hair dragged into the darkness of a home that was not her own. My heart thudding against my chest and I lurched out of my sitting position and ran to my mother. I listened to her shout and slap at something metal then, as I approached the doorway, there was a loud thud, whether it was of my heart pounding in my ears or my mothers head, I was not sure. After the thud, there was a silence that seemed to last an eternity before cold laughter and the words, “I’ve always wanted to try it with an elvish woman.” spilled out of a deep voice and laughter from two others followed.

I turned the corner to see three men, heavily armored and tinted black, leaned over my unconscious mother who lay on the dining table. The middle guard grunted while his hips gyrated in a way I’d heard about, but never actually seen.

Hot anger filled my chest, made my heart beat so loud I was sure one of the soldiers was going to hear it. Hatred replaced wrath and I snuck inside the house and picked up a kitchen knife I found there.

Nervous about being caught, but confident they were too busy to care, or too arrogant to think that someone like me would even try anything. I used the abilities my father taught me when we went out to hunt. I crept up on them and waited until the moment was just right, then I lept from the ground, knife in a reverse grip in my palm, and drove it into the neck of the soldier in the middle and pulled it back out.

He stopped moving and slowly began to fall backward as I pulled on his armor. His friends, perplexed by what happened seemed to have forgotten where they were and stammered to draw their weapons. I bounded from the dead man’s body and sliced the hand of the soldier on the left and he let out a yelp as he grabbed his bleeding hand with his other and brought his head down to look at it. I took this opportunity to ram the blade into the soldier’s eye. He screamed, but not for long as I used his downward motion to bring his head to the floor and ram the knife into his brain.

The third and final soldier stared at me, his mouth gaping and his eyes just as wide. He had his war hammer in his right hand got ready to swing before I let out a horrible scream. Something so wild and terrifying, it made every hair on my body stand straight up. The soldier dropped his weapon and ran out of the room, shouting for help.

I let him leave and ran over to my mother who lay there, blood seeping from her temple from where the first soldier had struck her. I shook her gently, asking her to wake up. To wake up because we needed to move, we needed to get out of there while we had the chance. There was no reaction, so I began shouting at her, I poured cold water on her face, even slapped her soft cheek, something I would have never done in any other circumstance. But still, there was no response.

I felt under her nose and above her mouth, if there was any sign of breath, it was shallow and so uneven, I wasn’t sure if there was any at all. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do. Was my mother dead? That couldn’t be, the thud I heard couldn’t have been any harder than when I fell on my face while running and I was okay. Besides, I had come to her aid. I had saved her from those awful men in black armor who were… who were they anyway? Great Mother, who were those horrible people?

Answers to that could come later. Right then, I needed to wake up my mother and help her leave. I was strong for my age, but not that strong. But what else could I do? I tried and tried to lift her, to roll her over. I tried waking her up again, pleading with her this time, pleading as she plead with me not ten minutes before. Great Mother, had it only been that long? It seemed like hours had passed since I killed the two soldiers.

“Mother, please!” my voice sounded strained as I shouted, fighting back tears that already welled in my eyes.

“Mother, please!” came a mocking echo from a now darkened doorway. “You’re mother’s dead, boy.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes to be able to see who was standing there. It was another soldier, but this one was different. This one wore no helmet and his armor was decorated in red strips, accenting the different places where it bent and molded to his body. His hair was blacker than the night and his voice was nasally and sharp.

“Pick up the boy,” the soldier said to someone, most likely behind him. “Leave the bodies and burn them with the house. Last thing we need is some wendigo or vampiric infestation in our King’s new city.”

New city? What was he talking about? Tü was hundreds of years old and besides, it already had a ruler, Queen Piera. The finest in the land. The most gracious in the Land Between Worlds. Everyone knew of her, or at least that’s what father had said. I had to act fast, though, there was no way they were taking me and leaving my mother here to burn with those bastards. I picked up the war hammer the third soldier left behind and the soldier in the doorway laughed nasally before he turned to leave, shoving a thumb behind his shoulder at me.

“Bind him,” he snarled as five armored men with different weapons filed in the small two-room house. “He’ll make for a fine slave, once he’s tamed.”

At that moment, I knew defeat was inevitable, but I wasn’t just going to stand there and just let them take me. My father, if he were still alive, if they allowed him to live in the city again, would know of my bravery. He would see that I did my best, just like he always taught me. I moved carefully toward them, my hands half up in a surrendering posture. I stepped, one foot after the other, moving closer and closer to the quiver of arrows that the man who fell on the knife in his eye had strapped to his back. I was so close now, just a couple of steps more.

