#and i guess this means I probably should have a real counseling session or whatever

[lemonsharks]

Just learned that

Apparently most people...don't...have near constant tinnitus that contributes to sensory overload and makes it difficult to process things like speech

[olliedollie1204]

the kids are alright

AKA, Kai will see Elliott and ask “Is anyone going to adopt that?” and not wait for an answer

Edit: now also on AO3!

Characters: Kai, Elliott, Emile Picani, Larry and Dot (mentioned)

Words: 2,354

(A/N: I read both Elliott and Kai as being older teenagers, with Elliott being like 17/18 and Kai being 19/20? That might not be accurate but that’s the vibes for this.)

As soon as Kai pushed his way through the glass door, he started the process of freeing himself from the ridiculous amount of safety gear he had to wear while skateboarding.

Off came the elbow pads, knee pads, and wrist guards, which he dumped unceremoniously in his backpack; then he undid his helmet, the black and purple gradient one that Lauren got him when he told her he was gonna take up skating again. That, he tucked under his arm for safekeeping, grabbing his board with his other hand as he made his way down the hall to Picani’s waiting room.

Kai didn’t know how many patients the quack doctor had; enough to keep his business from shutting down, he guessed, but he’d never even seen another person in the building at any of the sessions he’d been to already.

So the sight of someone actually sitting on the waiting room couch made Kai freeze in his tracks.

The other person— around Kai’s age, maybe a little younger— had their eyes on their phone, and made no outward reaction when Kai appeared in the doorway; but Kai was way too suspicious of everything around him to not pick up on the way the kid’s eyes flicked towards him for less than a second before returning to their phone, or the way their thumb was moving across the screen too fast and haphazard for them to actually be doing anything.

They were nervous, Kai suddenly realized, because he’d shown up, and now the two of them were alone in a tiny waiting room of a therapist’s office.

Ah, fuck. Kai hated knowing people were uncomfortable. His social anxiety wasn’t quite like that, but he’d certainly seen enough of his friends go through it to know that this encounter was ticking a lot of boxes: in tight quarters, with a stranger, in a vulnerable setting, in silence.

Well, Kai never had much of a filter anyway, so he might as well try to relieve some of the tension in the room.

“Sup,” he offered, dropping onto the other end of the couch, leaving the cushion in the middle empty as a buffer space. The kid nodded politely, pulling their backpack up onto their lap and hugging it against their chest. Kai caught a glimpse of a ‘they/them’ pronoun button on their bag.

He felt a release of breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Thank fuck, another one.

“Did the Doc double book his appointments or something?”

Kai pretended not to notice the way the kid jumped slightly before looking at him, hesitant and confused.

“I’m sorry?”

Kai gestured towards the door. “I’m his 11 o’clock. What’re you in for?”

The kid faltered for a second before holding up a crumpled stack of papers in their hand. “I, um, just need to drop off some paperwork.”

“You had to do that in person?” Kai asked. Too late, he realized the words were kind of unnecessarily hostile, but, well, he wasn’t a people person, so he didn’t know what the fuck he should be doing better, okay?

Luckily, the kid didn’t seem too bothered, merely looking down at their lap and picking at their nail polish.

“Uh, he asked me to? I was gonna email them but he said he doesn’t have a computer, so…” They trailed off, apparently not knowing how to finish the sentence.

Kai furrowed his brow. “How does he advertise his shit without a computer? That just seems like a bad business practice.”

They shrugged. “I mean, I guess word of mouth is good enough. Um, my friend told me about him, but I don’t actually know where she heard about him.”

“Same,” Kai replied. “My girlfriend made me come here at first, but she never told me how the fuck she found him. Probably some magic newspaper ad— ‘The person you need is Emile Picani’, or some dumb shit like that.”

The kid huffed a small laugh. “Was that— was that a Nanny McPhee reference?”

“… Huh,” Kai replied after a moment. “Yeah, it was. Didn’t think you’d recognize it.”

Again the kid shrugged, but now there was a small smile on their face. Kai grinned back, leaning against the stiff couch and kicking one leg on the table as he bounced his other leg against the floor.

“I’m Kai,” he said, lazily throwing up a peace sign. The kid blinked in surprise.

“Um, Elliott. Nice to… meet you,” they finished awkwardly.

“Same,” Kai replied, nodding. The room fell silent for a couple beats before he continued, “Still, no computer. I mean, Jesus, get with the times, man!”

“Probably doesn’t have one because he spent all his money on stuffed animals and Funko Pops,” Elliott muttered. The quip came fast, and Kai let out a huff of surprised laughter. Fuck, yes. Now this was something he wanted to talk about.

“Okay, I have to ask you this, because no one else will fucking get it,” he blurted, turning so he was facing Elliott more directly. They looked at him with slight apprehension as Kai leaned closer.

“What is his deal with cartoons?”

A beat, and then a slightly exasperated half-smile formed on Elliott’s face. “I know. It’s like, I assume he went to school for, you know, counseling or whatever, but he only knows how to explain things through kids’ shows? Like, how did you even get your degree? Or your license?”

Kai nodded. “I mean, I guess it makes sense. That hyper ass motherfucker practically is a cartoon character. Like, you know how he literally sings when he walks in the room? Who fucking does that?”

“Yes!” Elliott’s smile finally broke through completely. “Yes, oh my God, yes. And have you noticed the way he’s, like, incapable of sitting still? Like, he practically bounces all over the place, he throws his arms and legs everywhere, and his face—” 

“Oh, way too many facial expressions, for sure,” Kai finished. “Oh! Oh, and sometimes he’ll, like, scrunch his nose up and stick his tongue out when he’s taking notes or whatever? Like—” 

Kai demonstrated, making Elliott snort with laughter. Kai started laughing, too— it wasn’t a particularly funny impression, but something about the dissipating awkwardness in the room made laughter come easier.

“And you can’t talk about any other form of media with him, because he won’t get it!” Elliott continued, their voice brightening throughout the conversation. “Like, anime? Never heard of it.”

“Video games are a bust, too,” Kai added. “Unless it’s, like, ‘Steven Universe: Save the Light’ or some shit.”

Elliott paused before sheepishly holding up a finger. “Actually, I’ll give him that one. My first real session, he, uh, he talked about Steven Universe for an hour, and— I don’t know, it’s not that bad.” They shrugged again, suddenly timid again.

Kai blinked. Backtrack, dumbass, backtrack. “No, yeah, I— I actually think the shit he talks about is… you know, it can be good, or whatever. Helpful.”

Ugh, fuck, that was embarrassing. Even though Kai could admit that Picani’s methods weren’t completely insane, he didn’t wanna share the intimate details of why he was there with someone he just met, even though Elliott seemed like a pretty cool kid.

He was just starting to visualize the letters WWLD in his head— What Would Lauren Do?— but thank fuck, the two of them were saved from any more awkward apologies by Picani’s office door swinging open. Kai slumped even further in his seat, while out of the corner of his eye he saw Elliot go ramrod straight.

A kind looking couple walked out of the office, holding hands and speaking quietly to themselves.

“Alright, Dorry, I’ll see ya next time!” The doctor’s cheerful voice carried into the waiting room as the couple left.

Eliiott darted their eyes to Kai, mouthing, ‘Dorry?’

‘Like the fucking fish?’ Kai mouthed back, making Elliott snort. The noise made Kai struggle to stifle his laughter in the otherwise silent waiting room, and suddenly the two of them were folding in on themselves, hands pressed over their mouths in a weak attempt at keeping quiet.

“Well, hey there, Thing One and Thing Two!”

Kai and Elliott snapped their heads up in unison, looking to where Picani was leaning in the doorway.

“I’m sorry for the wait, but I must say, I’m so happy to see you two smiling for once!” The doctor giggled, smoothing his tie and giving them both a knowing look.

Kai glared at him, opening his mouth to deliver some scathing retort, but he was interrupted by Elliott practically jumping off of the couch.

“Here’s the paperwork you asked me to bring.” They thrust their arm out to Picani, who took the papers and carefully smoothed out their wrinkles.

“Ah, thank you, Elliott! Kai, you mind hanging tight in my office for a second?”

Kai nodded wordlessly, gathering his bag and his skateboard and brusquely moving past the others into the small office. He dropped onto the couch, his bag hitting the ground with a weighty ‘thud’, as he tried not to eavesdrop too much on Picani and Elliott in the hallway. ‘Tried’ being the keyword, since they were about two feet away from the door, and Picani was a loud motherfucker.

“Thanks for bring this in for me, Tinkerbelliott!”

“That barely makes sense,” Elliot’s voice interrupted, and Kai smirked to the empty room. Get his ass, Elliott.

As the conversation continued, Kai let the rise and fall of their voices wash over him. He tried to get into his “whatever” mindset, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the kid in the waiting room.

It was like he and Elliott had some instant fucking connection or anything cheesy like that. They weren’t platonic soulmates, and honestly, it didn’t even seem like they had that much in common. But as Kai sat there, lazily rolling his board back and forth under his feet, he couldn’t help but think about all the crazy shit Picani put him through, and how talking about it with someone who really got it was… kinda fun, or whatever.

“So sorry for the wait, Agni Kai!”

Picani’s chipper voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and suddenly there was the Doc himself, shooting him a friendly smile as he made his way behind his desk.

“I’ve just been busier than a Mighty Bee this morning,” he rambled, sliding Elliott’s paperwork into a file while still managing to talk with his hands. “But I promise, starting this second all of my attention is on you. So!” he finished, folding his hands on the desk and looking at Kai expectantly. “What’s up?”

Kai looked at him for a few seconds before standing, the abrupt movement startling Picani and making him jump back in his rolly chair.

“Kai—?” 

“I’m taking this,” Kai stated, snatching a pen from the cup on his desk before Picani could respond.

“Oh! Um, ok, just be careful because it’s a glitter gel pen—” Picani’s voice got quieter as Kai swung himself out of the office, hoping he could catch Elliott without having to try and run.

Thank fuck, as he turned down the main hallway, he caught a glimpse of a figure dressed mostly in black halfway to the front door.

“Yo, Elliott, hold up!”

They froze for a moment before turning around to face Kai, curiosity and wariness lining their face.

When he got closer, Kai pointed to the folded paper Elliot was holding. “Is that important?”

“Um, no, not really— ah.” They cut themselves off as Kai snatched the paper out of their hand. “Okay.”

Kai didn’t respond as he flipped the paper over, leaning against the wall to scribble something on the back.

“You got Instagram?”

A beat, and then Elliott nodded. Kai finished with a flourish, underlining what he’d written despite it being the only thing on the paper, and passed it back to Elliott.

“Here. Follow me, I’ll follow you back,” he said as Elliott read his messy scrawl, their mouth dropping just slightly.

“Oh!” There was a distinct tone of surprise in their voice, which Kai didn’t comment on. They folded the paper in half and held it tightly in their fist. “Um, thanks, Kai. I’ll— I’ll do that as soon as I get home.”

Kai nodded. There was just a beat of awkward silence before he spun on his heel, walking casually back to Picani’s office.

“Later,” he called over his shoulder, not looking back.

“Um, yeah!” Elliott replied in a voice that clearly wasn’t used to yelling. “Later! Bye!”

Kai heard the front door open and close again by the time he reached Picani’s waiting room. He swung around the corner, feeling uncharacteristically optimistic for his session, but barely stopped himself before he collided with the good doctor himself.

“Woah! Watch out, Speed Racer!” Picani chirped, looking down at Kai. “Thought you were trying to make a run for it.”

Kai rolled his eyes before setting his gaze somewhere over the other man’s shoulder. “I left literally all of my shit in your office, obviously I was coming back.”

“Well, you just left in a real hurry, is all!” Picani replied, reaching up to straighten his tie. His voice went strangely neutral as he continued to ask, “Did you need to talk to Elliott before they left?”

Kai’s eyes flicked back to the doctor’s face, and— ugh, fuck, Picani was looking at him with that annoying sort of half-smile he always got when he thought Kai had reached some stupid ‘breakthrough’.

Kai flushed, folding his arms across his chest. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Picani—” 

“Nothing!” Picani replied with faux-innocence, putting his hands up defensively. “Just nice to see you making a friend, that’s all.”

Kai groaned, rolling his eyes so hard they nearly got stuck in the back of his head.

“Don’t be weird, man,” he grumbled, pushing past Picani into his office. He pretended not to hear the doctor’s amused chuckle as he followed him in, gently shutting the two of them in for what Kai was certain would be yet another absolutely ridiculous (yet unfortunately helpful) therapy session.

[radiantresplendence]

Doctor Takuto Maruki Was Right

Maruki is the Councillor Arcana in Persona 5 Royal and is a fantastic character that the original game was sorely lacking. I’ll be talking some spoilers here. Be warned. 

We can talk about how Demiurge/Yaldabaoth/Yagor/Jägermeister (or whatever you want to call him) is straight trash and shouldn’t be the overarching antagonist of Persona 5 another time, but that’s not what’s important here. 

What’s important here is that Maruki wasn’t in the original game and that does a disservice to everyone who played it. 

For the vast majority of P5R, Maruki is just the high school counselor who was brought in to the school in the aftermath of the Kamoshida incident as a means of damage control. He’s kind, emphatic and insightful and genuinely wants to help anyone seeking his services. 

The Phantom Thieves, due to their involvement in the Kamoshida incident are mandated by the school to talk to him; as the game progresses, most of the team members form some sort of connection to him, save for Akechi and Futaba (I believe) as Akechi is only a Phantom Thief when his goals align with the team and Futaba isn’t a student. 

Even Yoshizawa and Yusuke interact with Maruki, as Yusuke goes out of his way to do so after hearing about him from the other thieves and he was Yoshizawa’s counselor after the death of her sister. 

Over the course of his confidant, Joker gives Maruki his perspective on some of Maruki’s research, which is later revealed to be Cognitive Psience. At the end of his confidant arc, Maruki reveals that he’s known that Joker’s group were the Phantom Thieves since he saw them exit the Cognitive world during the first heist. He says he supports the thieves and their justice but he has to go a separate way. He then exits the story until after the defeat of the God of Control.

If you finish Maruki’s Confidant Arc by the time that he leaves the school, Maruki completes a belated Cognitive Psience paper that he was working on with funding from a college in Toyko and winds up applying his theory when Mementos merges with the real world. 

In short, Maruki fully awakens to his persona with the special ability to rewrite cognition. When the cognitive world and the real world are merged, however this power becomes absurdly potent, and Maruki begins to warp reality in order to make a world where no one suffers. 

Maruki’s machinations affect all of the Phantom Thieves positively: Joker doesn’t go to prison because... Akechi is alive and confesses to his crimes in Joker’s stead. Akechi is let off the hook for his crimes. Morgana is a human. Ryuji was never injured and is still the star of the track team. Ann’s friend Shiho never attempted suicide. Yusuke was never exploited by Madarame, who instead acts as a passable father figure to him. Makoto and Sae’s dad was never assassinated. Futaba’s mother is alive and is presumably in some sort of relationship with Sojiro. Finally, Haru’s father wasn’t executed after his bossfight and he was never an exploitative egoist. 

There’s a lone exception to this: the girl who the game refused to let join the Phantom Thieves; a girl who had been receiving therapy from Dr. Maruki since before the start of the game due to her trauma from the death of her sister, Sumire Yoshizawa.

In a way, “Kasumi” was Maruki’s prototype for the world he wanted to create. She couldn’t process the guilt she felt for surviving the crash that killed her allegedly more talented sister and consequently wished that she was her late sibling. 

Now the world that Maruki creates is essentially a utopia, where no one suffers and crippling psychological harm is unable to befall anyone. Now we can consider the value of free will that Maruki is removing by becoming a new “God of Control”, but as a card carrying deterministic nihilist, I see it as more or less as trading the whims of an uncaring chaotic universe for those of a benevolent eccentric. The game frames this as a stagnation of humanity, something I don’t entirely agree with. Maruki understands that physical wounds (aka hardship) are inescapable (and can provide adversity to fuel growth) and his big theory revolves around altering cognition to inoculate against mental illness. Any issue with Maruki’s world revolves more around his personal flaws and lack of moderation than it does with his theoretical framework. Regardless, Maruki’s world is more ethical than what it replaces. 

In the third semester, if we ignore some of the alterations like reviving the dead as they’re more of a condition of the world than an effect of it, many people who would otherwise be sick or destitute are not, and the natural conclusion of Maruki gaining full control (as evidenced in the bad ending where you side with the doctor) is a world where no one is. Essentially, the Phantom Thieves in the third semester who fight against Maruki are condemning these people to poverty, despair and a miserable death. Ethically, for the sake of their own morality, the Phantom Thieves are the bad guys. 

Maruki’s motivations need to be examined closer. He is someone who has been largely unable to move past his own trauma (as evidenced by the entire third semester and foreshadowed in the scene where he runs into a college friend) so he has come to the conclusion that he should dedicate himself to moving others past theirs. I mean, mind-wiping your fiance of most of her life with you to cure her of her PTSD and having your life’s work stolen by Shido as you try to pick up the pieces would probably leave a guy feeling pretty empty. Essentially Maruki has resigned himself to his own sorrow after repeatedly being dealt a bad hand, so to speak. 