In one deft movement, I had two arrows, one for each hand the heads sticking out of the bottoms of my palms. I pounced and brought my fists down onto the middle guard’s neck when they stopped no more than an inch from his flesh. Something was blocking me. Before I could even process what had happened, I was flat on my back with an armored boot in my side. Crying out in pain, I reached for the fallen arrowheads, but before my fingers were in reach, I was turned around on my belly and bound quicker than I could count to three.

The five men laughed at me while I struggled to break free, but no amount of thrashing worked. Suddenly I was being lifted by my restraints and I yelped as they dug into the skin around my wrists and ankles and braced when I was thrown out the door and onto the thin layer of bloody mud just outside. I looked up, trying to wipe the residue from my face with my shoulder as the commander of the soldiers knelt over me. He took my face in his large hand as a smug smirk grew on his lips.

“You’re nothing but a slave now, boy. Do you hear me?” he asked.

I did not answer. I refused to look him in the eye.

“Your story,” the commander continued, “is no more than a period in the great book that will one day be scribed about King Girru’lm and his benevolent rule. Slaves are only a part of the economy, perhaps one day you will learn this truth and perhaps you will not. The truth is that I do not care either way, but you do care about your life, that is more than clear. If not your mortal body, then at least your image, your soul.” The commander paused to suck on his teeth, then stood as if to walk away.

“Your king is not mine,” I said. It was the only thing I could think of to say. “Nor will he ever be.”

The commander chuckled and turned away from me, but before he left, he said. “Perhaps not today, boy. But one day, we will all bow before his greatness.” He then signaled to his men and before I could say another word against him, a gag forced in my mouth and I was knocked unconscious.

The next thing I remember, I woke up in a mobile in a cage toddling down a dusty road somewhere in the Tahgettah desert. They branded me a slave and sold me to Baron Rehd Eir, where I spent the next nine years acting as his puppy to beat and order around, often for the most menial of tasks.

I realized what money does to people, especially when it is given instead of earned. The Baron and his family were all supporters of King Girru’lm and his rise to power and he showered them with gifts because of it. It showed not only on the inside of that horrible place that I can only loosely call a home but outside as well in Glosvee.

I prayed to the Great Mother daily, begged her to help me to leave that place. When no help came, she helped me realize that I needed to take matters into my own hands. Just as she does with the trees, and the rivers, and the stones of the earth; I needed to do the same in that mansion.

So little by little, I gathered information. I paid more attention to the Baron’s habits and those of his family, who also all treated me like vermin. The Baron ate dinner by himself every night except Credling when he would go out into the city and whore around. His wife drank herself to sleep almost every night and their children, each one more dreadful than the last, would all take turns having parties and orgies in the house which I was always setting up and taking down.

I stole just enough money to be able to pay for things that no slave should ever have. I paid for the whore that murdered Baron Rehd Eirs. I paid for the most potent alcohol to serve Lady Rehd Eirs only to drag her into such a drunken stupor that the only explanation for her fall off the balcony was accidental. And I paid for so much poison to lace every single cake and biscuit in the siblings next party that by the time I left no one ever knew what was happening.

I walked out of that prison a free elf. Not by earning what the “generous” Baron called wages to buy my freedom, but by taking destiny into my own hands. By planting seeds where there needed to be shade and showering them in rain until they sprung up and provided solace from the heat of a beating sun.

And now, I come to the Lighters to end what Girru’lm did to my family and so many others it is immeasurable. They will help me, as I will help them, to find the justice that has been buried so deep that no one could ever hope to find it. King Girru’lm will fall and the Barriers with him.

#fantasy worldbuilding writer author blogger fiction shortstory shortfiction writingpost

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edwingkvj628-blog · 6 years ago

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17 Superstars We'd Love To Recruit For Our Clear Air Dallas Mold Removal Team

Mold, generally known as mildew, is probably the most silently dangerous fungi during the planet. These can both equally cause a variety of wellness difficulties to animals and human beings. Not simply this, they distribute in the velocity of light and may even go unnoticed for months on finish.

Unfortunately, these fungi can vacation into your private home by means of your entrance door or home windows. They make by themselves into all the nooks and crannies in your house and stay there right up until they get so problematic that you just recognize them.

But, by then it’s normally much too late, they’ve currently performed their injury. Mainly because mold often becomes active in dark and damp parts of the dwelling like your attic or basement, chances are you'll not even understand that you are afflicted with a mold trouble.

Together with this, mold may make its way into your air ducts, HVAC program, ductwork, and vents. Using this in your mind, realizing ways to establish and take away mold from air ducts is important for those who choose to retain your self along with your household wholesome.

Listed here are a few responses on the most commonly encountered issues pertaining to removing mold from air ducts:

I’ve Received Mold Within the Air Vents In My Property What Do I Do Now?

Taking away mold in air vents is usually pretty challenging. Though quite a few continue to choose working with ozone, study indicates that this approach is harmful to the respiratory process and may trigger equally as considerably destruction because the mold itself.

Before you do anything at all in the least, you have to make 100% absolutely sure which the compound you think for being black mold is in fact that. This can be because the strategy of eliminating mold from air vents is not really only time-consuming but very costly.

In the event you do have mold in your air ducts, the most beneficial detail you can do is get in touch with while in the pros. A mold remediation professional will first inspect your private home and go ahead and take ideal methods to determine wherever every one of the mold is in your house and remove it.

Is Mold In My Air Vents A Wellness Hazard?

The brief response is certainly, pretty much so. Exposure to the mold infestation could potentially cause respiratory complications that can cause persistent coughing, sneezing, at the same time as nose and throat mucus.

Along with the above mentioned, you might find that your eyes get very irritable, and your skin may well start to swell and rash. Many others are afflicted by continual exhaustion when exposed to far too significantly mold and you will also find individuals who create serious complications and migraines.

While these signs could appear very mild, an overexposure to mold can cause allergic reactions. These reactions might be life-threatening. They include things like inner bleeding within the lungs and nose bleeds. Chances are you'll experience nausea or even extreme vomiting.

What Will cause Mold To Develop In My HVAC Process?

Mold grows in darkish and moist places which happens to be why you are going to generally see initially indications in locations like your rest room, especially if you do not have really superior ventilation. Other typical places for mold include attics, basements, and in cabinets with sinks.

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Obviously, a person of your most common destinations where by mold grows is in your HVAC system. That is because there exists a superior level of moisture and condensation. These two variables occur into play most often throughout the summer months months in the calendar year.

Any time you use the air conditioning through the summer time months, drinking water vapor may make its way within the air ducts. When the area where you live is quite humid, the h2o will continue to be caught within your system in place of evaporating like it commonly would.

How Am i able to Convey to If I have Mold In My Air Ducts?

Just one of the most obvious methods to know when there is mold with your air ducts is always to take a closer evaluate your vents and drip pans. In case you see mold in or all-around either of these, you almost certainly possess a mold dilemma.

One more method to find out when you've got mold with your air ducts is by using a fantastic sniff. In the event you smell mold in your home, you most undoubtedly have got a mold problem. In case you just want to be protected, it is possible to go up to your air ducts and breathe in to check out if you can smell everything unusual.

These indicators are early signals of the mold or mildew infestation and should be examined by a professional immediately so as to quarantine the specific situation.

What Are Indications Of Black Mold In My Air Ducts?

Though mold and mildew are very similar they do have some putting distinctions. Mildew is normally grey or marginally green and lies about the floor. Therefore it may be wiped off with some cleaning detergent as well as a cloth.

Mold, if still left untreated can change black, making it particularly perilous and poisonous. Black mold can release spores as it feasts on elements which have been natural and organic, by way of example, carpet, drywall, and insulation.

Regretably, the easiest strategy to determine when you've got black mold in your air ducts is by looking within them. Chances are you'll also see that the issue has gotten so bad that it's distribute to the wall your air duct is attached to. It really is common to get equipped to odor mold.

In the event the dilemma is deep inside your vents, you might not realize it is there. In some cases, it requires you or your family getting ill to learn that you've a black mold infestation in your house. The more intense indications outlined higher than are all related with black mold.

How To Clean Mold Outside of Ductwork And Vents?

Now that you recognize all the things you have to know about figuring out mold and black mold in your air ducts, it’s vital that you choose to find out how to fix the condition. In the event your mold difficulty is important, you ought to get in touch with while in the experts to have a look before you start out cleaning out your air ducts.

The skilled really should take a look at for mold all over the whole thing of one's house. This particular person will even explain to you when there is a existence of black mold.

As exterior particles keep on to travel through your air ducts, dust gathers, so getting a feeding ground for mold. Mold feeds off organic supplies, letting it multiply at an exponential rate.

In case your house is not infested with black mold, the exam continues to be value undertaking because it will convey to you in the event the focus of mold and mildew in your house is just too large.

Should you imagine your mold dilemma is containable, here is a action by phase guide that you choose to can follow to clean the mold from your ductwork and vents by yourself:

Find A very good Mold Removal Agent

You'll find numerous alternatives you should use to clean mold. The simplest and most cost-effective is always to use residence detergent combined with drinking water.

For those who want one thing a little bit more robust, incorporate a tablespoon of detergent with half a cup of baking soda and a single cup of drinking water to make your combination.