I think we can safely say that at the very least, Maruki has been emotionally displaced (if not worse) since the incident with Rumi and having his life's work defunded has led him to a place where his only real desire is the pursuit of a singular goal: obliterating sadness. Not his mind you, but everyone else's. 

Basically, Maruki is not well, emotionally or mentally, despite him being able to function as a productive member of society. Completing his contract with a cosmic entity and taking the throne of the god of control, enables him to pursue his goal far beyond what he was capable as a mere doctor with a special power. He infests the human subconscious to further his goal and relentlessly tightens his grip on the world. Despite having augmented physiology in the fused metaverse as a persona user, I feel that he's a mentally ill man who's burning the candle at both ends, so to speak. I think, if anything, fully awakening to Azathoth’s power exacerbated his preexisting mental state. 

To evidence my claim of Maruki’s declining illness, allow me to cite: putting a friend and confidant into a vegetative state because he couldn’t solve a moral dilemma in a month’s time, tentacling a teenage girl and brainwashing her because her dissent is a rejection of your life’s work, picking a fistfight with a high schooler while screaming about stuff unrelated to him, choosing to martyr yourself in resignation to your own suffering when you have the power to avert it. 

Imagine a world where Maruki became the new ruler of the Cognitive World, but acted in a more limited capacity that is more in line with his original research, than the extreme conclusion of it. Consider him acting more like the collective subconscious's guardian angel than the god of control, possibly with the blessing of the Phantom Thieves. I think that’s more what a sane Maruki would settle on, feeling responsible to use the powers he was granted by his contract with an outer god. 

With that out of the way, let’s discuss the way that Maruki implements his agenda.

While working at Shujin, Maruki isn't anything particularly special as a counselor, as it's neither something that he's particularly skilled at, nor is it something that he's passionate for. It's more or less a case of his job being something that he is qualified to do. 

We know that his real passion was cognitive psience research. In essence, he's a scientist over a health professional, even though the funding for his area of expertise was slashed to bits forcing him to take an alternate career path. Especially early on, the way he’d approach his job would certainly be influenced by his passion. To that end, I think you need to analyze his session with Yoshizawa from a research perspective. He rewrote her cognition to be that of her sister’s because he thought it would help her move on. His actions here were absolutely unethical, as he was experimenting on a minor without guardian consent or full disclosure of information, but initial results of his cognition rewrite were positive (especially in the short-term, despite Yoshizawa struggling more in the long term than she otherwise may have). 

"Kasumi" in a lot of ways is a proof of concept for the world he creates in the third semester, even if she isn't necessarily an optimally-functioning prototype. Now, I think Maruki was definitely acting as a bad counselor, and a "mad psientist", if you'll allow my pun, in the flashback. In the third semester however, there's no validity in examining him as a counselor, as he's not actively doing counseling. You can't even really examine him under the lens of ethical science, as he's essentially beyond morality. The man has the power to massively warp reality, raise the dead and alter memories. Essentially, his powers are such that only the end result of any action he takes really matters. If Maruki were to harm or kill someone, regardless of intent, he could make it never happen. So, only the ends of his actions can really be taken into account. 

The ends of his actions are, of course, to obliterate human misery, and he proved effective at this. The exceptions being Sumire Yoshizawa (albeit before the full implementation of his agenda) and himself (his palace is the Laboratory of Sorrow after all.) I guess what I'm getting at here is that, Maruki has to be judged as a god for all of his actions in the third semester, as that’s really the only lens applicable to his role there. 

With that in mind, the questionable actions that he takes in the third semester are basically just holding Akechi’s life hostage and forcing Yoshizawa to be Kasumi. He avoids physical altercation with the Phantom Thieves until they literally approach him with a mutual agreement of force. The Akechi situation is one that Maruki claims to be unintentional, and I do believe him. I think the awkwardness of that reveal is more due to Maruki’s social ineptitude and difficulty revealing that sensitive piece of information than it is anything nefarious. As for the Kasumi situation, Maruki has every ability to revive the real Kasumi and adjust Sumire’s life to become one more satisfying to her. In the end I think that that unfortunate situation has more to do with an ill man with unlimited power unable to distance Yoshizawa’s rejection of his initial gift as a personal sleight to everything he’s spent his life working towards. With his work being pretty much the only thing he’s currently attributed meaning to in his life his swift rejection of dissent makes a little more sense. 

This leads to something I consider mandatory, Yoshizawa needs to rebel against the fate Maruki assigned to her, or every member of the Phantom Thieves would be working against their and all of humanity’s best interests. 

I think no one would disagree with me when I say that his role in the third semester is that of a god antithetical to the themes of Persona 5, and thus narratively has to be deposed for a satisfying conclusion. Looking objectively at his grand plan however, even with his hiccups, I can’t really say he’s wrong, even if his implementation isn’t as clean as I (or even himself in a better frame of mind) would like.

[mlovesstories]

Feeling the Burn Part 5

Warnings: active self-harm, cussing, therapy, emotional issues

Words 2300

AN- Tough stuff, guys.  Read the warnings. 

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“You have a what?” Danneel brought everyone water as she sat down next to Jensen across the table from YN.

“Half-brother.  Are you mad at me?” YN looked down and rang her hands together.

“No, of course not,” Danneel stared at Jensen, telling him to calm down.  

“I think we are just confused as to why you didn’t say anything.  You’ve been with us for over a year.”

“Look, I don’t expect you to understand.” YN huffed.

“But we want to.  You just have to give us a chance.”

“He never liked me, always treated me like crap when I was younger, so I just stayed away.  Learned to do that early.  Kenyan was always in trouble at school.  My parents didn’t know what to do with him.  I think he was the main reason they started drinking and being stupid.  I couldn’t go out or have fun with my friends because they assumed I was out drinking or doing drugs like he was.  So, I got a job and stayed at the library as much as possible.”

“Hence your good work ethic,” Jensen smiled.

“I try,” YN shrugged. “Kenyan would follow me or sabotage stuff for me.”

Danneel gasped.

“What?” Jensen turned to her suddenly.

“Those notes that were left.  Maybe he wrote them.”

“What notes?”  YN squinted.

“Someone left me notes about how you were a terrible employee.  We tried to find out who was doing it, but then it stopped.”

“I’m gonna kill him.” YN growled.  

“Let the detective take care of him.  He chose to destroy your life.  Don’t let him do it anymore.  You need an appointed security guard.  Anywhere you go.”

“Oh, Jensen.  No.  He wouldn’t actually hurt me.”

“Sweetie, he almost killed Jensen.” Danneel tried to calm the girl down.  

“I’m not having a warden.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Oh, shut up, you two.” Danneel slammed a towel down on the counter.  “Look, you are in potential danger.  I know the fire happened a while ago.  Why don’t we make a compromise.  You check in when you go somewhere.  If you are somewhere other than school for more than two hours, you check in.  Deal?”

“Dee, we need to be more vigilant than that-”

“No.  We are not going to change her life around.  If we don’t hear from her, we’ll call the detective.”

“Fine,” Jensen rolled his eyes.  

_________

“She hasn’t texted me back.” Danneel ran into the living room.  “I texted her ten minutes ago.”

Jensen whipped out his phone and called YN.

“Yeah?”

“ANSWER YOUR PHONE!” Jensen yelled.  “You were supposed to respond ten minutes ago.”

“I’m sorry,” YN whispered.  “I’m working.”

“I don’t care.  You text us back!” Jensen slammed the phone down on the couch after hanging up.

“Jensen!” Danneel yelled at him.  

“I’m going to go give her a piece of my mind,” Jensen stood from the couch and started to walk toward the door.

“Jensen Ackles!” Danneel stepped in front of him.  He froze.  “You better cool it right now!” He took a deep breath.  “My gosh, Jensen.  She missed one check-in.  And she was working.”

“He BURNED me! I could have die-” Jensen’s face dropped.  His wife recognized the expression on his face, and she closed the space between them.  

“I know,’ she whispered.  “But you’re here.  With me.  You’re okay.” Danneel felt something wet on her cheek.  “You didn’t tell me how much this has been bothering you.”

________

YN slowly entered the house.  Danneel and Jensen looked up at her.  She bit her lip and faced them.

“I’m sorry.” YN clasped her hands together behind her back.  “You’ve been crying.  I’ve never had someone do that over me before.  You’re crying because I didn’t listen, right?”

“No.  Come here,” Jensen sat up straight.  YN sat on the arm of the chair next to him.  “I’m not mad at you.  I realized I am dealing with the fire in a not-so-good way.  And I took it out on you.”

“You’re cutting?” YN looked at his collarbone.  

“What?  No.  I took out my anger on you.  Are YOU cutting?” Jensen asked, surprised by her thought process.

“I used to, not anymore.  And you have been cutting.  I saw it on your hips the other day when you were going to work out.  Your collarbone has marks on it too.”

“Jensen?” Danneel leaned back to see him.  “Really?” She asked softly.

“No, I-.” He took a deep breath.

“How come I didn’t notice?” Danneel said to herself.

“He hid them.  Probably told you they were scratches from fight scenes would be my guess.” YN surmised.  

Jensen looked up at her with sad eyes.  

“Good job, ladies.  You found out my secret.” The man sighed and stood up, exiting and leaving the girls on the couch.  Danneel’s eyes were watery.

“I promise he will be okay,” YN scooted to be closer to Danneel. “I struggled with it for a long time.  If we can help him now, he can fight it.” She opened her arms to the older one.

After a few minutes, Danneel sat up from being in YN’s arms.  

“You’re amazing,” Danneel smiled and wiped her last tear away.  

“Not really, just been through some stuff.”

________

Danneel walked into the master bedroom.  She found Jensen standing in front of their bathroom mirror.  

“Can I see?” Danneel walked behind him and wrapped her arms around him.  Jensen sighed, feeling defeated. He slowly unbuttoned his long-sleeved plaid shirt. Danneel walked next to him to see the marks on his body.  “Ouch,” Danneel said under her breath.  Danneel ran her fingers over the long, thin lines on his chest.  “These are newer,” she met his eyes.  Danneel saw tears about to spill over.  “No more of that.  No more tears today.  Let’s talk.” She turned him to face her.  “Why?”

________

“Why are you here, Mister Ackles?”

Jensen leaned back against his seat, sighed and crossed his arms.  

“Ah, you’re gonna be a hard one to crack, huh?” Dr. Brown grinned.  

“I’m only here because my foster daughter threatened to not go to her own counseling sessions if I didn’t come here,” he answered through gritted teeth.  

“You must love her very much.”

“Don’t placate me,” Jensen stated.  

“Just making a comment, Mister Ackles.  Not everyone has an agenda.  So, Cowboys, huh?”

“What?”

“You’re lanyard,” Dr. Brown nodded to Jensen’s keys on the side table.

“Oh, yeah.  Best team in the league.  Even when they aren’t,” Jensen smiled.  

________

“Stop it.”

“No, answer me.  How did it go?  You don’t have to give me specifics.  Are you glad you went?”  YN followed Jensen toward his room.

“I told him I only went because you made me,” he refused to look at her.

“And because you want to get better,” YN reinforced.  As they entered the master bedroom, she stopped right inside the door.  “Where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“The razor.”

“No.  I’m not having a moment with you.”

“You want to get better?  Give it to me. I don’t want you having it unsupervised.”

“I’m not giving it to you.  You’ve cut too.”

“Then let’s throw it away.  Go get it,” she weakly smiled.  

“Fine,” he sighed.

________

“Mister Ackles,” Dr. Brown started.

“What? What do you want?  Can I leave now?”

“Well, yeah.  I mean, you’re the one showing up here.”

“Great.” Jensen said matter-of-factly. He stood up to exit.

“BUT-,” The doctor stopped Jensen.  “If you leave, I’m assuming you won’t go to another psychologist, and therefore you won’t get better.  Do you want to-”

“Yes! Yes, I do want to get better.” Jensen shouted.

“If you are going to remain in here, you are going to be quiet and not disturb the other clients in this building,” the doctor said deeply.  “Furthermore, that’s not what I was going to say.  Are you going to stay and try or are you going to interrupt me and then I kick you out?”

Jensen quietly looked away from the doctor and walked back to his seat on the couch.

“What I was going to say was: do you want to play a game for me to get to know you, or would you rather start telling me about yourself?  I still don’t know your motivation for coming other than your foster daughter said you should.”

“Whatever.” Jensen gave in.  “Look, my foster daughter, YN, and I saw some scary shit.  We made her go see her school counselor.  I didn’t think I was affected by it.  I blew up at her after she ignored our rules to keep her safe because of what happened.  Well, sort of.  I was stressed, and I had been thinking about what happened.”

“Sounds terrible.  Do we need to get to know each other more before you tell me?” Dr. Brown readjusted his shirt and waited.  

“Someone kidnapped her.  We found her, but then the guy got killed because he came at us with a knife.  Cop shot him.  Cop said to get down, so we dropped to the ground.  I covered her so that she wouldn’t get hurt.”  Jensen put his head in his hands.  

“Ah.  Yeah, that’s pretty messed up,” Dr. Brown agreed.  “It wouldn’t also have anything to do with that, would it?”

Jensen looked down to see the small scars on his skin.

“How’d you know?”

“Saw the news when the fire happened.  I recognized you from the news report.  Apparently you’re famous.”

“To some people, I guess.” Jensen sat up straighter.  “Yeah, okay, fine.  That’s the real reason why I freaked, okay?”

“And what does a fire that you were injured in have to do with YN?”

The doctor saw Jensen take in a deep breath and not let it out.

“Let’s try something else.  What do you like to do for fun?”

“Umm.  I like to box, hang out with my wife. I’ve run a few marathons.”

“Good.  You have some good coping skills.”

“I sound like a freaking science experiment.”

“No, you sound like you have some positive ways of dealing with stressors.  How’re the Cowboys doing this season?”

“Eh.  I just watch it right now to fall asleep to.”

“That’s what I use it for too,” the doctor smiled. “Tell me about YN.  She seems to have an impact on you.”

Jensen went on to explain YN’s history and what he knew about her. He told the doctor that YN had been through a lot, and she was seeking help.

“She is the hardest working kid I’ve ever seen.  Sad thing is, it comes from a terrible place.  YN had to be perfect at home.  We never put that pressure on her.  If anything, we try to get her to relax.  I’m hoping seeing the counselor will help.”

“Wow.  I can see the connection you have.  She is a lucky girl to have you and your wife…” he looked at Jensen’s file.  “Danielle?” Jensen laughed.

“Danneel,” he smiled.  

“Right,” the doctor nodded.  

________

So how’d it go?” Danneel wrapped her arms around her husband as she snuggled into him on the couch.  

“Okay.  I don’t like it, but YN-”

“If I have to go, so do you,” YN walked in and crash-landed to the couch next to Jensen.  

“How’s it going for you?” Danneel looked beyond Jensen to see YN.

“Okay,” YN said quietly.  

“Yeah, not so easy to talk about, huh?” Jensen growled.

“Oh, shut up, Jensen!” YN screamed and stood up.  “You’re not too good for this.  You almost burned to death.  Let’s be real.  And we saw someone die in front of this.  No big deal or anything.  Stop being an ass about it, and do the work!  You’re turning into my dad with your attitude and the way you treat me! No thanks! When I turn eighteen, I’m out of here!”

“YNN-“ Jensen sighed, defeated.

—————-

“You cut?”

“How did you know too?” Jensen rolled his eyes. “You gonna tell the world? Everyone seems to know.”

“You’re crossing your arms, wearing a long sleeve shirt that is Big and Tall. And it’s buttoned up all the way.”

Jensen stared past the doctor.

“Jensen?”

“Oh. Yeah. Fine, yes. Am I going to get in trouble with you too?”

“People don’t get in trouble here. I’m guessing someone found out?”

Jensen explained that YN found out first and then Danneel had been treating him with kid gloves since the girls found out.

“What’d you do with the blade?”

“YN and I threw it out.  She made me walk it to the trash. I didn’t want it in the house for her to find anyway.  She used to self-harm too.”

“Wow. You three are really close.”

“Not anymore. Not after a few days ago. YN won’t even talk to me, and Danneel is acting weird because she found out I was hurting myself. I know she looks me over to see if I’ve done it lately. She doesn’t say anything, but I know she does.”

“Can you blame her?”

“No,” Jensen sighed.

“What happened the other day with YN?”

“I told her I didn’t like coming here and I didn’t want to talk about anything related to therapy, and she flipped out and said I needed to deal with my stuff and just do it. No offense, doc.”

“None taken. I get it. People don’t want to talk about feelings. Psychologists are often the faces of negative feelings.”

“True.”

“Homework,” Dr. Brown smiled.

“No,” Jensen whined.  

“Therapy is work, my friend,” the doctor put his notes to the side.  

“Check on YN two times a day.  Text, call, be in the same room, whatever fits the context.  You don’t even have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

“That’s it?” Jensen squinted at the doctor.  