Another option is usually to blend 1 element bleach or a person element borax with a person gallon of drinking water. Around the other hand, in the event you really do not thoughts splashing the money a bit, you can acquire a business mold removal products.

Use Protection

While you can see from your facet consequences outlined earlier mentioned, mold is very toxic and cleaning away mold from this sort of confined areas shouldn't be taken flippantly.

Not only this, you are going to possible be working with chemical-based remedies to handle the condition and so really should do almost everything in your energy to reduce your exposure to all of these.

First of all, often don a N95 mask to undertake any work that consists of mold. Due to the fact mold can enter by means of cracks while in the skin, it's also advisable to use rubber gloves. We propose you furthermore mght dress in coverall and protecting eyewear.

You need to both get rid of or bleach these when the task is comprehensive to be able to minimize the likelihood of any additional contamination in your house.

Turn Off Your Program And Vacuum The Mold

Given that you have got secured by yourself and ready your cleaning remedy, you might want to use it on your vents. You can also permit it sit for the pair of minutes for making the scrubbing away component of this occupation that very little little bit less complicated.

Be certain that you scrub off each of the mold and use a towel that will be disposed of to clean away any leftover mold and resolution. As soon as you have cleaned the realm, vacuum your vents as well. Repeat this process as numerous times as necessary until finally every one of the mold is absent.

Destroy The Evidence

Once you have cleaned every thing, bag all of your clothing, gloves, respirator, and everything else which was used to clean away the mold. Eliminate these as immediately as you possibly can. It's also advisable to dispose of your furnace filters if these were being impacted by mold.

Use a Commercial Mold Inhibitor

These inhibitors can halt mold from increasing again inside your vents and ducts. Only purchase a product that is definitely EPA-registered and use it to the entirety of your respective air vents even though subsequent the manufacturer’s guidelines.

Maintain Your Vents

Given that you've tackled the challenge, it is essential you hold a close eye on it to be able to halt the mold from developing back. Whilst mold in these parts will not be unusual, when you detect it coming back in just 48 hours, the chance is, there is a damp trouble.

Make use of a dehumidifier and make sure that your ductwork is properly insulated right before calling during the industry experts. If your dilemma persists, simply call a specialist to identify why the mold retains on rising again.

How To Clean Mold From Air Conditioner Vents And HVAC Techniques?

As you can clean mold from your air conditioner vents and HVAC procedure utilizing the strategy above, there are particular things you have to think about when endeavor the task oneself, these are generally:

Reach Many of the Different Components

If you do not attain many of the distinctive factors inside your air conditioner vents or HVAC program, you are going to not eliminate all mold removal dallas the spores, hence giving them enough time and area to develop back within just just a pair of days.

A Cloth Or Mop Won’t Do The Trick

Although many just wipe away mildew and mold hoping that it does the trick, the mold will grow again. As https://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/?query=house vent cleaning a way for your problem to stay contained, you've to remove all the spores by making use of a killing agent. Each of the solutions described above can get the task completed if utilized the right way.

Replace Your Insulation Vents

When the above do-it-yourself solutions are perfect at fighting mold, for those who have insulated vents, the spores will probable not all be eradicated. To make sure that every one the mold is absent you'll have to totally switch your insulated vents.

Inspect Your Process Carefully

As you have cleaned your HVAC technique and replaced the sections that require changing, you'll want to undertake a full inspection. What this means is the within of your respective heating process or furnace needs to be checked along with the coils so that you can make sure every one of the mold has become remediated.

#Air ducts #Duct Cleaning #Bacteria #Dust

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lifeastoldbympm · 7 years ago

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A Day in the Life...Mango Edition

Disclaimer: I struggled deciding weather to make this public or not because I didn’t want to portray my current mission work as terrible or not worth it in any way..That being said, I feel its important to share the real, raw experiences of my international work in order to educate and minister to the folks back home.. so before reading this, know that I am thankful and happy to be here in Mango helping those in need and doing God’s work and though it is hard here, I know there is no where else I am meant to be more than here right now.

0530am: I wake to get in a cold shower to wash off the sweat and bugs from a night of sleeping with the windows open, under the direct air of 2 fans..In the states I would have made an annoyingly high-pitched noise at the sight of a beetle in my kitchen, here I swipe 5 or 6 of them off my bed before plopping into the middle, still sticky from the mile bike ride home in the dark and mud. I brush my teeth with the water from my water bottle, careful to remember not to rinse my brush in the sink where the water is infested with bacteria and parasites..(the same water I just showered in). Then begin to dress first in leggings, then in ankle long skirt, then t-shirt and tennis shoes. Because its pouring outside I’ll need to pack an entirely different outfit to change into after my bike ride to the hospital and be sure to put all my belongings in a plastic bag so they stay dry while riding shot gun in my basket for the journey. I’m sure to grab my flashlight both incase the hospital power is off all shift like it was the other day and also for the night bike ride home. Then I head off in the storm..literally.