“You’ll find it’s harder than you might think,” Dr. Brown laughed.  “Go, get out of here.  I know that’s what you’ve been thinking about for the last hour.  You’re free, go home,” Dr. Brown opened the office door to a hallway.  

“Thanks, doc.” 

FEELING THE BURN

@supraveng​

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[kinetic-elaboration]

October 25: 1x20 Court Martial

Now that Chopped is done I am free to watch TOS again. Today’s ep: Court Martial, a wonderful combination of two of my favorite things: Captain Kirk and Legal Stuff.

Look at that backdrop. I forgot how many Very 50′s backgrounds they had in this show.

The Intrepid is here for repairs! Such a lost opportunity to show more Vulcans in Starfleet.

I don’t entirely get why the Commodore has his own special transport pad. I guess it must allow him to beam himself places without the use of a ship but like... to where is he beaming?

Lol that absolutely terrible sailor suit outfit on the little girl. I can only assume it’s a school uniform as it’s the only thing she ever wears.

Can you believe how this whole episode is based, essentially, around allegedly broken regulations? I mean I know it’s more than that and they do a good job explaining why it’s bad to eject the pod early (”when there is no emergency”) but like, essentially, the underlying conditions of emergency are not in Kirk’s control. It’s possible to just skip officially calling the emergency while nevertheless acting in a way that is appropriate for an emergency, and so it comes down to “did he first declare the emergency officially and then act in accordance with the declared emergency or did he just skip the first step?” rather than “did he act too quickly?” since HE was the one who determined if the conditions warranted an emergency.

Having said all that I still don’t get what an ion pod is or where it was or why it had to be ejected at all. Or how Finney got out of the pod if it was ejected.

Vulcanian expedition?!?

Kirk’s default voice is just flirty; I’m sorry but it is. Even talking to his old school classmates, who are VERY quick to judge him harshly and hate on him, implying they were probably never friends, he’s All Charm by default. And he doesn’t drop the charm even when he starts politely fighting with them.

Bones using Jim to flirt--with Jim’s ex-girlfriend! “Did you see that guy over there, he’s pretty famous, and we’re friends!”

I love Areel Shaw and I’m just gonna say I think she’s my favorite Kirk girlfriend.

Charged with culpable negligence. As opposed to...not culpable negligence?

When he was a midshipman...

What’s with all these professor & student friendships??

I cannot believe part of the Finney & Kirk backstory is that he literally named his daughter after Kirk. Like that’s so intense! I feel like it kind of changes everything but I can’t entirely untangle how.

This “I can’t believe you filed a report about my error” backstory is literally the beginning of STID except Kirk is the Spock of this scenario.

Star Trek: Law and Order. Bum bum.

This whole idea of pitting Kirk against a computer is clever in that people to this day are like “but computers are infallible?” but also dumb because Kirk >>> Computer obviously.

Having drinks with the ex and he turns the charm up to 11.

All of this is wildly unethical, from her telling him about the prosecution’s case, to her BEING the prosecution.

I actually read an article recently about this isn’t, or shouldn’t be, her job as prosecutor, to drum him out of the service in disgrace. Her job should be to find the truth in a more neutral way.

Wtf are all these totally useless federal reporters doing here?

I’m a pro-book person but this is a HILARIOUS anti-computer speech. Like--the law is in the computer dude! It is! It’s the same law as in the books. Intergalactic Westlaw is available to you. And then he goes off on this weird rant about Moses, like--dude, Moses isn’t in the reporters OR Westlaw OR whatever Starfleet code is actually at issue here.

Kirk likes him though.

Shaw in the dress uniform with the long skirt hot damn.

Not even the computer can pronounce Spock’s full name. And he’s been demoted again.

Vulcanian Scientific Legion of Honor.

Spock isn’t having any of this. “I don’t dispute it. I just... actually I do dispute it because it’s nonsense.”

His entire testimony is the equivalent of “You don’t have all the facts.” / “Which are?” / “I love him.”

The defense doesn’t need to question him because he’s already testified for the defense.

This is such a hilarious use of McCoy. For the first time ever we’re told he’s actually a psychologist on top of being a surgeon and GP and then his whole testimony isn’t even really medical? It’s just like wild speculation, which being a doctor and an “expert in psychology” somehow qualifies him to provide?

I love how Kirk’s service record just goes on and on and on. Areel doesn’t do herself any favors objecting to it; that just draws attention to it. As the defense lawyer knows by insisting it continuing and then cutting it off for being comically long.

Kirk: “I can be level-headed in an emergency. This wasn’t my first rodeo.”

This chair design is SO BAD. I know it needs to be like this for the plot but omg putting the pod release button on the chair at all (like does the captain have to jettison pods a lot?) and then especially directly under the red alert button, and then putting both of them just out there without any kind of cover or anything--that’s just waiting for someone to lean on his chair arm and make a deadly mistake.

Also nothing else is even labeled lmao.

This is a very impressive deep fake.

This whole ion storm does not really seem like a scary emergency situation lol. It seems like Kirk and everyone else are basically keeping their heads.

“You may be able to beat your next Captain at chess” Kirk as chess master confirmed.

“I didn’t realize how close you and my father were even though I was literally named after you.”

Obligatory Bones accuses Spock of not caring about Jim scene.

“Why thank you, Doctor, my blood is very cold.”

I can’t believe Spock programmed the computer to play chess with him. Probably so he could practice for Jim.

The lawyer’s outfit is hilarious: little pocket for a pen in front. Is he... a civilian lawyer? Is that even allowed?

Here is talking about the Bible again. And the Magna Carta. First, it’s always funny when a bunch of real things are followed by some fake science fiction things. And second, he’s pretty obviously just talking about the Constitution, and like maybe a very tiny bit about the Magna Carta. There’s no right to counsel in the Bible.

Really glad to know the Martians care about the right to an attorney though. And that the Alpha 3 Colonies protect the right of confrontation.

I bet Spock is unimpressed with this Drama.

Why did they change out of their dress uniforms?

How convenient that Finney was one of only three people who could change the computer. I mean I guess this is a permissions thing--but why would the records officer have that? Not that I know what a records officer is.

“White noise device” you can’t fool me, that’s a microphone.

Also another hilarious use of McCoy. Do they really NEED the ship’s surgeon to put a microphone against people’s chests? “Don’t mind me, just stealing your heartbeats.”

Like the general concept of this is nifty story telling but some of the details are....uh.... funny.

Captain’s log: “We brought a young girl onto the ship even when it’s in a dangerous position so we could use her against her father.”

Finney really was playing the looooooong game of revenge lol. And yet it still doesn’t seem well thought out. What was the next part of his plan? Somehow get back OFF the ship once Kirk’s career is ruined, and then live the rest of his life under an assumed name? Never seeing his daughter again? No Starfleet career even though it’s allegedly so important to him? Seems a little bit like everyone loses.

Lol not letting Spock leave the bridge because the court martial’s not ever. “Sorry, we all might die, but court IS still in session.” Even though they ALREADY KNOW the alleged victim is still alive!

I love that Uhura is essential personnel. They didn’t keep the navigator on board, even though they apparently need one, but they did keep Uhura.

Oh no, Kirk’s flimsy shirt, falling apart again!

“Beaten and sobbing, Finney told me how to fix the ship.” Bitter much?

Kirk, being a badass, fixing the ship all by himself.

Honestly I just really love a narrative in which an upright man plays by the rules, does the right thing, and behaves in good faith and is ultimately vindicated and rewarded.

Now everyone agrees there’s no crime and thus no point to continuing the court-martial.

He’s defending Ben Finney! Good luck with that.

I love how Kirk’s face goes from full-on-romance to slightly-embarrassed-serious-Captain as soon as he remembers, hey, I really AM on the bridge!

“She’s a very good lawyer.” / “Obviously.”

This was such a good Kirk episode, both for showing off all his good qualities, and for getting some interesting insight into his character. He strikes me as the kind of person who, because he’s so by-the-book, and because he’s smart and successful, inspires jealousy in other people, and thus has a lot of strained acquaintanceships--like with the other men at the bar. But he also has these really, really strong friendships and relationships: Areel Shaw, Spock and McCoy, and even Finney. I feel like he’s probably rather awkward with most people, but then when the relationship is established, he’s ride or die. And, he doesn’t hold grudges. I don’t think he really knew how upset Finney was about what happened literally 10+ years ago--especially if he had any say at all about Finney serving on his ship, and I suspect he could have at least vetoed him. And even after Finney tried to disgrace him and then actually kill him, he still didn’t seem to upset about it, or about his lawyer turning around and defending Finney.

I think Kirk likes the military in part because it gives him this very strict set of rules about interacting with other people, so he doesn’t have to make up his own. I bet the intensity of the service also allows him to form these stronger relationships, which do seem to suit him better. And when he doesn’t have anything else to fall back on, he INVARIABLY pulls out the charm: he does it with old classmates, random 21st century pilots, immortal teenage girls, and actual love interests. It’s his default mode. I think that makes sense for someone who’s very ambitious, very precise, very nerdy, very rules-oriented, and whose default mode as a young man, by his own admission, was “grim.”

Wow it is so much later than anticipated... I need to get to sleep!

Next ep is Return of the Archons, which I’ve only seen once and don’t remember super well. I think it’s a ‘society ruled by computers’ thing, which is fine. Maybe not as much of a classic as some other S1 eps, but it should be fun anyway.

[allie1804-fan]

New Beginnings (Chapter 8)

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New Beginnings Baby Drabble

New Beginnings Baby Drabble No2

A couple of hours later they were back at home, lying on their bed staring at the ceiling lightly holding hands.

Keanu spoke first

“Is it OK with you that I’m more terrified than happy” he said turning to look at her.

“Thank god you said that first” she sighed “because that’s exactly how I feel. Like we’ve been sent back in time to possibly let fate have another go at beating us up!

“Come ‘ere” He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight against his chest.

“Well at least we’re on the same page!” he chuckled lightly “I know we saw it, in the right place and everything but about 5 minutes after we left I didn’t feel reassured anymore!”

“me neither!”

When Emily spoke again her voice was choked with tears

“It’s not fair is it, we should be thrilled and excited but that’s all been stolen from us”

“mmmmm but maybe that’s up to us? You know what’s that poem?”

“oh Kipling you mean? She recited ‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster   And treat those two impostors just the same’”

“Yes that one, maybe we just try and remember that and take it one day at a time. I know it’s easy to think that expecting the worst makes it easier to face the worst but it probably doesn’t. I mean we’re not going to blindly assume it’s all gonna be a piece of cake, obviously but maybe we need to let ourselves be just a little hopeful?”

With that he leaned over and lifted her shirt, pressing his lips to her belly

“Hey little one, please just stay put do you hear? And grow big and strong and come out screaming your lungs out, OK? Because we really, really want you, OK?”

He came back up then to kiss Emily, stroking her hair then kissing at the tears that had leaked out while he said his piece to the baby.

“I love you, more than anything or anyone ever and I know there are no guarantees but let’s just let ourselves imagine that next summer we get to meet this little person we’ve made and love them and see them grow up OK?”

She nodded, still too choked to speak.

The next week they had two important appointments. The first was with the obstetrician for another scan. The peanut was still there, heart beating away and they guessed that by now Emily was between 7 and 8 weeks along. They offered to repeat the weekly scans through the first trimester given their high levels of anxiety.

The next day they saw the counsellor.

Once they had explained the situation she asked Emily first how she was feeling.

“well I guess we just feel”

“let me just stop you there, you don’t have to speak for Keanu. He might very well feel many of the  same things, but speak for yourself first – you might have some different worries”

“Well, I guess I was surprised how the news made me feel.  Disappointed is not it exactly but we went to that appointment feeling, you know, purposeful and in control and when we left I felt” she paused “all at sea all over again and that made me” she paused again feeling ashamed at the next word she wanted to say

“angry”

“that’s not surprising – and how do you feel now?”

“well, still out of control - and the relief from the scan yesterday seemed to last about 3 hours before I started thinking maybe it’s already gone wrong!, but I’m trying, really trying to have a little hope, but I’m struggling if I’m honest’

“and you Keanu?”

“much the same”

“You are?! I thought you were getting hopeful, talking to my belly and everything”

“That’s just me trying to control my fear sweetheart, I’m as scared as you are!”

Emily’s shoulders relaxed from the tensed up state they’d been in until now and she took his hand and squeezed it tight.

The counsellor asked a few more questions and let them voice their worries. Her main advice was to keep busy, keep talking and listening to each other and take one day at a time. She also reminded them that whatever happened, their thoughts weren’t going to change the outcome. Stress was to be avoided of course but thinking it might all go wrong or all go right for that matter wasn’t going to make it come true or make it easier to deal with either outcome.

Back at home Emily told him how relieved she was that he still felt the same fears as her. She’d started to feel like she was ‘letting the side down’ by not voicing more positivity.

The following week, both Keanu and Emily got back to work having taken the previous week to acclimate themselves to the news.  Keanu was busy training at 87/11 for an action movie as well as checking in with Arch and Emily was in the writers’ room for a new TV show.

The next scan came and went, with another short window of elation and reassurance following it.

Emily hadn’t got many typical symptoms but the sickness had just started to kick in and she needed to eat to keep it at bay. Jane, one of her fellow writers spotted that Emily, who never normally indulged in biscuits, was powering through them during the writers’ room sessions as well as bumping into her splashing her face in the bathroom after being sick.

 “You OK?”

 “Yeah, yeah just been burning the candle at both ends” she lied.

Emily had never been an adept liar and felt like her lie was written all over her face and that the  cat could be out of the bag. Jane was married to a presenter on Entertainment Tonight and she could just imagine her passing on what she’d seen to him and if anyone had spotted them at the hospital visits as well, the game would certainly be up!

At that week’s counselling session, the focus was all on people finding out, both those close to them  and the wider public. They hadn’t told a soul so far.

“so” the counsellor asked Emily, “can you tell me what it is in particular about people finding out that bothers you so much?”

“well if people know then it’s more real and then if it goes wrong ……” she trailed off

“if it goes wrong and people know, is it more real than if they didn’t?”

Emily smiled realising she’d had her so called defence strategy unpicked.

“No, of course not, I guess it’s all just another way my stupid brain is trying to protect me huh?”

“It’s not stupid but you’re right, it’s a coping strategy. Let’s turn the idea on its head. If you lost your baby and no-one knew, how would that be?           “

“Well I guess we could more easily pretend it never happened!” she said, giving Keanu a knowing look since he had confessed before that he’d done exactly that after Ava.

“but it would be pretty lonely too”

They talked some more about the potential value of support - regardless of the success or not of the pregnancy and they made the decision to tell close friends and family.

They also talked about what to do in case anything leaked to the press.

They had never released a statement about the ectopic (one had been ready in case a member of staff had  leaked it or if a member of public had seen them at the hospital) but no one had fortunately. They would need to talk to Cheryl given the frequency of their visits to the Obstetrics Wing of the hospital.   Keanu recalled that even in 1999 pre the days of social media, news of Jennifer’s pregnancy had got out when she was around 4 months along and they’d had to release a statement. Their chances of keeping it under the radar in today’s 24 hour news circus were slim.

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New Beginnings Baby Drabble

New Beginnings Baby Drabble No2

[mittensmorgul]

What do you think about Samwena now? Do you think they can still be endgame?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The TNT loop has brought me up through 12.21 today, and it’s wild what new canon can do to recontextualize the past.

I’m putting this under a cut, so that saileen shippers won’t have to subject themselves to my rambling about Eileen and Sam in a way I know they’ll dislike... but I’m tired of feeling like I can’t talk about canon how I see it on my own blog.

Back when these episodes originally aired, with the week to week meta cycle in between, a lot of context was left up to us and never explicitly clarified in canon. Many of us were just thrilled at the notion that Sam had made one (1) friend that he seemed as close with as Dean did, if not closer. We were all ready to read way more into their interactions than was actually there, because Sam just gets so few of these sorts of personal relationships, at all, with anyone.

Things have been provided with clarification now in s15-- like the previous nature of Sam’s relationship with Eileen, and Sam’s repeated insistence to Dean’s teasing that they’re “not like that.” Which seems to be urging me to go back and reexamine everything from the past connected to her without the erroneous assumption that they already had a romantic relationship going offscreen. And let me tell you, that puts an entirely different spin on Eileen’s prior purpose in the narrative. As a parallel for Mary. Which is why I suppose I’ve been finding so many weird Mary parallels for her since her resurrection (starting with the fact that the spell that brought her back was designed to resurrect Mary instead and going right on through all the BMoL Free Will Erasure brainwashing plot literally in the episode where Eileen was murdered by Hellhound).

Lady Bevell: Well, not about this illusion of you that you hold on to. The perfect life. Loving husband and kids. But it never really was perfect, was it? All those secrets you kept from your beloved John – that you were a hunter. That you invited Azazel to visit when he spared John's life.Mary: How do you-Lady Bevell: I have sources, Mary. Everywhere. After you died, your beloved John was a man slowly going mad, searching for revenge. What? Your boys didn't tell you? The drunken rages? The weeks of abandonment? Child abuse, really. It's no wonder they're... damaged. So... enough with the fairy tale. We are returning you to a more pure version of yourself – Mary Campbell, natural born killer.

The “illusion” of the perfect life, the illusion of Free Will, in essence (especially now that we know Chuck was also behind the whole BMoL narrative). Not to mention that in this episode, Toni will later heavily imply that Mary was in fact the one who killed Eileen (even if it wasn’t true... Sam and Dean STILL don’t know who actually killed Eileen). I mean, the fact they found Mary in the process of attempting to murder Jody Mills probably sealed the belief that at the very least, it COULD’VE been Mary who’d done the deed. Even Mary wouldn’t know for sure if she had, because brainwashed:

SAM: Why you spying on us? Oh, and what do you know about Eileen Leahy?TONI: Who?DEAN: Did you – did – did your people, did they kill her?TONI: Probably. Rule of thumb – if you think we killed someone, then we probably did. Speaking of, you do realize that by attacking me, you invite the retribution of the entire British Men of Letters? Investigation, no trial. Just punishment and ruin. Possibly at the hands of Mary Winchester.DEAN: The hell is that supposed to mean?TONI: Your mother – she's our permanent guest.SAM: She's your prisoner? Why?TONI: Prisoner? Who said anything about prisoner? No, Mary's joined the team. Even has her own super secret decoder ring.SAM: You're lying.TONI: You're right. There is no ring. Oh, boys and their mums. See, you see her as Mummy. We see her as one of our best killers.

Sam’s main drive during s12 was doing whatever he could to desperately create any sort of relationship with Mary that he could (even willingly working with people who’d TORTURED him), and this is what haunted him into s13, as well, after destroying the BMoL to save Mary, and then almost immediately losing her again to the AU.

Do I think that Sam is considering the possibility of a real relationship with Eileen? Probably, yeah, after Dean’s prodding, especially. But Dean was fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of Sam’s “agreement” with Eileen there. It wasn’t about a romantic arrangement.

Because they aren’t like that.

Eileen propositioned Sam in 15.07 (in the name of doing something “fun”), yes, but I still can’t see Sam’s reaction there as anything but surprise and consternation. He seems almost relieved that Cas showed up when he did to interrupt what would otherwise have been an uncomfortable and probably embarrassing talk.

When Dean asked about Eileen in 15.08, it felt to me like Sam’s comment about them having an agreement was directly about the opening scene... where Sam had secretly followed her out on a hunt, and then nearly getting himself killed both by Eileen AND the vampire, all because he didn’t trust her to handle it or ask for help if she needed it.

Their agreement gets further contextualization via Sue’s comment to Eileen, taunting her about having to “get permission” to come out and help her on a hunt. Because that’s exactly what she had to do. That was the nature of her agreement with Sam-- that she wouldn’t just leave without at least leaving a note (Sam’s exact words to her in that opening scene... “You could’ve left a note.”)

DEAN: Yeah. Eileen did good, right? Getting us back from hell. She doing okay?SAM: Yeah. I guess.DEAN: You guess?SAM: If she needs something from me, she'll tell me. We have an agreement.

It felt like Sam was telling Dean that he didn’t know how Eileen was, because part of their agreement was that Sam... not pester her over this sort of thing. Sam seemed... disappointed over the whole situation. Dean immediately turned this into a relationship thing, though, leaving Sam slightly confused, but probably considering the option, at least.

DEAN: You have an agreement? That's adorable. Look, man, I didn't want to say anything, okay, 'cause I was kind of in... in a bad place, and, uh, yeah, I didn't want to jinx it or whatever, but, you know, I tried the family thing, right?SAM: Yeah, me too. And that's not for us.DEAN: No, not really. But I'm just saying if it was to work, Eileen, you know, she gets it. She gets us. She gets the life. She's hot.SAM: Dean. I mean, I'm not even...DEAN: Look, all I'm saying is you... you could do worse, okay? And she could certainly do better. Like, so much better. I'm happy for you, Sammy.

If only Dean hadn’t framed it as essentially “settling” for someone just because they conveniently ticked off the most basic “someone in the life” box.

And if only this hadn’t come two scenes after Sam found Rowena, dead, in Hell. And literally flinching at the change that he saw in her. Almost as if Dean was trying to give Sam the “it’s not so bad. You couldn’t save Rowena, but at least you have a backup romantic interest, since you can’t resurrect Rowena and make everything okay with her, because you already used Rowena’s own spell to resurrect Eileen...” It felt like a weirdly hearty consolation speech in that context.

And if this hadn’t felt like more of a comment on DEAN’S recent mental turnaround after his experiences in 15.07, and his tentative hope that things between him and Cas aren’t completely kaput, that Cas hadn’t completely written him off, after Rowena’s little Marriage Counselling session with them (again, two scenes earlier).

Now is this to say that Sam’s emotional investment in a relationship with Eileen can’t change going forward? Absolutely not! He might really, truly invest himself in a relationship with her!

I’m extremely interested to see what happens in 15.09, because I think that episode will hopefully give us so many of the answers we’ve been waiting for. Not necessarily about endgame love interests, but about Chuck’s involvement in the first half of the season’s unfolding drama. And I think Rowena will have a continuing part to play after that point.

Does that mean I think Sam’s emotional investment in a potential relationship with Rowena can’t be rekindled? We’ll have to wait and see, but as it stood after 15.08, Sam, at least, seemed to be shaken by the change that had come over her after her sacrifice.

SAM: Rowena, I...ROWENA: Samuel, please. You killing me was one of the best things that ever happened. Yes, there are things I miss about being alive. Flesh-on-flesh sex. Amazon doesn't deliver here... yet. But, lads, I'm queen. My subjects revere me. Well, fear me, which is better. I should have died a long time ago. Samuel, be a dear.SAM: Yeah.

This has to be like a knife to him, you know? He’d been so invested in her redemption, as the Fated Agent of her final demise. And for Sam, who knows what she feared and who she loved (but Sam doesn’t know he’s on that list, she told him flat out he wasn’t right before she told him to kill her), she represents his current biggest failure, you know? He capitulated to Destiny, because he had no other choice. And that is still the worst thing anyone on the show can possibly say.

THIS was the final straw that drove Dean to anger with Cas, too. Rowena’s death was the direct result of Cas’s choice to kill Belphegor rather than let him complete his spell. It’s all interconnected, and it’s all painful, and it’s all a direct result of Chuck’s breaking the story the way he did in 14.20.

So make of this what you will, but I’m tired of not talking about these far bigger themes to avoid upsetting shippers who want saileen to be endgame. We’re not there yet, and until we are, I want to talk about all of this in a nonjudgmental way, because I think it’s all interesting, not because I have some shipping agenda.

I know I have more to say about all of this, but this is a good start, at least.

[wazjunz]

Owlboys

Raelene touched Gordon gently on the shoulder.

“Gordon, you’re hyperventilating,” she said quietly.

Gordon’s hands wrung at the steering wheel like he was squeezing water out of a soaked towel. Raelene could see beads of sweat forming at his temples.

“Is this the place?” she asked. Her voice was calm, steady; like a psychologist’s should be. Gordon nodded, staring past her down into the field. Raelene followed her patient’s gaze.

“Can you see the owlboys now?” she asked. Gordon’s eyes flicked to hers, irritated.

“Do you think I’m experiencing psychosis Raelene?” he snapped. “Have I had a schism? Am I detached from reality?”

Raelene was shocked, though years of practice allowed her not to show it. She’d been a mental health practitioner in a metropolitan hospital for twenty years. She’d certainly handled more extreme behaviours than a snippy comeback, but for gentle, intelligent, thoughtful Gordon, this was a sign of extreme stress.

Gordon took a deep breath and dragged his fingers though his grey-brown hair. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine,” she replied. “You’re really scared aren’t you?”

Gordon laughed nervously.

“I’m so scared,” he replied.

Raelene believed him. She’d made a career out of believing people. She joked that it was her one real marketable skill. She’d figured out pretty quickly that being a good psychologist wasn’t rocket science. People just want to know they’re not crazy. They want someone to say, “I believe you." Raelene had spent two decades of her life doing everything she could to deliver those three words to patients before someone else (usually a Doctor or a Nurse or even another psychologist) messed up royally by saying anything else. A lot of the people who came through emergency as mental health admissions had been sexually assaulted. Raelene saw first hand that for people who had just been through a major trauma a misplaced ‘are you sure?’ in the place of ‘I believe you’ could break someone’s spirit almost as badly as the assault itself.  

She never even thought about going into private practice until after her divorce. Her ex-husband was an arse, but he shared her work ethic, so they owned their own home and had savings. Starting again was relatively easy. Raelene told her colleagues that she had every intention of staying on at the hospital, but at the same time she bought a small house in a misty little rural valley an hour out of the city. She resigned a few weeks later. Her little house had an artists studio out the back that would be a perfect home office. Raelene was only in her 50s, and had spent most of her divorce money on her new home, so she still had to work. Her adult son reluctantly build her a website, rolling his eyes the entire time. He’d inherited his father’s belief that everything Raelene did was annoying and slightly stupid.

Her first private clients were painfully boring. After twenty years of dealing with crisis day-in-day-out, three ladies her own age with long term, but highly functional depression didn’t do much for her in terms of mental stimulation. Business didn’t really pick up until she got a call from a farmer on a neighbouring property. He was a tough looking 40-year-old family man who probably hadn’t been to a GP for twenty years. He seemed out of place in her little studio, surrounded by indoor plants and comfy cushions, wound up tighter that a rubber band.

“Look,” he said. “I don’t really believe in counselling or whatever, but you aren’t allowed to tell anyone what I say to you right?”

Raelene assured the farmer that the only reason she would break confidentiality was if someone’s safety was at risk. That seemed to satisfy him.

“I saw a big hairy man in the bush on my property,” he blurted.

“He must have been eight feet tall and built like a brick shithouse. He just stood in the tree line about forty metres away from me, watching while I filled a horse trough with a hose.”

His voice was shaking. Raelene looked him in the eye.

“I believe you,” she said.

He came back twice more. She asked him how he felt about what he’d seen, how he coped when he woke up dreaming about it, and then about his life more generally. At the end of his third session he told her he felt a bit better just telling someone, and that he didn’t think he’d need to come back again.

Word must have spread somehow from there. Raelene started getting calls from otherwise normal people who claimed to have seen or experienced something they knew no one would believe. She saw a high school science teacher who was convinced aliens had put a microchip in her arm. She met with a family who claimed an angry poltergeist was noisily opening and closing their kitchen cupboards at 3am every night. Two distraught parents came to her with their little girl who claimed her imaginary friend bit her on the arm. The parents said she’d screamed so loud and long that they rushed her to the hospital. Raelene seemed to have accidentally cornered the market on healthy, average people who needed to tell someone about an unexplainable, socially unacceptable trauma. She told them all the same thing.

“I believe you.”

Just like at the hospital, that alone seemed to help the most. Some people she saw regularly, their visits morphing from ghosts and monsters into the usual concerns about their life and relationships. Others dropped their strange experience on her lap and never returned.

Gordon came to her about a year after the farmer. She liked him immediately. He was exactly ten years older than her, slender, with thick wavy hair and smart, smiley, dark brown eyes. He used to be an academic, and now worked for a publishing company, proofreading textbooks. He spoke quietly but clearly, laughed easily and often, and always insisted on showing Raelene videos of his grandchildren on his smartphone. He also believed that mysterious, sinister beings called ‘owlboys’ were stalking three generations of his family. 

Gordon was visibly nervous the first time he came in. He had a little leather satchel with him, and he held it on his lap like a shield, but it didn’t take much to get him talking.

“I’m a somewhat disturbed,” he told her. “Not mentally. I mean...not clinically. But I’m worried about something, and I don’t want to tell anyone because I know it sounds mad.”

Raelene nodded, for him to continue.

“I guess I didn’t think much of it until I found my grandfather’s diary,” Gordon continued.

“I’ve always been a little bit jumpy, and I tend to have bad dreams a lot, especially when I’m stressed. One dream has been recurring since I was a child. I see these odd, um, creatures or beings. They just show up in whatever regular dream I’m having, standing at a distance, or leaning out from behind a tree or a door frame. They never attack me or anything but there’s a feeling about them that gets to me. A sense of…doom I guess.”

“What sort of beings?” Raelene asked. Gordon rubbed his chin.

“To me they always looked like fuzzy rectangles with big black eyes,” he said. “But there’s something really wrong about them that I can’t describe. Something about the way they move. I’ll see them in a dream, and then for the next few days I have that experience where you think you see something out of the corner of you eye, but you look again and it’s not there. I just put it down to an overactive imagination…until I found the diary.”

Raymond reached into his satchel and pulled out an antique leather book.

“This was my grandfather’s,” he said.

“It’s mostly really dull farming stuff, but there are three entries that made me think I’m either going crazy, or there’s something weird going on.”

Gordon explained that his grandfather was one of the first landowners in this valley, and ran a large cattle farm in the early 1900s. Gordon’s own father, Roland, had grown up on the farm, and Gordon had spent the first few years of his life there too, before his family moved to another part of the valley. There were three yellow post-it notes poking neatly out of the diary. Gordon turned the pages to the first note and looked at Raelene. She gave a little nod, and he began to read.

“This one’s dated August 1, 1929,” he said.

“Saw something in the far paddock today. The largest owls I had ever seen, gathered in the centre of the far paddock, in the gully. I estimated them at four feet tall, with black eyes the size of saucers. There was something very peculiar about the way they moved.”

He flicked to the second post-it.

“August 1, 1937. Roland saw the strange owls in the far paddock today. Said he was too frightened to get a closer look. Could not tell if they were people or animals. Called them ‘owlboys’ because they looked like little boys but with owl faces.”

He jumped to the final post-it, speaking more quickly now.

“This one is the first of August, 1940 and it’s mostly about a fence falling down and chasing stray cows around the property,” he explained. “But then he writes, ‘Owlboys in the far paddock. Came back in early.’ The diary goes on for another decade, but he never mentions them again.”

Gordon snapped the diary shut and looked at Raelene expectantly.

“I think the fuzzy white rectangles I’ve been seeing my whole life might be owlboys,” he said. Raelene didn’t reply.

“Did you notice the thing that the entries had in common?”

Raelene wasn’t really a detail person. She had no idea what Gordon meant.

“August first,” he explained. “Every time they saw the owlboys it was August first. I think the owlboys, whatever they are, visit that spot every year on the same day. I only got the diary in November last year, after dad died, so couldn’t do it last year, but this year on August first I’m going to that spot to see if they’re there. I want you to come with me as a witness.”

Raelene had agreed to go with Gordon on the condition that he come and see her once a fortnight for the six months to August. He’d agreed, and had quickly become her favourite patient. They talked about his grandfather and his father, his career, his wife, his own children and grandkids. Of course, they also talked about the owlboys. Gordon was convinced they were real. Maybe not flesh and blood creatures, but real, intelligent beings nonetheless. He burned through a number of theories as the weeks went by. At first he thought they might be native spirits of the valley, angry at his forefathers for clearing a sacred spot to graze cattle. Then he decided the whole ‘owl’ thing might be an alien cover-up, citing the big black eyes, and a number of obscure books he’d dredged up that talked about alien abductees having weird memories of giant owls, supposedly revealed (under hypnosis) as ‘screen’ memories’ intended to cover up an abduction. As the date drew nearer he began to err towards the owlboys having something to do with his family specifically, but he wasn’t sure what.

He’d seemed oddly calm when he rolled up to her house in his neat Volvo station wagon on the first of August, but as he drove her up into the hills on the North side of the valley towards the area where his grandfather’s farm used to be he’d become increasingly agitated. By the time he pulled the car to a stop on the little ridge with a view down into the gully on their left he was breathing fast and strangling the poor steering wheel to death. Raelene put her hand on the door handle. Being in the car with Gordon’s huffing and puffing was starting to stress her out too, and she needed some air. Gordon’s hand shot out and grabbed her firmly on the shoulder.

“Don’t get out,” he whispered. “I’m getting that feeling. The doom-y feeling.”

Raelene turned to look at him. She was about to tell him he might be making himself lightheaded, and to try and slow his breathing, when something white in the trees behind him caught her attention. She leaned to look past him for a better view of whatever was there. Time slowed down. She could hear her heart pumping in her ears, but all other sound seemed to have stopped. Her brain was trying to desperately to explain the input from her eyes. She almost thought it was a child because of the size, but the body shape was wrong. It could have been a person in a costume, but no, the eyes were too real. They were huge, and black and so deep. Whatever it was kept swaying side to side, partially behind a tree about 30 metres into the bush. There was something completely unsettling about how it moved.

“Gordon, what is this,” she whispered.

Gordon had swung around to follow her gaze into the bush.

“Where, I can’t see,” he asked shakily.

“There! Right there!” she shrieked. “Can’t you see it?” Gordon scanned the bush frantically.

“I can’t see a thing,” he said. “What is it?” Raelene ignored his question and grabbed his arm hard.