0630: The bike ride begins down a paved main road. Normally I pass ladies selling various items from trays atop their heads and naked kiddos running about yelling “Bonjour!” Men sitting around chatting or herding livestock here and there, but on days like today when the rain beats down, the only souls in sight are the trucks you're trying to steal clear of as the blow their horns behind you to warn they're speeding by. Once I make it through the round about, I pray HARD for my thigh muscles to push the pedals forward one by one until I see the gas station which is my cue to turn off onto the dirt road on the right. From here on, my ride is a bit off a game of frogger meets Africa. As I trudge forward through the rain, I struggle to avoid pot hole after pot hole while also attempting to decipher the firm mud from the thick muddy sand that I will instantly sink in if I hit it. Most of the time I can make it to the end of this bit before I have to get off and walk my bike about 15 feet due to a thick patch of sand/mud. Today its even worse because its sand/mud/a flowing river of rain water..Once through there I’m on the home stretch to the hospital. This road, like the previous one, is full of pot holes, thick sand, and today..water. Unfortunately, today, at this moment, I discover that for the remainder of the way I will also need to walk my bike because my tires are now too flat to hold my weight and allow me to cycle through the roads as they are.. I start to say a plethora of ugly, frustrated remarks as I trudge...

0710: I finally make it onto hospital grounds where I burst into the cafeteria soaked from head to toe despite my rain jacket and slip into the bathroom to change. I am sure not to make eye contact with a soul for fear I may spew the fury I’ve built during my commute. Once dry, I slip back onto my wet bike and cycle over to the hospital to begin my shift.

0730: Its a typical day at the hospital. My assignment is 7 kids all under the age of 8, all but 2 have severe malaria. I make my way around assessing them as the scream in fear of the white person. Every one of them has a fever over 101.5.. Every one of them has to be brutally held down and force fed paracetamol in hope that they don't rise to a temp of 107.6 and begin seizing uncontrollably like the girl in the ward next door that was my patient just yesterday.

0900: In the midst of caring for my kiddos I’m called away because we have a 2 year old in Rea (the ED) that is unconscious and not breathing and they need me to try and get a line..I try twice before I find myself giving compressions while also instructing the local nurse aid on how to give breaths with the ambu-bag and the MD tries with all her mite to use a 20g IM needle as an IO to give epi.. this goes on for 45 minutes before we call time of death and I swaddle the sweet boy in the panga cloth he was brought in with and let his mom say her goodbyes.

The rest of the shift continues like this...attempting to stay ahead of temperatures and seizures due to malaria, bowel perforations due to typhoid fever, DIC due to snake bites...we are continuously coding or nearly coding someone, somewhere...usually its a child and usually it ends the same way.. Today I am thankful that the power is on so at least the families can pay and go home to grieve...the other day when the power was off they had to stay and wait to pay for the care of their deceased child. Its also much easier to notice a child not breathing or seizing when there is light...

By the time 1900 roles around, I am covered in my own sweat, someone else bodily fluids of some sort, and likely about 10 more mosquito bites but I’ve still got the ride home.

1930: I try to tape my flashlight to the front of my basket for light but the first slight pothole I hit, it falls to the ground and the batteries come out the back. I resort to holding it while riding again.. the road is still wet and slippery but I manage slowly but surely back the way I came just in the dark this time. As I push forward, the distant calls to prayer from the mosques surround me, echoing each other from ahead and behind, creating a jumbled mix of chanting and sirens that creep me out as I count down the pedal pushes until I reach my gate.

2030: Once home, I make myself a PB&J for dinner and take another cold shower to rinse all the day off. Dinners are very small because there are no proper stores here to buy things to cook and the only provided meal I can make it to, due to my 12hr shifts, are the lunches on hospital grounds. The rest of the night is spent usually brushing up on tropical medicine treatments and chatting with loved ones back home via FaceTime. Thank God for technology.

2200: Before bed I am sure to take my doxycycline to ensure I too don't get malaria and then I again brush the beetles from atop my bed and pass out praying for the sick and hurting here in Mango and that God will give me strength to be the best nurse possible for them tomorrow...and to make it through another bike ride in..ha!

I have been here a little over a week. Some missionaries have been here for years doing these type days constantly..pray for them BIG TIME. Also understand that we, as missionaries, have it GOOD in having days like this as the locals have MUCH bigger hurdles and struggles in their days and this is their lives, this is their home...Pray for them as well. Again I am just thankful to be a part of this and to be able to help in some small way. God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.....I have been molded by God in so many ways to be here in this place right now.. At the end of the day, it truly is exciting and comforting to know that you are where you're meant to be, doing what you're meant to do.