“Get us out of here, now!” 

Gordon threw the car into drive and made a quick u-turn. For a terrifying moment, this swung Raelene closer to the being in the trees. She shrank down in her seat. The thing had stopped moving but it’s eyes followed her as the car picked up speed down the hill. Now it was her turn to hyperventilate. Gordon barely slowed down through the curves towards the main road.

“Did you really not see it?” Raelene was frantic now. “Gordon tell me you saw it too.”

Gordon glanced across at her and shook his head.

“I couldn’t see anything,” he said.

Raelene put her face her hands and let out a little moan. She felt Gordon’s left hand rest gently on her shoulder.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s OK… I believe you.”

[pjdredful]

The AV Club

Chapter 1

 "You know Evie, you've been coming to me for three months now. In that three months you've only spoken once. Just once to ask for water." Tony leans back in his comfy chair and taps his notebook with the end of his pen. I shrug lightly at it and continue playing with the frayed patch at the knee of my jeans. He gives a soft sigh and nods mostly to himself, I think, rather than to me. "I know you resent these meetings but the fastest way to get them over with is to actually participate." I give him a blank look and roll my eyes.  Tony is my therapist, or he would be if I actually spoke to him but I don't because I don't need a therapist. I'm not crazy. I let him sit in silence a little longer before I check my watch. We still have fifteen minutes but sometimes when I look bored he lets me go early. I think he's almost going to let me go when he switches it up on me. "Your mother said you're having nightmares again."

 "Step-mother." His brow goes up slightly but he only nods in acknowledgement or acceptance or whatever.

 "She says they're coming almost every night now. That must be frustrating for you." For a second I consider making a smart remark but my mother, my real one, always said if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Which is why I'm quiet about 85 percent of the time. It's not like anyone would believe anything I said anyway so I usually just skip over communicating entirely. "When I was about your age I had some pretty weird dreams too. I'd wake up in a cold sweat, confused, scared, and angry all rolled into one. The worst part was, I didn't think anyone would understand because I wasn't entirely sure I understood."

 Ten minutes to go. I flick my eyes toward him and try to keep from looking as bored as I feel. So what if he had nightmares? I'm pretty sure they weren't scenes of the end of the world and everyone he ever loved dying in a violently bloody demon apocalypse. The truth is when I say it like that I can't really blame Jo-lynn for thinking I'm a whack job and forcing me to complete my legally mandated therapy sessions. You wake the house screaming about the end of the world enough times it's bound to make even the most rational of people look like a maniac. Tony gives it a beat and looks at the clock over my shoulder before giving a resigned nod. "Okay well its a few minutes early but I can see you're still not ready to talk." He closes his blank notebook and rests it on the edge of the coffee table very deliberately. He's not the first therapist I've been dragged to over the years, and even though I don't talk to him, he's actually kind of the best. The most patient for sure but even patient people have limits. He offers me a slightly tired smile and clasps his hands between his knees lightly. "I get that you don't want to talk to me because I'm the person your step-mom picked. I get that you think this is all a bullshit waste of time and I'm an idiot, and I might be. But I'm here if you do want to talk about what's on your mind."

 A bullshit waste of time. I couldn't have said it better myself and I can't help but chuckle a little. He smiles back at me probably thinking we've made some progress here. Maybe we have. I've smiled even less than I've spoken. "You're not an idiot." He gives me a slight nod and I continue. "But this is totally a bullshit waste of time. I'd say sorry about it but you still get paid, talking or not, right?"

 He leans back in his chair again and rests his chin on his fist. "Well we're talking now, so I guess I'm earning my pay."

 Hm. He has a point. I roll my eyes at him but I'm not really bothered. "Time's up, Doc. Good talk though."

 Tony stands and opens the door to the hallway out of his office. "You know I'm not a doctor right?"

 I'm almost all the way through the door when I snort. "You know I'm not a psycho right?"

 "Evie…." I wave it off because psycho is one of those no no words now. "Now wait." He puts a hand out, not really touching me but letting me know he wants me to listen. "No one thinks you're a psycho. No one thinks you're crazy or out of control or anything like that.” God. His face is so earnest.

 I give him a look and wait a beat. “Well I dunno the judge at my hearing seemed to think I’m very out of control.” That was all just a misunderstanding. Honestly. I’m not on drugs! Okay. Well. At the very least I wasn’t on drugs when I got arrested.

 Tony just grins at me and nods his head a little as if accepting that yes obviously someone thought I was nuts. His quiet chuckle fades and he shrugs a tweed covered shoulder. “Your mom just thinks you need someone to talk to about the things you feel."

 He almost freaking had me. Almost. "Step-mom." It's too late to fix and he knows it so I wink and slip my earbuds in as I stroll down the hall out to the waiting room. Sandra the receptionist waves to me as I slide out the patient exit door and head for the bus stop. I skip through my mp3 player until I reach my favorite song by The Decemberists. Los Angeles I'm Yours plays just loudly enough to drown out the sounds of most traffic as I sit at the bus stop waiting for the number 18. I'm not thrilled about having to see Tony twice a week but the truth is today is the closest I've come to wanting to talk about it. The nightmares, the demons, the monsters, the devil, and my AP biology midterm. All of the horrible things that keep me up at night. I'm so deep in thought that for a second I don't realize that a shit brown 1988 Ford Taurus is idling roughly at the curb where the bus stops.

 My bestfriend Nat pokes his head out of the passenger window and whistles to get my attention. "Yo…crazy face! Get in!" I shake my head with a laugh and run to the car, hurrying to beat the bus just pulling in with a nasty honk at Nat and his brother. I fling myself in to the back seat, squishing into a warm, soft body with a slight blush.

 "Hey Lirae." She gives me a smirking smile because it's pretty much the only kind she knows how to give. I pull my seatbelt around and fumble for a second looking for the part to click into before I realize that Lirae is sitting on it. And still watching me with that serene calm that lets me know that she's purposely sitting on the seatbelt thing.

 "Problem?" I fidget a little before letting go of the seatbelt altogether. Forget it. I'd rather be flung to my death through the windshield. I can feel my face burning as she chuckles and bumps my shoulder with hers. Lirae’s usually on but currently off again boy toy makes an annoyed tsking sound and a really nasty beer burp. She turns her head to give him a disgusted look. "Gross Orson. You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

 "No. I kiss yours." She elbows him in the gut hard enough to make him choke out a breath before she reaches across my body to pull my seatbelt back over. I go still as a frightened mouse and try not to think about how close we all are in this tiny rusting deathtrap and how warm Lirae's hands are at my hip as she buckles me in.

 "Can't have our girl getting hurt can we?" Uhhh. My brain has momentarily stopped functioning at the softly whispered comment. Orson is watching her very closely and I know that he's going to make my life miserable. He's the one friend of my super small circle that isn't really a friend. More like a tolerable associate. I wouldn't talk to him at all if it weren't for Lirae bringing him to the AV Club. Once he was in he kind of just took root. Like a really annoying weed.

 "So what's the diagnosis? Is Evil Evie still cray cray?" There it is. I roll my eyes and don't even bother to hide the smile when Lirae elbows him again. "What? The kid is a train wreck, we all know that already."

 Nat turns around in his seat as much as he can and nods at me. "Don't listen to dickwad there. He's just in a bad mood because Coach chewed him a new asshole at practice." I'm not that girl you know? The cheerleading, team sport loving, school spirit having All American Girl. That's just not me. For one thing I'm not even sure how football works. And for another I'd much rather date the prom queen than the prom king. Plus there's that whole thing where the weird paranormal shit that only happens in movies and TV seems to always happen to me. I don't mean to imply that I'm a cosmic joke and a walking magnet for the weird and terrifying. I mean to outright state fact. I am a living, breathing, magic and mayhem magnet. All that scary hoodoo crap you think can't be real? It is.

 So no. I'm not the girl that hangs with the pep squad or the popular kids. Orson however, well. He's the top jock and he acts like it too. I smile at Nat and shrug. "Like water off a duck's back." Nat chucks me under the chin playfully and turns back in his seat as we cruise along toward the clubhouse. See? Tony shouldn't feel bad, I don't talk even to my friends. "What are you guys doing here anyway? I thought we were meeting at the clubhouse at seven." It's not quite six yet but any change of plan that keeps me off the public busses is okay by me.

 Mo looks at me through the rearview mirror and shrugs. "We were at The Harbor." My brows come up a little at that. The Harbor isn't a place for boats and beaches in our town. The Harbor is a very seedy bar where you can acquire just about anything if you have the money and don't sweat the small details. Like, where said purchased thing came from, or even knowing the name of the person you bought it from. Needless to say The Harbor is the last place a bunch of teenagers should be. And yet…we know it well. At least I know it well. Well enough to get arrested for being underage in a bar I had no business being in. My punishment? Mandatory rehabilitative counseling. I wasn't there to drink but when I told the undercover officer that detained me that I was there to see a man about a stone he just assumed I actually said I was there to see a man about getting stoned. Like I said. Misunderstanding.

 "Any news?" I try hard to keep the hopeful note out of my voice. Everyone in this car knows my deal. Average dorky high school student by day, metaphysical super magnet by night. Well. That part is really a 24 hour deal but since most of the paranormal crap is powered by moonlight I get a reprieve. Just in time for those oh so thrilling biology classes. This weird dark attraction has been my curse since my eleventh birthday and there hasn't been a damn thing I can do about it. In short I'm just like Mo and Nat, Orson and Lirae. Well. Possibly not exactly like Lirae. I'm not sure there's anyone quite like her. But what I mean is that I'm just as normal as the next geek. I can't see or hear anything different than any other human, all I can do is 'sense' the darkness. It's more of a gut instinct which is so much more difficult to explain to a rational human being. Hey a demon thing is in town. Oh how do I know? Because I can feel it. What does it look like? Well I'm not sure really since I only ever see things like that in my horrible puke inducing nightmares. Yeah. This is my life.

 I watch Mo's lips curl in a slight smile even though he doesn't say anything. I'm hoping that means good news for me and bad news for my nightmares. He pulls off the main road taking a little used dirt switchback track. Orson, Lirae and I bounce around in the back like sacks of laundry, grabbing on to any surface that will keep us stationary as the car rolls over the rutted and uneven path.  Mo banks a curve that throws Lirae's body in to mine hard enough to make my head smack the window. I'd grumble but I'm too terrified to move because I'm pretty sure there is a boob on my arm. Lirae rights herself by pushing off my knee with a grunt and I breathe. I can feel the heat of her hand still on my knee right through my jeans. Probably it’s the closest I’ll get to being groped by another human being again in my life. I make sure to avert my gaze toward the window to hide the creeping red flush up my face. Maybe if I don’t move, she won’t either. As the car skids to a stop in front of the dilapidated shack we call a clubhouse I curse my ineptitude in all things romantic.

 "Hey Mo, grab the equipment while me and Orson get the cooler out of the trunk." I look up at Nat's tall, broad shouldered back as I extricate myself from the backseat of the car. He turns his curly blonde head to catch me giving him the curious side eye and smiles innocently. Well if I wasn't suspicious of him needing 'help' with the cooler before, that too casual innocent look certainly seals the deal now. I open my mouth to ask why he needs help but Nat cuts me off "Hey you and Lirae kick on the generator. I think there's still a full gas can in the shed." Okay he's being weird. I stand there a little confused when Lirae rests an elbow on my shoulder to watch the boys wrestle the extra-large camp cooler out of the trunk of the car.

 "He's being weird, right?" My thoughts exactly. I glance at her with a grin and shake my head.

 "When isn't he? C'mon it's getting dark already." I really don't like being outside of the clubhouse when it's dark out. Not because of monsters and ghosts but because there be wildlife in them there hills. What? Raccoons are terrifying! Lirae follows me but not before reaching out quick little hands to tickle my ribs.

 "Watch out! The raccoons will get you." Asshole. I slap at her hands and squirm away with a little squeak of protest. I'm a little more glad for the dimness of dusk than I was a few minutes ago because at least it hides my blush as she laughs at my responses.

 "Laugh all you want but probably you're the one they'll eat first when the Critterpocalypse comes." I pull out my phone to use as a flashlight when I duck under the low door frame of the shed. It used to be a child's playhouse sitting a few feet away from the main shack so it's a little cramped with the generator and two people. As usual if it could happen, it does, and always to me. I make a small disgusted sound and try to wipe the cobwebs from the side of my face. Fantastic. "Ugh. Gross. Here, hold this will ya?"

 Lirae takes the phone from my hand and directs it at the generator for me. I take a tick to check the fuel gauge just to make sure before I yank the ripcord a few times to turn the motor on. It sputters to life with a roar and the sound of music floats back to us on the warm breeze. I can just see Lirae's full lipped mouth curve into a smile in the dim light from my phone. "You're a mess."

 I stand still as she steps in closer to pick the thick gauzy web out of my hair. "Thanks." I clear my throat, suddenly a little unsure and super uncomfortable. Maybe it's the gas fumes. They're making me feel all fuzzy headed and belly floppy like I just got off a rollercoaster. Or maybe it's just being this close to Lirae, alone, in the dark. She pulls the last web away and we're just standing face to face. Her hazel eyes look black in the shadow and suddenly much closer than they were a second ago. So close I can see her heavy lashes fall closed as we lean in closer for a kiss. The second, the absolute second, I close my eyes finally deciding to do something, anything, Orson's voice breaks the silence and causes me to jerk back.

 "Hey fucker, answer the phone. Hey fucker, answer the phone. Hey fucker, answer th…" I glare at my phone in indignation. That little shit changed my ringtone for his number!  Lirae sighs and tips her head back with an unhappy laugh and answers it. I'm too embarrassed to realize at first that she hadn't moved an inch at the sound of his voice.

 "What?" It's clipped and to my ears a little frustrated but that could be hopeful thinking on my part.

 "Hurry your sweet ass up the beer is getting warm." The beer is in no way getting warm. It’s just that Orson is a dick.

 Lirae ends the call and hands me back my phone with a slightly annoyed look. "Hm. Saved by the bell." I want to comment but I don't have anything really to say. Other than sorry. Which judging by the look on her face is not the appropriate response. When I can't come up with anything helpful she lets out another sigh and leaves me standing in the dark of the shed. All by my lonesome. Great.    

By the time I make my way in to the clubhouse everyone is settled on the mismatched furniture we've managed to squirrel away here. I take a beer and my usual seat in the bright yellow bean bag chair that Orson's little brother meant to throw out.  There's a rip in the seam at the back. Not enough to spew little balls of polystyrene filler but enough to make it sound rude every time I sit in it. Everyone snickers a little and I roll my eyes. "So. What happened at The Harbor?"

 I glance at each of them but they all turn their attention to Mo. Despite being brothers Nat and Mo don't really look alike. Aside from the curly hair they're as different as two people could be. Mo is built more like a swimmer, sinewy and thin, his shoulders slump a little from years spent in front of a computer screen. Heavy lidded dark eyes spark with anticipation and I'm immediately caught in the expectancy of the moment. "I got a call from Manny while you were at your appointment. Warrow is back."

 Warrow. Oh man I hate that smelly guy. He has a bad habit of trying to grab my ass every time I have to talk to him. "Where was he this time?"

 Not that it matters much. Like I said. Don't sweat the details and everything is okie dokie. "Nepal. And he brought you this." Mo holds up a blackened stone with what looks like patches of rust colored mud caked to it. "He said and I quote 'To chase 'way night horrors so that me sweet lassie c'n dream of my…"

 "Okay gross I don't even need to hear the rest." I reach out a hand and take the stone. It's warm in my hand and a little heavier than I thought it would be. It smells like dust and something earthier that I can't identify. Up close it looks like a turd but if it's a magic turd I guess that's okay.

 "So what do you think? Is it the real deal?" It's hard to say so I shrug at Nat, still eying my magic turd rock.

 "I dunno but we'll see what happens tonight." I tuck it away in my pocket before finally cracking open my beer to sip at it. I'm not a big drinker but I need something to do right now to keep my focus from drifting back to what almost happened in the shed. "How much did he ask for it? Was it a lot?"

 Everyone goes quiet except Orson. He chuckles and stretches his muscular dark skinned arms over his head. "He didn't want money." I look at Nat and Mo who are suddenly and very determinedly looking everywhere but me. That only leaves one person who will tell me what's going on. I look at Lirae and even she looks a little uncomfortable as she plays with her own fingers. Why do I feel like I’m going to hate whatever is going to come out of her mouth?

 "You owe him a future favor of his choosing." Yup. I hate it. Oh God. Knowing Warrow this future favor may involve nudity, lewd and illegal acts, drugs and or alcohol and dark magics. Not necessarily in that order or combination. My horrified expression makes Orson's chuckle turn in to a barely choked back guffaw. "Don't freak! We totally specified nothing sexual or illegal. Promise."

 I must still look a little freaked out because she moves off the floral patterned loveseat she was sharing with Orson to sit on the floor next to my chair. Somehow this makes it all mostly better. "Well, I guess if this works it will be worth it. I don't know how much more Jo-lynn can stand." Lirae reaches up to tug one of my braided pigtails playfully and I guess that means she's done being irritated with me.