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kvrizv · 8 years ago

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April 23, 2017 | 10:09 p.m.

Oh, where to begin…

This really isn’t my typical social media platform of choice, but everything else from my preferred list has a limit to the the amount of characters you can use (yes, even Instagram) and Facebook is for the fake front you put on for family and casual friends you’ll pretend to remember at high school reunions. So Tumblr it is…

Life is messy. I don’t know how else to put it in simple terms that will encompass everything, but life is messy. So is “my room” right now and that’s what makes it the perfect setting.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t really “my room,” but temporary lodging while my “old room” is more than likely going to have the walls torn out and made a mess of the space I tried so hard to make cozy. It has mold. Enough mold to where the apartment complex has made me and my three other roommates all relocate across this accursed place. We were told this Thursday after one roommate put in a work order to try and fix the mold that had run rampant in her room. At first they said we wouldn’t have to move everything out and it would only take seven to ten days max for them to “fix the problem.” That was Thursday.

Friday is when they told us that it would take potentially up to two weeks for them to fix everything and make it possible for us to move back in. Big difference from the seven to ten days they mentioned prior. So now I’m packing up everything I can before we had to be out by Monday and would no longer be able to access our old apartment or our old rooms. It’s one thing to pack when it’s planned, but it’s a whole other thing when you’re being told to move with only a few days to process what’s going on and get prepared. It’s a whole other thing when you have to question everything you brought into your room and whether it has mold growth or mildew on it and if it can even be repaired, saved or will have to be thrown away like meaningless garbage.

Friday is also when I had a live music show to throw and execute after hyping it up damn near since the last one a month ago. The line up was perfect. I had booked four out of the five performers myself and was hoping this would be the one thing that wouldn’t go wrong this week. It’s amazing how quickly your hopes can get squished. The DJ was late. Not just for sound check, but the beginning of the event. Now, this wouldn’t be an issue, but at the last show in March one of the performers had canceled on me the day of the performance, maybe two hours prior to sound check. The people running the venue weren’t impressed because they thought we were starting late intentionally and had wasted their sound technician’s time. So this is the second time we’re starting late and we couldn’t even run sound check on time because the DJ had some of the equipment we used to help balance out the sound quality of the show. Trust me, it was necessary he be there for sound check if this event was even going to come close to running smoothly. I know the head barista at the venue was not impressed in the slightest and rightfully angry. But it wasn’t aimed at the DJ, but me, the one who essentially serves as the representation of the people putting this together. It’s a great feeling when you know people are upset at you for other people’s actions you couldn’t help or control. But that’s been a constant feeling at the work place, but that’s a whole other thing entirely separate from this paragraph. People seemed to have a good time though, but I still felt like I let other people down.

All the while I’m having to move out of my apartment and run this show, my car begins to have more problems. The worst part is that it’s not like this is anything new. This is the third incident in less than six months where something’s wrong with the car. First it was a $500+ fix during winter break, then it was nearly $200 to get the starter replaced during spring break, and now the battery was acting up. Thankfully, my mom had gotten a warranty on the battery when we bought it last time, so it didn’t cost anything when we had to get it replaced. But tell me why 24 hours after getting the battery in my car replaced that the brand new battery dies right in the middle turn lane in front of the Walmart in town? I was just trying to get a loofah and some shower rings for the new apartment I had to move into because my old one has mold infesting it, but instead of a hot shower I get a dead car in the middle of a busy 5-lane street. Thankfully a kind stranger pushed my car while I steered my dead car into the gas station that was right there.

But how come all this had to happen all at once? How come this all had to happen over the time span of only 72 hours roughly?

I should be working on end of semester projects, studying for finals, trying to wrap up my first semester in a new position at my work place. But instead I’m sitting at the desk in a new room that’s littered with boxes of stuff that I need to unpack and organize all the while my car is sitting overnight in a gas station halfway across this little town. I already had to bail on my weekly radio show tonight and was even going to have guests come in to talk about all kinds of awesome things and just have a good time. But my phone died probably 20 minutes after my car did and I had no way of reaching out to anybody after that.

Thankfully, I was able to call my mom and she made her way back to town to help. Thankfully, I was able to text a friend and he headed right over to help without me even having to ask him to. Thankfully, I had two incredible friends who were able to give me a ride to the show on Friday and take me home afterwards. Thankfully I got a few friends who have reached out to offer support and well wishes and make sure I was okay.