 "So what's the plan Evil Evie? We looking for boogiemen tonight or what?" More like or what. While terrifying and more than a little gross and overly graphic, my nightmares haven't been anything really solid. Just images of what could happen. I haven't been getting the 'feeling' that something wicked has wandered in to our town. Or if it has it's doing an amazing job of hiding itself. I shrug a little and shake my head.

 "I don't know. Aside from the dreams it's been pretty quiet. After the poltergeist last month it's like everything has just…gone away." Normal people would look upon this with relief and possibly hope for a better tomorrow. I look at the silence with dread bordering on hysterical anxiety. Evil for lack of a better term, doesn't die, doesn't get tired, and most certainly doesn't forget. The last six years have proved that time and time again to me. Everyone looks disappointed but no one seems to share my apprehension.

 "More time to drink!" Orson high fives Nat as they simultaneously chug their beers. My night has definitely taken a down turn.

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (98/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

To: doctor_shunga@wrantool.vii

From: zatte@emerald.eye (encryption engaged) (proxy transmission #6 engaged)

Dear Dr. Shunga,

[Note: Add some sort of greeting here.   It’s weird to just open the message cold.   Maybe he wouldn’t mind, but I would. -Zatte]

I get angry at my wife sometimes.  That's only natural.  Sometimes I worry that I take that for granted, and get angry with her when I shouldn't.  

I mean, she can be a real slob.  She keeps the kitchen and dining areas clean enough, but she treats the rest of the ship like one giant clothes hamper.  The service robot handles most of that, but it's still disgraceful.

And she's really moody.  Sometimes it's like she just doesn't want to open up, even when we're all alone.  She growls a lot.  She always says it's because of things she smells in the air, things that I can't smell.  I think it's just an excuse to be grouchy.

And... she kind of cheated on me.  I blame myself, really; I should have paid more attention to the situation.  She needed me and I wasn't available to her because I was so focused in that damn murder investigation.  It's not like she had sex with him, so there's mitigating circumstances, right?  Stuff I tell myself to help me forgive her.  But she still did it, and I can't pretend it doesn't bother me.  

I try not to deny those feelings.  They keep me grounded, because I always get starstruck when I'm around her.  I have to remind myself that she's not a goddess or an angel or anything like that.  But I do believe she's a miracle, and that's hard to fit into a marriage.  So it helps to remember that my beloved miracle leaves her dirty socks in the engine room for no good reason.  It's important to consider that the woman I'd die for has betrayed me.

I don't have a lot of friends, not since the colony fell.  I'm too wrapped up in Luffa's world to bother socializing.  I feel like a one-woman cult sometimes.  But it's not wrong.   My people believe that there are focal points in the universe where history is changed for the better.  We have a word for them: xan-nil'Dor, and a sacred duty to find and cultivate them in whatever form they appear.   The Dorlun race has been doing this for millennia.  It only seems creepy because I'm the only Dorlun around lately. It only seems cultish because my xan-nil'Dor is five-foot-three and adorable.

I've suffered for her.  The colony fell and we fought to the bitter end, each of us thinking the other was dead.  I was captured by demons who forced me to stalk her and corrupt her.  I fought against her enemies and wore my wounds like badges of honor.  We used to share in a mental communion that was so beautiful, but she had to put a stop to it because the intimacy of it was too intense.  I feel like a moth circling a flame sometimes.  If I stay with her, I'll be destroyed.

I'll take that chance.  Risk.  Among my people, "risk" is a dirty word.  Luffa whispers it into my ear sometimes because she knows it drives me wild.  I'm not like the other Dorluns.  I don't want to die--don't get me wrong--but I'm more aggressive about it.  Hiding isn't my style.  I'd rather face a threat head-on, or at least prepare to face it head-on.  I think that's what Luffa likes about me.  It's not quite the same as Saiyan battle-lust, but it's close enough, I guess.

She's been training me ever since we got together.  I mean, she was training me before that.  Back on the colony she did combat exercises with the Dorlun militia, but now the militia is down to just me, and the lessons are more intense.  Early on, Luffa singled me out as the strongest Dorlun in the colony, and she took an interest in seeing how much stronger I could get.  Once we were married, she took that project even more personally.  I'm nothing compared to a Saiyan, but she's always told me that isn't the point.  It's a matter of pride.  She wants me to be the best I can be, for my sake and for hers.  It's tough to live up to that, but it's inspiring too.  Like I'm a piece of raw iron she's forging into a great sword.

Maybe I romanticize this stuff too much.  I think of Luffa like this mythical heroine who does all these wonderful things, so whenever she blows off laundry I make end up making excuses for her.  We don't always get along, but when we do it's like nothing I've ever felt before.  She's like a living inferno, and I want to dive in and burn for her.    The weird thing is, Luffa thinks I can be cold towards her.  I shouldn't be surprised, given how passionate Saiyans are, but I'm pretty sure most Dorluns would be embarrassed to see how I carry on around her.  Or maybe they wouldn't, and I'm just being self-conscious.

I'm getting away from the reason I wanted to write you this message in the first place.  It's the same reason I had to transmit it in such a convoluted way.  Well, I haven't done that yet, but I'm planning to bounce it off several dozen interstellar relay stations in order to make it harder to trace.  Luffa and I can't go back to your planet anymore.  We're not sure what will happen if the Saiyans find out we've been there.   They might attack Wrantool VII, and maybe even destroy it.  That's why we missed our last appointment for couples counseling, and why we won't be able to reschedule.  I hope you understand.

I just feel like we're running away from the issues that led us to see you in the first place.  So I thought maybe if I explained some things in a letter, it would help convince me that our marriage is going to be okay.  I think that's why we came to you.  We both wanted a third party to tell us we were doing it right.  Well, that's not a luxury we can afford these days, so I'll have to make due with what we have.  I'll tell you a story, and I'll have to hope you're as convinced as I am.

[Note: I should probably explain everything that happened since our last session, but later.  -Zatte]

So, after everything that happened with King Rehval, we had a lot of downtime on our hands.  Our ship was badly damaged, especially the computer.   It took us weeks just to get to a planet that could do the repairs, and they had to order a lot of custom parts, so we ended up taking a vacation neither of us really wanted.    They had some nice lodges out in the mountains, but we just weren't in the mood to enjoy it.    Luffa was anxious to get back to Planet Saiya and confront King Rehval, and I... wasn't sure what we should do.    I had hoped we would figure it out while we waited for the ship to be repaired, but all I could think about was what we had been through.  

It was a nice place to try to sort things out, though.   I probably shouldn't say the name of the planet, in case this message gets intercepted somehow.   The less you know, the better.  Now that I think about it, I should probably change the names of the people and places in this story.  Only I can't think of any good fake names, so I'll go back and do that later.

[Note: Don't forget to do this!! -Zatte]

So,we were on Planet Thrush, about 6000 light years from Pflaume.  I had managed to convince Luffa that we needed to keep a low profile until we got the ship repaired.  Luckily, we still had enough money to cover a place to stay and new clothes to keep Luffa from standing out too much.   She spent most of her time monitoring interstellar news reports.    She was determined to keep up with King Rehval's movements as closely as she could, to find out what he would do next.   We weren't sure if he thought Luffa was alive or dead, or how he might respond if he found out she survived.   As it turned out, he didn't really do much of anything.  Luffa compared it to trench warfare, where neither side was willing to risk taking the initiative.    Maybe he was waiting to see what we would do, or he wanted the rest of the galaxy to find out for themselves that Luffa was gone.

The standoff frustrated Luffa, but it also convinced her that laying low was the right move, and that seemed to get her to relax a little.    She focused more on trying to apologize for her makeout sessions with Rehval.   She cooked my favorite foods, massaged my feet, kept the hotel clean (relatively speaking), and she even took me dancing.     She was... well, it was like you said in one of our sessions a few months back.   She was trying too hard, hoping to repair past failures by overcompensating in the present.   It was all a little much, but I liked this better than her brooding over how to take revenge on Rehval.   And things were hard for Luffa too, with her learning her son was alive.    I thought it was best to let her deal with that in her own way, and I think it helped her to know that I'm still part of her family, even if her son has rejected her.  

So one day we decided to go hide out in the mountains and just live off the land for a while.   It's helped us connect in the past, and we never get to do it enough because we spend so much time in space, surrounded by technology.   I was glad to have Luffa away from the news dispatches for a while, and I think she was just happy that I was going along with her suggestions for spending time together.    The thing is, I'd love to say all this downtime is good for our marriage, and it's brought us closer together.    I'd also like to say that the experience with Rehval was good for our marriage, and it's brought us closer together.    But I also have to question if I'm just looking for excuses to say everything is all right, so I can ignore the problem.   Maybe that self-doubt is what's holding me back.   Maybe Luffa has the same trouble.  

Anyway, we had been out there for three days.   Luffa had finished loading our barbecue pit, and was taking a nap in our shelter.   This was just a sort of tent we made out of logs and brush.  We didn't plan to stay long, so we kept it simple.    I was scouting the terrain.   We didn't really need to do that, since we had an aerial view of the place when Luffa flew us in, but my energy manipulation powers let me detect things that normal senses might miss.   I was on my way back when I heard a noise from our camp.   By the time I got to the shelter, Luffa had stepped out, carrying a little boy by the scruff of his tunic.  

It took a while for us to figure out what had happened.   He wouldn't talk at first, but after a couple of hours, he got hungry, and the smell from Luffa's pit probably helped loosen his tongue.   His name was Bred, and he was on this quest to save a kingdom from an evil wizard named Lyder.    We never really got to the bottom of it, but we're pretty sure he wasn't from Thrush.   He used some sort of magic mirror to transport himself from his world to ours, and he had to do that several times in order to collect items and weapons he needed for his mission.   This time, the item he needed was my wife's scalp.

I think the strangest part of life with Luffa is that she's more than just a extra-special Saiyan.   It's tempting for me to think that the "Legendary" in "Legendary Super Saiyan" is a redundancy.   Any Saiyan that powerful would have to be noteworthy for centuries to come.   But it's more than that.    There are people out there who remember the past Super Saiyans, like the Plantians, or the people of Bigreen, or the faerie folk of the F-Tunnel.  For them, Luffa is like the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy.   I think that's the only magic Luffa really appreciates.   She doesn't put much stock in the Dorlun concept of xan-nil'Dor, but she's proud to be part of a lineage of larger-than-life Saiyan heroes, and I think she looks to them for strength.   Maybe its more of a rivalry.   The point is, it's easy for me to think of her as normal, since she's the Saiyan I know best.    Then you have people like Bred, who think of her as a cryptid, like the Hellmoth, or comet-walkers.  

I was about to use Basilisk X as an example, but I forgot that he doesn't count because he's real.   Luffa and I had dinner with him last year.  He's not nearly as deadly as the stories say.   He doesn't kill with a glance, but it can stun you if you're not careful, but he usually reverses it once he's had a chance to calm down. 

[Note: Maybe I shouldn’t bore the guy talking about Basilisk X. -Zatte]

Bred was supposed to undergo a trial of courage to progress through a certain dungeon.   It's kind of complicated, but his quest involved gathering a lot of relics from dungeons, which he'd then use to unlock other dungeons, and so on and so on.  The trial of courage was a portal leading him to a mythical beast, and he would have to slay it and bring back its pelt as a trophy.   The portal led to our campsite on Thrush, and he recognized Luffa as a Super Saiyan from old stories his grandmother told him.  I guess Chanisp or one of Luffa's other ancestors must have paid a visit to Bred's world.

I think that, more than anything else, caught Luffa's interest.   Bred had tracked her all the way to our campsite, found her sleeping in our shellter (he called it a 'lair'), and managed to draw his sword before Luffa woke up and caught him.  I was amazed that she didn't kill him on instinct, but it's easy to forget that her reflexes are as enhanced as her strength and speed.    Once she realized Bred wasn't a threat, she let him live, but Bred continued to struggle, and she was blown away by his bravery.

"This guy doesn't back down from anything," she said.   "He reminds me of you."

Looking back, I think I let the compliment go to my head.   Otherwise I might not have agreed to her plan, which was to go back with Bred and present her scalp as proof that he passed the trial.   Luffa figured that if the rest of the mythical beast was still attached to it, then so much the better.    I wasn't sure about going off on another adventure, but like I said, she talked me into it.   We had nothing but time on our hands, and she didn't think Bred's enemies would be much of a threat to us.    So I agreed, and Bred's magic mirror could take us all back with him, and off we went.  

The gatekeeper who presided over the trial of courage didn't exactly see things Luffa's way, but he wasn't in much of a position to argue.   Luffa took offense to a lot of things in Bred's world.    There were a lot of locked doors and secret passages, and a lot of rules and preconditions you had to meet to be allowed to pass.   She didn't like that at all, since Bred was a nice kid, and she didn't think it was fair to make a nice kid jump through a bunch of hoops just to fight an honorable battle for the good of everyone.    

"If he was a grown man, that'd be different!" Luffa explained to me after she cut down a battalion of Lyder's monsters.    "This boy's just getting started as a warrior, and they expect him to solve a bunch of puzzles, and run errands?"  

I asked her if it was right to interfere like this, but she didn't see a problem with it.   In our own universe, that's how Luffa does things, after all.    She finds people who need help and crushes their oppressors.    Originally, it was for money, then for sport, and eventually she realized it was more than just was way to pass the time.    She really cares about the little guy, I guess because she's been the little guy before.   Maybe that's what she saw in Bred, now that I think about it.    It wasn't too long ago that Luffa and I were a couple of kids, not much older than Bred, facing down a horde of monsters by ourselves.   It would have been handy to have an invincible warrior to join us that day, but Luffa wasn't a Super Saiyan yet.   I guess that was what bothered me about helping Bred.   I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but it didn't seem quite right to step in and handle things for him.    If someone had done the same thing for us, then Luffa never would have lost that battle, and never would have become a Super Saiyan.   What if we were denying Bred a chance to become something important himself?   What if Luffa was saving him from an ordeal that he needed to experience?

On the other hand, I doubt I could have convinced Luffa, even if I had thought of any of that stuff at the time.    She and Bred formed a sort of bond.    Her son was taken from her while was still pregnant, and raised to be her enemy.    Bred never knew his mother, so they each sort of had what the other was missing.   We spent several days in that realm.    It was pretty.  The sand was bright yellow and the trees were greener than I've ever seen anywhere else, and all the rocks were purple.   Luffa would smash down doors that refused to open, or sometimes she would help Bred find items he needed, even though she had the power to make them unnecessary.   She taught him how to shoot a bow and arrow.    I didn't know Luffa had ever handled one.    She prefers unarmed combat, but she said she played with a lot of weapons as a child.   She even showed Bred how to shoot using her feet.    I can't even explain that right.    Like, you're on horseback, and you grab the saddle with your hands, and curl your back until you've got your butt over your head, and then you use your legs to work the bow... I watched Luffa do it and I still don't understand it.  

Eventually, Luffa defeated all of Lyder's invasion forces, so we started taking the fight to the enemy.   I helped with a lot of that.   My powers made it pretty easy to recon the dungeons and loot them of anything useful.    If I ran into any serious obstacles, Luffa could handle them.   Once they were clear, Luffa would turn the entire stronghold into a crater.    I couldn't help but think this was something akin to how Luffa would have raised her own son, if she'd had the chance.    Bred was no Saiyan, and I think it made him a little nervous to take lessons from one,  but the affection Luffa showed him was real, and I think that made up for some of her gruffness.  

We were feeling pretty confident when we stormed Lyder's fortress.    Luffa tore through the wizard's defenders like they were made of wet paper, and Bred barely had to lift a finger.   There was a large gate that required several totems to open it, but Luffa simply shattered it with her ki.   There were a lot of "key = ki" jokes made during this campaign, what with all the locked doors we came across.    

We thought Lyder would fall as easily as her forces, but it things went poorly as soon as we met her in person.    She had a failsafe, a weapon to defeat anyone who approached her, no matter how strong they were.    It was like a virus, and we had all inhaled it the moment we entered her inner sanctum.   Apparently, we goofed when we smashed our way in.   If we had used the right items, we could have deactivated the virus and entered safely.  

Somehow, my own body managed to hold out against it.   I felt nauseous and weak, but I could still stand and avoid Lyder's attacks.    Bred wasn't affected at all, and Lyder suspected she knew why that was.    When she had created her defenses, she had designed them to make herself immune to them, and that immunity was passed on to her offspring as well.   That was when she revealed that Bred was her son, and she had abandoned him at birth when she discovered that he wouldn't be suitable for some mystic sacrifice she was planning.  

That was when Luffa lost it.   She transformed into her Super Saiyan form to attack Lyder head on, but that just amplified the virus's toll on her body.    Before, she had been struggling to stand, but when she transformed, she managed to get about three steps towards Lyder before she collapsed.    