I’m not okay and my ex suggests I talk to someone, but she only popped back up after I subtweeted her during a vent session on Twitter. [EDIT - Sentence omitted after further discusdion, but still uneasy *Yeezy shrug*]. I’m just tired. I’m tired of opening up to people that are only temporary and only care casually when they need you to do something for them. Yes, I have trust issues, but with my experiences and interactions I feel like it’s warranted. I‘m tired of pretending to be okay when I’m not, because people don’t know how to deal with me when I’m anything but cheerful. But people don’t realized how depressed I feel every single day, because I’ve had years of practice of hiding that and put on a pleasant front so people will feel better. So they won’t feel how I feel so often. And I don’t know who to talk to about this. I talked to a counselor when my parents first divorced, and he was a biased prick with an agenda, so I don’t trust counselors. I’m still learning to trust my mom again after calling her out on the secrecy of her actions that had been going on for a year or so, but she felt like I didn’t need to know. Even a person I use to actively call my best friend couldn’t help me when another friend of mine died in a car accident. I just needed someone to tell me everything was going to be okay, but it seemed more like he wanted to change the subject and wasn’t willing to just try and listen at a point when I wish it was me that was in that car and not my friend.

People have told me lately I say “thank you” too much, but considering the standard of people I’m use to dealing with, even the little things mean the world to me. And that’s why I keep going. I keep going for the people who have helped lift me up out of the darkest depths of my mental state and make me want to make them proud. I do it for the people who see something in me that I don’t see in myself and want to see me succeed and help me do that. I do it for 13-year-old me that just wanted to die damn near everyday because he didn’t see a reason to keep going, but didn’t have the courage to go through and actually harm himself in some way.

Honestly, I thought this was going to be some long winded rant that ended with me cursing everything that’s happened over the last three or four days, but I feel like putting it all out there has really helped me feel better right now. And who knows, maybe this will help someone else going through a similar situation. I mean, that’s what I do it for. I just want to be the person 13-year-old me needed during that time.

It’s nearly an hour later and I think it’s time I do a little more cleaning and organizing, take a shower and try to get some sleep before it’s back to work, classes, projects, people and everything else that comes with my life. Yeah, I hate it a lot of the times, but then there’s moments like these that allow me to reflect on the little things and appreciate them a little more.

So thank you to the people who reached out to make sure I was okay. I really do mean it when I say that you have no idea how much I appreciate it. But who knows, maybe if you read this you’ll have a better understanding.

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makelovetoyourpoison-blog · 8 years ago

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Chelation, breath, pits and involuntary bowel movements