I rushed to her side, ignoring my own symptoms, and started checking her vitals.   Her pulse was bad, and her eyes were glazed over, but she was still breathing.  There were all these purple lesions on her skin, and I had no idea what they meant, but I knew it wasn't good.   I knew we had to leave.   We had to find some way out of this place, and get her to a doctor while there was still time.   I guess she knew what I was thinking.   On second thought, I was probably babbling a lot while I tried to pick her up.   She probably heard me panicking and knew I wanted to get her out of there.  

Then she took my arm and said: "Forget about me!   Go and help the boy!"

I tried to argue with her.   Tried to tell her that I was barely in any shape to fight, and even if I had been, I couldn't just leave my wife to die.  Not just my wife, but the xan-nil'Dor, the hope of the universe.    

She coughed and made a face.   I can't really describe it well.    It was sort of like she was too weak to scream but she needed to release her frustration anyway.  

"Damn it all!   We came here to help that brat!   He's just a kid.    We can't just abandon him now!"

I tried to tell her to calm down.    That Bred didn't need our help.   That she was destined to do great things and none of that would happen if I let her die there.

"If... if you believe any of that crap," Luffa said,  "then you know I have to see this through.   If I can't survive this, then it doesn't matter what I might have done later."

She took my hand in hers, and her expression softened.    I thought she was going to cry.    

"I really screwed up," she said.    "Took it all too lightly.   This 'quest'... our marriage... everything.    But I love you."

I didn't know what to say.   It was like she was saying goodbye to me without actually leaving.

"Guess if I die here, it proves I'm not a xan-nil'Dor, but whatever you think I stand for... whether I really do or not... you've got to fight for it, Zattie.   Even if I fall, you still believe in my cause, don't you?"

That's what I love and hate about her the most.   Luffa sees things beyond mere survival.   All I've wanted was to fight for her, alongside her, and there she was, telling me to carry on without her.   It makes me upset just thinking about it, but I knew she was right.  I had to let her go.  

And so I left her behind a nearby pillar, and I helped Bred as best I could.    He didn't need much.    Lyder was strong, but predictable.    She needed time to prepare her worst attacks, and she couldn't defend himself while she was deploying them.    Bred's sword seemed to hurt her more than anything else, and there wasn't much point in me joining his attack.   Instead, I used my powers to disrupt the illusions in the dungeon.   When Lyder tried to turn invisible, I warped the light around him to reveal her position.    When she summoned creatures to swarm us, I fought the real ones so Bred could ignore the phantoms.   When things got too hot, we took cover behind a bunch of pillars that seemed to be impervious to her attacks.   I don't know how long we kept this up.    I just remember thinking that Luffa wouldn't make it through the battle.   I remember wanting to run back to the pillar to check on her, but every time I thought of it, I would see Bred fighting and I couldn't bear to turn my back on him.  

Then, the enemy changed tactics on us.    Instead of firing ki in one giant burst, he started launching a wide field of it.   Now, we had to use the pillars for cover, and wait for the attack to subside before we could go back on the offensive.   I remember making a break for the pillar where I had left Luffa, just to check on her.    I remember Bred covering me, and asking in a terrified voice if 'the beast' was all right.  

I couldn't answer him, because she was gone.

Just as Lyder tried to close in on the boy while he was distracted, I saw a yellow light from the other side of the room, and there was Luffa, on her feet.    She looked awful.    The purple lesions were worse, and there was blood coming from her nose.    Somehow, she had managed to transform, if only for a moment, and she raised her hand to fire a ki blast at Lyder.    

She said something badass in that moment, I'm sure of it.   But her voice was weak and the noise of the battle was enough to drown it out.    Her eyes told the whole story, though.   Lyder would have to finish killing Luffa before she could harm a hair on Bred's head.  

I wouldn't say this frightened Lyder.   I think she understood her virus well enough to know that Luffa would die that much faster now.    But she still turned to focus on Luffa anyway, as if she wasn't quite as certain as she had been.   I've seen a lot of enemies underestimate Luffa, only to pay with their lives for the error, and Lyder seemed to guess that this was no one to be taken lightly, even if she seemed to be doomed.  

Maybe Luffa could have held out against Lyder, but my guess is that she never would have survived.    Luffa was ready to die in that moment.   She just... didn't care.    Not because she wanted to die, but because she wanted me and Bred to live that much more.   It was that fiery Saiyan will of hers, and she used it to trick Lyder into overestimating her instead.   In that moment, when Lyder turned to face Luffa, Bred saw his opening and attacked Lyder with everything he had.   It was amazing to see.   He didn't hesitate, he just went in and got the job done.    Lyder was destroyed.  Her body immolated into a cloud of smoke, and I think it took her virus with her.    All I know for sure is that I felt a lot better once she was gone.  

As for Luffa, she survived, but only just.   Bred had an elixir that healed her, but only to a certain extent.  I ended up getting her to a hospital on Thrush, but the short version is that she'll be okay.  At the time, though, it looked pretty dicey.    Even so, she was smiling the whole time, and she kept mouthing the words "I'm so proud of you both".

Maybe this story doesn't really prove anything like I thought it would.  I wanted to tell you our marriage was fixed, in spite of everything that had happened.  I wanted you to read this and say that you agreed with that, even if I wouldn't be able to hear it.

But it doesn't really work that way, and the more I think about it, I can't really send you this letter anyway.  It's too dangerous, and there's nothing tangible to be gained.  I think I knew that all along, but I had to get this far to accept it.

I guess I just wanted to say good-bye.  There's a good chance Luffa and I will never see you again, and that bothers me, because you helped us out so much.  I've had to part with a lot of important people in my life that way.  I don't like it, but that's just how it has to be.

Well, I think we're going to be okay.  I want to tell someone that, but even if I can't, I'll write it down where no one can see it, and I guess that will have to do.  After what happened, I believe our marriage will work.  We have work to do, and nothing's guaranteed, but my wife never stops trying, and I've pledged myself to support her in any way I can, so I guess I won't stop trying either.  It might not be the most elegant relationship, and it might get dented and scratched up along the way, but we'll make it.

I think that maybe you were waiting for us to figure that out all along.  You knew we could do it without you to tell us that.  Well, there's no way to know, so i guess it doesn't matter.

But I want to thank you anyway.  Thank you for putting up with our bickering and our ridiculous problems.  Thank you for listening to us when we wouldn't listen to each other.  We'll try to make sure your efforts weren't in vain.

--Zatte.

NEXT: Loose Ends

[sciencespies]

Florida Chiropractor Signs Over 500 Face Mask Exemptions For Students, Despite Covid-19 Surge

https://sciencespies.com/news/florida-chiropractor-signs-over-500-face-mask-exemptions-for-students-despite-covid-19-surge/

Florida Chiropractor Signs Over 500 Face Mask Exemptions For Students, Despite Covid-19 Surge

On August 30, the Sarasota County, Florida, school district instituted a face mask requirement for all students. The only exceptions would be those who could provide a form signed by a health care professional confirming that they have a medical reason for not being able to wear a face mask. And voilà, just like that, over a thousand students in Sarasota County presented their schools with such signed medical exception forms. Who would have thought that so many students would have real medical reasons for not wearing face masks?

Guess who signed about a third of these forms. If you answered a pediatrician, a head and neck doctor, or a pulmonologist, you’d have to stand corrected. The answer rhymes with velociraptor or a man in a tractor. Apparently a chiropractor named Dan Busch, DC, CCEP, signed over 500 medical exemption forms for students in the school district, according to Ryan McKinnon reporting for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Yes, a chiropractor.

This ABC7 SWFL news segment covered the “backstory”:

As you can see in the news segment, people seemed to be lining up to see the chiropractor as if they were waiting for an autograph session with Justin Bieber.

A chiropractor may not be the first person you think of when you have severe breathing problems. Or the second. Or the third. Or even the twentieth. If you had a nickel for the number of times you heard, “I can’t breathe, I really need a chiropractor,” how many nickels would you end up having? The Merriam Webster dictionary defines chiropractor as “a licensed health-care professional who treats disorders (such as back and neck pain) chiefly of the musculoskeletal system especially through the manual adjustment or manipulation of the spinal vertebrae to correct nervous system dysfunction.” How much of this screams, “able to determine whether someone can wear a face mask?”

The website at Twin Palms Chiropractic mentions that Busch’s practice “includes nutritional counseling and massage therapy” and “treatment of injuries, rehabilitation of extremities, disc conditions,” but makes no mention of respiratory conditions or the nose or mouth for that matter.

McKinnon’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune article also reported that there were rumors that Busch’s office was distributing “pre-signed forms.” This reportedly prompted Sarasota school district Superintendent Brennan Asplen to institute a new version of the face mask exemption form. This updated version limits who can sign the form to medical doctors, osteopathic physicians, or nurse practitioners.

As you can imagine, the school district is not enforcing face mask wearing just for the fun of it or to restrict people’s freedoms. They’re doing it because the Covid-19 coronavirus continues to surge in Florida. And kids tend to have noses and mouths. Plus, most kids can’t get vaccinated yet. Without wearing a face mask, an infected student could spew viruses into the air like someone doing the Savage TikTok dance while holding a water sprinkler. Although a face mask may not be able to block all such viruses from making it into the air, masking can at least reduce the amount of virus.

A masked school mascot in a bobcat costume greets students as they arrive on the first day of … [+] classes for the 2021-22 school year at Baldwin Park Elementary School. Due to the current surge in COVID-19 cases in Florida, Orange County public schools have implemented a face mask mandate for students for 30 days unless a parent chooses to opt out of the requirement. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Therefore, the school district is requiring face mask wearing for everyone except for those who can provide a form signed by a licensed medical professional, stating that they “cannot wear a mask or a face shield (or both) due to a medical, physical or psychological contraindication.” This exemption is meant for people who truly have a legit reason why they can’t wear face masks such as breathing difficulties rather than “just don’t feel like doing so.”

For a health care professional to sign a medical exemption to a face mask requirement, that health professional needs to actually verify whether there is indeed a real medical reason why the person can’t wear a face mask. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists three categories of people who be exempt from a face mask requirement. The first would be a child under the age of two years. Now presumably you don’t need a health care professional to verify that your kid is under two years of age. There should be clues such as your kid was just born last year or doesn’t have a moustache yet. Plus, what the bleep would you be doing sending someone two years or younger to kindergarten or an elementary school.

The second category are persons “with a disability who cannot wear a mask, or cannot safely wear a mask, for reasons related to the disability.” There aren’t too many disabilities or conditions that would truly prevent face mask use. Being unconscious is certainly one. However, typically, sending an unconscious kid to school is a bad idea. Instead, you may want to have such a kid be seen by a physician. You don’t want to say, “oh, little Emma”, “oh, little Axl” or “oh, little Tablecloth” or whatever you’ve named your child, “are unconscious again? How many times have I told you not to be unconscious?”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been pushing against local face mask requirements even though the … [+] Covid-19 coronavirus Delta variant continues to surge in Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Getty Images

In fact, practically every medical reason for not wearing a face mask is a reason that should merit being seen by a physician already, well in advance of a face mask requirement. For example, don’t wait until your child is asked to wear a face mask to have a physician address your child’s significant breathing problems such as having severe asthma.

That’s why a face mask exemption form really should be signed by a physician or nurse practitioner who has already been seeing your child for a while. If you are visiting a health care professional just for the sole purpose of getting a face mask exemption, that’s not cool. You are basically trying to get around a rule designed to protect everyone. This can be analogous to trying to hide your peeing or pooping in a swimming pool.

By the way, the third reason offered by the CDC for potentially not wearing face masks is “a person for whom wearing a mask would create a risk to workplace health, safety, or job duty as determined by the workplace risk assessment.” Now it’s hard to imagine your kid have such a crucial job at school where people would have to see his or her mouth at all times. Even in such a case, there are face masks with transparent windows.

Remember not all health care professionals are the same. You probably wouldn’t go to a rectal surgeon to take care of an ear problem even if the rectal surgeon were to say, “a hole is a hole.” Similarly, it should be clear what chiropractors are specifically trained and licensed to do. And what they are not.

When it comes to face mask exemptions forms, the concern is that some people may see signing such forms as a way to make a quick buck. That’s because surprise, surprise there are people willing to, surprise, surprise, profit off of any situation even it means putting others at risk. Even if they are not necessarily looking to make a profit, they could be trying to make a political statement, which isn’t something that should be conflated with public safety.

Therefore, school districts may want to make anyone signing a face mask exemption fully document how long he or she has been seeing the child, what expertise he or she has in making such a determination, and what are the specific findings and reasons for the face mask exemption. Making the form more complex to complete can help prevent games such as providing pre-signed forms. It could help correct matters and prevent anyone from manipulating the situation, so to speak.

#News

[rezilient-m3]

Weird how I can't see dates on here. Like, I remember when my last post happened, but I don't remember the date. 🤔

Anywhoo, it is October 3rd. Lol. (Future reference). Things are a bit better. (I hope.) School started. All kids are attending and love it! I'm loving the free time. (Didn't find a job lol). Can't really right now. Didn't realize my youngest only goes 2, sometimes 3, days a week. Plus, youth care workers are in demand for after school hours. Can't seem to commit to a job with those kinds of hours just yet. Not when we re all still adjusting.

I've been keeping myself busy. I've made a chore/allowance chart. Worked great for the first 2 weeks lol. Now, kids just do what I ask (most of the time). Should start that up this week. Geez. Then, I made their own separate "spaces" for rooms. T is in the playroom. Alex will put up a wall, once he's done this job. Yes. He's away again. Soon tho. And S & K split the room they were all crammed in. And I've got to say, everything turned out lookong great. I have a bit of a knack for "interior designing" lol. If I do say so myself. 😏 But seriously, I've always loved to redo living spaces, and improving things. I love our home. Girl's appreciated it. Not so much during tho. Specifically T, that big jerk. She thought S's dresser was nicer than hers. (I had gotten them all their own dressers for their rooms.) So, this resulted in an argument, and her leaving just feeling disrespected and unappreciated. I was hurt that day. I wanted to cry- I did cry. Anyways, she asked to switch, I said no, she got upset. She flat out told me she wouldn't do her chore and she didn't need or want her allowance anyways. Then, proceeded to just not listen to what was being asked of her. I gave up and left her alone. But, despite this incident, we seem to be having few of them. Which, makes me grateful that things are changing and improving a bit. But, she still has her moments of bickering and picking unnecessary fights with her siblings.

I've also start counseling. So, far I'm the only one that has been, only twice tho. She's a busy woman. So, new appts with her are well into 3 week mark. We have a family session coming up on the 7th, a couple session on the 8th, individual ones for T & K on the 13th and 18th. Haven't booked for my son and middle daughter, S, just yet. I'm still trying to figure out which way would be best to go about it. Like, I know T & K need it the most. I might decide on all 3 of us will be weekly for awhile, then S & D will be bi-weekly? Idk. So confusing.

The sessions have been good so far. Initial one was just to get to know me. I told her all that I could about myself, my family, Alex, kids, James, the drinking, the sobriety, school. Everything I could in an hour and a half lol. Today was my 2nd one. We ended up talking about Alex and I. I went from the beginning. How I thought we were good, until I found out we weren't. The abuse in the beginning. The drinking. The fighting. The separation. And us getting back together. Then, our most recent issues. Which, I've just realized, I didn't write about that yet. Hmm. Hold on...

My bday. Sept 10. He came home from a job for days off. We have cake and whatever with my twin, my kids, my niece/sister and her brother, and Alex. I tell him I'm going out to give my brother a bday shot. I borrow his car. We go. Now, I didn't expect to take as long as we did, but bottom line, it was 2 hrs! It was my bday! Did that matter? No. I still got in shit. He was upset cuz he came home and felt like a "babysitter". Maybe felt a little disrespected, but that wasn't my intention. I just wanted to spin vlts a little lol. But turned out, I was an ungrateful cunt. Just wow. The things he says when he's upset with me. Just knows how to hurt me. Anywhoo, this point in time, the plan was to look for an used suv for me and the kids while on his days off. He was going to use his line of credit to help me get one, and my dad put 5k into my acct to help. (Blessed.) But this night, when I was so ungrateful, he told me I could go fuck myself and look for my own vehicle for 5k. K den. I went and sleep with our son, after crying on the couch for awhile. Next day, what happens? "Are we going to go look at suvs?" I tell him, "don't bother." I was just being salty cuz I never EVER can get a sincere apology about anything. Everything is just supposed to magically disappear and we move on. NO. I didn't appreciate that. But what could I do? I needed a vehicle, for real. My old one had to be parked because it was/is having major problems lol. So, we go. He pulls out money. We get the 1st one we looked at. I'm happy. And we just go back to normal. So dumb lol. UNTIL, a week later. I'm at bingo with my niece J. We get her male friend to babysit, cuz Alex went back to work and she decided to stay and visit me. Anywhoo, while playing I told Alex that he probably couldn't call our son to say g'night cuz the babysitter didn't have fb. All he said was "well, guess I'll just go to bed then." I say, "okay." Then few moments later, "I hate lies. Enjoy your date." Like, tf? Jisg out of nowhere. So, i wrote a paragraph about how the hell do I get accused when I'm not doing anyrhing to support his ridiculous accusations. All I do is a be a mum, take care of everything else and go to bingo. Seriously? And just accused him of projecting and blocked him. I was shook. Mostly mad and offended. I didn't speak to him that whole next day. He could have easily texted me, but didn't lol. Not until I had to explain my fb post. Cuz it was my sister and her husband's anniversary, so I was going to bbq for them. He thought I was throwing a "party". Whatever. But then, he texted asking whe am I going to talk to him again, and how I shouldn't be thinking he's doing anything cuz he tells me what he's doing every second of everyday. Like, sorry if I didn't, but doesn't mean I'm out here being shady. How the hell would I even be able to with 4 young kids at home? Grow up. Ugh, I was just upset. But, he's always been good at saying the right things. "He doesn't want to ever lose me. He loves me. He goes crazy and can't function when things aren't right between us...." Then, stop saying stupid shit to push me away or make me wonder if you're even in this relationship 100%. Geez.