So now that you’ve had time to process my introduction I want to dive right into my last entry before the hospital. Discuss a bit of the uglier side of the everyday struggles of living with chronic illnesses and working towards healing. I also feel like discussing issues with doctors and treatments are necessary. I found a comprehensive medicine doctor in New York City who was willing to detox me. He told me we should wait until I know if I’m infested with mold before I start treatment ( chelation therapy ) because mold and metals can cling onto each other and not only make detoxing from one without helping the other more dangerous but more so ineffective . I was cleared for treatment by the nurse at the practice. The treatments are brutal. It’s similar to chemotherapy in the aspect that it takes the good and bad out of your body. I have never felt more drained and ill in my life. Chelation is essentially pumping your body with toxins to take out toxins. I know what you’re thinking "WHAT?!" Yeah. It’s a backwards system. Now of course there’s natural methods for this but sometimes it’s not so easy to research and to wait so long for results. Holistic treatments usually take a while before you start to see progress and I was getting impatient. My parents and I decided to move forward with chelation treatments. I got three treatments over a two week period and they were far more aggressive than anything I’ve ever experienced. From the involuntary crying for an hour, to the dizziness, nausea, excruciating pain, confusion and rage that ensued I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. I left my first treatment out of my mind. My perception was off, my vision blurred, I could barely walk. I clung onto my mom for dear life. However, my parents were very set on treatment and I can understand why. Watching your kid suffering for so long and feeling like you finally found a solution must be hard to let go of when you see it’s not working well. They convinced me it was going to get worse before it was going to get better. Sometimes that is the reality of treatment so I stayed on board with trying it again. I was committed to bettering myself so I told myself this was it. This is how I was going to heal. Second treatment still felt like torture but I let it slide. Talked myself through it. Told myself this is only temporary and I would feel the benefits soon but there was a little voice in the back of my head telling me this is not a good idea. I ignored it. The third treatment I felt like I could kill someone from the pain alone. I couldn’t even comprehend the amount of pain I was in and I expressed to my parents that I didn’t know if I could handle this specific method. They knew my reaction to the treatment wasn’t just getting worse before getting better. It was just hurting me and there was zero benefit. I have high C4A levels which usually directly correlates with mold or Lyme and the other illnesses that could correlate with it came up negative in blood work. Since my Lyme test – came up negative he assumed I had mold toxicity. Which means I shouldn’t have been cleared in the first place. A clear miscommunication between my doctor and his nurse. However when I went to the hospital I was told there’s no mold in my system confirming that Lyme is coming up as false negatives. The problem with Lyme is it hides in your body. It is one of the most difficult illnesses to detect. Also from doing lots of research at the hospital I found out about the MTHFR genetic mutation something I have yet to be tested for but would make perfect sense for my physical ailments. It’s directly correlated to fibromyalgia, adrenal fatigue, heavy metal poisoning, and more, it’s where you’re missing certain compounds so your body is unable to excrete poison naturally so when you get chelation, the treatment debilitates you because the poison cannot leave through that method, it just recycles in your body. There are so many elements to chronic illness which is why it takes years to get a diagnosis, but one thing I’ve learned from my hospital stay is I have the power to heal myself. Getting a diagnosis is important for multiple reasons but relying on doctors will not save me. I can and will be my own hero. I will be the savior of my life’s story. No one can take that away from me. That motivated me to move forward with researching more natural treatments. Which I will touch on in future blogs. There’s lots of clues I started catching on to after the chelation treatments so as horrible as they were , they were necessary. I think there is beauty and lessons in all the lows it’s just about allowing yourself to fully see and acknowledge them. This is an excerpt out of my last journal entry before the hospital about a month ago. “I noticed that the metals usually excrete out of my face and arm pits. I get a lot of large red bumps on my face and my armpits smell like middle aged bean burritos with salsa left out in the sun for WAY too long most days. I knew something was shifting when my skin was clearing up, my pits smelled fine without deodorant and when my mouth tasted and smelled like rusty car parts and blood. The metallic taste in my mouth is over powering and I don’t even want to breathe or speak out loud because I don’t want myself or anyone to smell this cesspool of poison. I realize now that I’ve been sick for way longer than I’ve acknowledged because I’ve always struggled with my breath smelling and tasting quite odd, and my skin looking over run with craters and well the arm pits having their own agenda (my apologies to anyone that has dated me and reads this, the smells were out of my control). I remember being 21 about to go on a date , brushing my teeth and drowning my mouth in mouth wash to still find this unwavering metallic taste lingering . I remember being super embarrassed about my breath but also confused. I was always big on hygiene. I flossed, brushed three times a day, used mouth wash, a tongue scrapper and ate healthy but I was still missing what was right in front of me. The poison. Since were on the topic of bodily fluids and looks and scents that can be considered more on the disgusting side but to me it’s just a normal Tuesday I wanted to add in one more. Sporadic Involuntary bowel movements. I don’t know if I’ve ever read anyone’s personal story about this but it’s something that needs to be discussed. I am sure I’m not the only person in the world struggling with this. I was reminded of it when I shit myself in the shower today unexpectedly. Instead of getting angry at my body, crying and feeling sorry for myself as I would of in the past, I just allowed it to be. I cleaned what I could and had some help. This is something I’ve been struggling with for the past six months or so. In the summer it was horrible, maybe the heat? I’m unsure. To some degree I don’t know what provokes my body and why it randomly gets better on its own but I’m learning to be okay with it. I had an accident about two or three times a month starting in June and then it started to calm down in September. I was scared to go out but I would anyway because I knew I would be on my own side and clean myself up when it happened and if I had a friend with me who would comfort me through it , I would be okay. I love summer and I needed an escape from my suffering. I shit myself at water parks, at beaches, even at my house just not being able to make it to a bathroom in time, I would go on dates and pray that I could just kept my body intact for a night. I would never dream of shiting myself by accident at 23 years old and above all learning how to just accept that this is just a symptom of my suffering. Of course there was initial embarrassment, a feeling of discomfort, anger and sadness but I came to learn that this is just life and an added component to all of your vital organs being infested with poison. My body needed me to be understanding, compassionate and loving. My body did not need judgement, hatred or embarrassment for simply handling releasing the poison within however it chose to. Today I made love to my poison. Today I reacted in a loving manner to my body’s impulsive actions. I kept rubbing my stomach and telling myself its okay. I apologized to myself for not having control over that aspect of my body yet and I felt calm and accepting. I cleaned myself up and moved on with my day. It didn’t ruin my day, it didn’t shift my mood. It was just an obstacle and I made the choice to love myself through it.” If anyone else struggles with this I know how hard it is but it really does get better. Be gentle, remain compassionate, and reassure your body that things will shift. Make love to your poison and the poison leaves. Be the best friend you can possibly be to yourself.

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