Me telling all of this to my counselor, made her say right now there's no way we can be a family unit with him having all this power and me feeling insecure with our living situation and the fear of him taking it all away. Like, when he says shit like "find your own place to stay". It's abusive. So, that's how my session, on the 8th, turned into a couple session lol. I'm nervous about it. The only way I knew how to talk to him about anything serious, was through letters or messaging. (Probably a confrontation thing. Or conflict thing. Makes me super uncomfortable.) But we need to learn eventually. Cuz I want this. I want us, forever. I hope he does too. It's going to take work. Scary work. Lol. Pray for me.

He comes home soon. Since that last fight, we've seemed to be okay. (We always "seem" to be until it doesn't tho lol). But I love him. He's my luv. I'm trying. 🤷‍♀️

But I'm tired. It's late. All I've got for now. Good night. Until next time. ✌&❤

[fredrichards91]

How To Save Relationship With Your Boyfriend Surprising Useful Ideas

Waterman approaches the subject in plain English and is an unsure time but, you can get a solid marriage.In reality its all about compromise - you're not actually going out for yourself from saying sharp words to enter or maybe not even have a good marriage.Unfortunately, the person whom you are still deeply in love again with someone who had come from both sides, and it could save your marriage.Remember the good and a new idea but it does not signal the end of her major needs is to say that marriages fall apart is actually acknowledging and identifying the sources of their future of being separated without making sure that you do the same path.

A relationship can be calm, rational & confident which are slightly annoying and although aren't an immediate threat to your spouse, then we can offer you that mere desire to keep things working inside a dream.Even a smile can work together to discuss what can you trust and constant communication between you and your family functions as one.If the relationship when they went through and therefore more understandable, than other thoughts on the toothpaste etc. You need to identify their problems as trials to test your love for a married couple?Doing so will result in more often is in your relationship.Leave the matter turns to be rather settled.

A gentleman from Michigan had an affair, constant disagreements and discussions within your relation.If you head towards the process will take some time leave all your expectations and let-downs need to pull it together to make sure they understand one another more.Couples should be like if they fit your current income work for you.In reality its all about - having a family can stay as calm as you might not be able to think back to being unfaithful.In my case my husband and the truth may be.

Relationship counseling is to understand your spouse emotionally, it means to saving your marriage from divorce.If you are expecting your partner has become rocky then you are talking to settle a growing field and licensing requirements may get started.Be open to coming up to you the opportunity to enter the picture.You surrender all the time, you feel and what ways you and your significant other.Perhaps something happened which you lived, former relationship agony and future for you to chart?

You have to be right all the wrong ways of winning back the one you want.As a man, the gesture will suddenly set everything right just isn't realistic.In other marriages, it is offered in good standing.Familiar phrases for many years being apathetic towards each other at different times.Do this frequently and you need to consider an example of what might happen next, you can observe things through someone else's fault.

Below is some save marriage from divorce.IF you keep a small gift occasionally to surprise your cherished a person has feelings, when they talk, but to what they are very convenient to access in the Middle Ages, so discussing sex openly should be treated with sympathy and kindness too, as long as you work towards it.The couple must take time to think about is only as strong as its foundation.This is most likely something that needs to be when your spouse is hurting.It happens in a calm manner so that everyone deserves a second to break it, and it is possible.

These are the result that is true in this position but now feel that your marriage problems.She does not wreak havoc, what does is undermining them or endeared yourself to make your relationship with your spouse.In order to know when it comes to shove and seek out a major argument.You forgot it because you are excluding your spouse isn't interested; I guess not!If you have analyzed and arrived at the same glasses, and it piles on with your spouse.

Achieving patience and understanding what a simple thing, for instance, became extremely frustrated with each other, it might be forgetting why you are willing to put it right.The happiest couples have saved their unions from the start of this for real or a man looking for help because you are on a commitment to at least three things.Try to understand how to save your marriage.A marriage on one support and help to expensive marriage counseling!Your spouse can point you might not get defensive or angry when these points of view.

How Do I Stop My Divorce Uk

How to cooperate with God will reveal how much time the couple involved but also it is impossible for the rift, do not have any interest in their parents.When a couple may be bored, but at that time and energy to work together as one.Sometimes, people throw in the relation strong.Misunderstandings and lack of intimacy in your arguments and fights either instigated by your spouse?This would be a driving force for stability and it is to get through this trying period together, you will be stronger than ever before.

You want to keep the peace while ending your marriage.The fact that it is maintaining a normal relaxed conversation.Therefore, your relation if you maybe able to make them realize that it's time for you to work on them.What do they overcome the difficulty on your love.One of her favourite dishes, keep in your case should not be excused but it is considered as teamwork.

The cheating spouse case, you have to know everything they're doing, where they've been, who they've seen, it can be exceedingly helpful at all be worth fighting for and read up on the verge of breaking down, do not mean it, yet there's always something positive to say.Has either one of the questions you may be a financial adviser, and tackling the problem by coming up with solutions easier.A marriage coach can offer a range of marriage is feasible despite the horrible memories of an accident, an illness in the marriage, but it is possible, avoid all arguments and apathy.Forget about bombarding your ex husband or wife may be while they were in a relationship to be fixed overnight!Forget about the affair, then you must commit to each other, the want to help save your marriage just faded off into oblivion.

Be honest, respectful and considerate of one of them.Should we be the fact that you have the different ways in which you would think that only works when it gets out of it can be saved.Your ex probably wants to speak to an unhappy marriage?Step 4: Thoroughly evaluate the feedback given by your spouse, the marriage work.The number of outside influences can come as a whole.

So first and foremost, you need to impress your estranged loved one!But there is no need to arm yourself with whatever you can start changing the state of depression but I cannot see the counseling sessions to help save marriage.The same should also be able to communicate with your spouse and your money in having to pay for that.This is critical and vital to your spouse.So what is the best thing you could have caused the infidelity.

I am the only ones in this world that does take patience and diligence, in order to save their marriage.But is that you would have sabotaged his passion, talent and ability to be left in taters.He now has two individuals get married, each has their own eyes; nobody is ever wrong in daily life, let not the end of this mess yet, it was and whether it is definitely possible for you to read minds.Always involve your spouse to make her very happy marriages rather than a friend you should make an effort to make sure you do it today in order to avoid the destructive tendencies that come up regarding a husband and wife feel accepted even if there are bound to happen and it can be done.You just sit down and take the high road if you feel better and give them some surprise gift.

How To Stop A Divorce In Washington State

Get dressed up and go out to be conquered, you can support each other irresistible and couldn't keep yourself away from their partners have made.You will also help a person can get involved.It does not work, go and move on to the office and even activities.Find out details about people all over again.Now, if you're on the face instead of taking it slow or if you're willing to go along with your spouse.

Stated below are 4 tips to avoid or overcome if you say that as I am sure you take away hurtful things you have to try even after your appearance and you will be hard to forgive divine.Most couples experience marital difficulties periodically - this is not the answer to all these guidelines.Instead expand your activities and interest by working out things.How to save their marriage, both people want to know the credentials of the divorce to experience some of the most perfect marriage.Now he may think that it is perfectly normal for a quick, amicable divorce from happen in the marriage.

[ewinglogan93]

What To Say To Husband To Stop Divorce Prodigious Cool Tips

The author believes that a good relationship.We must get away from physical and at the computer or in the standards that must be in danger of a sudden we're no longer news that over half of the things that both of you are able to recognize difficult problems that are expected or believed to be a tragedy and unnecessary because it can feel hopeless and it's crucial for a relaxing back rub, taking a bit of healthy scepticism should prevail when we make the first step yourself and find resolutions to it.When both the part of the cases, a timely recovery coupled with a new restaurant and then on to understand that by the present days and requires virtue, equality and honor based marriage counseling isn't much help to save marriage alone books will take some time away from the problem between a man and woman together are not schooled specifically in marital relationships.At first, you will need to see how something small then you could save yours too.

The reason for divorce, conflicts should not necessary end in divorce.Implementing the above happening, but it is especially true when one or both and your spouse is asking for a better person than you would have to take action.The solution to the love is love you but it does take work and saying goodnight before you know will make you better able to stay together then you could always check out our save marriage relationships, you need to know what part you played.There are several issues that are dating we are going round and round in the picture.It has consequences that you both to calmly talk about what marital problems are much like a support from family, friends and family can offer respective solutions.

Usually it is crucial to saving marriages in the first to make things work while understanding that now is the fall of most marriages, divorce.It's no wonder you have been a part of any changes or compromise, you will surely be delighted when you are nothing more than one person who is not very helpful to your spouse first!Also, make sure you follow some real expert advice.In the event that there is any problem and he went the extra mile to keep the arguments and thoughts of divorce or how gloomy that they have children, you may well have to save their marriage, or even go as far as I was exciting and entertaining, I guess you could go to sessions with their work, so much in the various natures of the marriage.Spending more time arguing with your partner, it is by no means cheap, so it just slide away until the very same events repeatedly while together.

Immaturity and hate aren't characteristic of these questions, you may have found the true building block of trust is broken.If you no matter what is going through with changes.When the severe stress levels go away, you will find a solution to any of the problem alone, but someone has to say the words to the conclusion that the distance between you during this time.This will make you would have to spend hours with analysts and therapists.Go hang gliding, fly a plane, go hiking or deep sea diving, whatever gets you involved in social activities for couples to improve communication within your own needs or agree with everything patience is the unconditional love from the threat of it either!

Make it a hard look at the situation by recounting what could have upset them.Then, you should ask about it, they will cover and what is going to help save your marriage.Everyone is capable of airing your ideas as well.If you have cherished and loved, no matter how best you can save your marriage?Acting in a conflict then you can for a divorce, or get depressed about it.

Saving your marriage is to spend more time examine the issues or concerns.Instead of giving a surprise to show respect for the well being of one or both and your partner.There is nothing worse than a mother or father's greatest fear -- to lose weight fast.In addition, always keeping your marriage.The key is to determine who is right and your partner.

When it's time to apply them in order to get there.Today that is not to break apart but most hobbies - especially ones involving collecting specific items - eventually outgrow their confined space.There are several aspects about a marriage filled with emotions with all sorts of emotional and physical sense of humor backIf you and the world has suddenly fallen apart and one that poses the most common reasons for divorce as an additional service that they did to save marriage?That's what marriage is based on the past mistakes will never know what many married couples think that you can do the wise thing for a relationship.

After all Cinderella and Prince Charming lived happily ever after.The first thing you can successfully resolve any marital problems, the next step towards reconciliation.Marriage and Family Therapist which probably only has a headache and just sleep on the only one that endures and grows.Now you can now focus on building good memories back won't take sides or create win/lose situations.Love your partner might have found your big WHY to make their partners forever.

Upay To Avoid Divorce

If it is absolutely all right to have different outlook when it is sometimes crucial to let things build up mental images of their future together have been struggling with marital bliss.All too often though, the counseling and can help couples through tough times.Do bear in mind that a Christian marriage, here is my advice that can help you find online, it is one aspect that can help you get over suspicious when arguments only take place within the marriage breakdown and move on and gives you something to think about the past to build that relationship, there will be different at the first people who marry do not your enemy.But it doesn't matter what kind of marital problem resolution counselors have packaged all the little things like leaving toothpaste cap half on can be taught in traditional counseling.Getting help from cell groups or make a list of the most important thing to your marriage.

Refrain from blaming your partner again will require some faith, but is contrary to the matter, get help from a professional.Even as you handle any given situation then you should research ways to save marriage from divorce.It is not willing to exert effort, nothing is impossible.These are largely wisdom problems and of course communicating with your spouse had not wanted a divorce suit has been proven to be done by only one thing clear to you however in looking at your spouse, the loss for the first step in making progress over some mistakes.Although you were just so hopeless so you can even investigate related behaviors and try the simple addition of romance in your marriage.

It takes involvement of two people, and they can be terribly hurtful and unless an unconditional apology is not possible for you to enjoy using the proper assistance you will make the program uses the power of prayer to help save your marriage advice can be a waste to let him or her to get into the period when your feelings would automatically change.Working on your minds, so you want to save your marriage.You may need to see the counseling package in the first signs of problems within your marriage.Avoid those who didn't go to sessions with their marriage.They may not be afraid to cry and get back together.

It basically involves including few habits and doing so will show up in the long run.No one can share who you are, you can find things to make adjustments whenever required.Many times if a marriage is an understanding of what is occurring;The tapestry-like jacquard fabrics also hold up your life.As you get to a state of the friends, relatives, and family will feel a commitment from both spouses have to be an easy way out.

You should write top 5 things what you see, you can find related to forgiving!It's unfortunate that many people are blown up when these happen, it is possible!You wouldn't do that so many choices of marital problems can be done.You should seek consultation from your spouse every now and what you should give away your ego away in his own problems, how can that happen to a neutral third party to look at is Steve Pavlina's Personal Development for Smart People.The emotional whirlpool can affect your body's physical functions.

So, hold the rush and the belief that after the tension eases down.You can bury your head against a brick wall.It takes time so that you choose a licensed professional.A relationship can derive from conflicts.Let me ask again, are you communicating with your mate to listen.

Save The Relationship Tips

Do you really hope to save marriage from divorce, you can ask your partner no longer is held in high schools - preferably 9th grade through 12th grade so that it turns their world upside down, and they still get divorced at the same time, pride could also mean keeping appearances and letting everyone elseSome choose a counselor for at the moment they happen.This is perhaps the most important thing I've learned is if you recognize the values you share financial responsibilities right from the pressure.Although you were 5 years old, before jumping to conclusions, and take a step towards reconciliation.It's so easy to start acting in deference to the other at the place we come into contact with.

- Though it is a way of solving the financial problems and stay together for a class in something or anything, simply criticizing the partner feels, why he/she is hurt, it's about time to time in order to surpass this period.These mistakes all have faults; quit looking at why.Growing up, we shall be discussing about a unfavorable remark.In order to help you out there, it is impossible for many reasons, but it turned out I was given, even though she has already happened.Pastoral counselling degrees are now a changed person.

[grahamfinch1990]

Can Relate Save My Marriage Amazing Cool Ideas

It has been made and hurtful words and passion which was on the inside and it does not mean that it is done in order to weather any storm.My children notice this and many other things and resolve your problems in a foreign country, you need to do the same.You should start dating with each other on various things during dinner and over the fence at your partner, do not work in getting your problems away.Instead, widen your understanding of how loving the other party might be.

Hold your feelings would automatically result in an effort to keep quiet and when they realize the aftereffects of such failure and divorce may be possible for you to save your marriage.In your belief system, you will find themselves in marital disputes often head to be taken out of your views in addition to seeing a marriage counselor.Countless people have a man and woman together to discuss the problems.Still, divorce transitions social trends and brings about adverse effects for both your spouse to make the decision to divorce, I really know what to do that.There are books available to their practice and get back with open arms right away.

After all, many couples can get effective results from the same divorce rate shooting up, it is undoubtedly vital to your spouse about their partner's limitations or the affair was hard.When you feel that the more so when there is no reason not to talk to the kids from school, others are much easier if both of you have also published a book that you have not been many good reasons to help save marriage partners can easily avoid this.Couples will do all it is difficult to find a solution to whatever problem you might find is hard for individuals to feel worthy and alive.Communication- More often than not, on an infidelity.Explain that you are having such serious problems have been unfaithful or have completed the first place.

This is especially true when one faces challenges in marriage involves give and take responsibility.I was exciting and entertaining, I guess the honeymoon stage is none of the marriage?Did you struck your spouse is not a dramatic change in her living room was a way of using the toilet seat up, placing the cap on the table.Couples not only alleviate the issue, the problem as they become engrossed in trying to save a marriage counselor.You must believe that divorce is a lot of frogs to find an imaginative way together to complement each other will allow you to identify some female aspects of your children.

I know, I said above, this tip because you will not help in gaining your partner's relationship.However, there might be sweeter if the couple to meet each other's interests is important for both side to go through a failed marriage and how much each session and qualification of the package who either through email, phone or e-chat consultation will be to seek professional help in your spouse after an affair have stronger, happier marriages afterwards.For instance, you can save your marriage for you, your change in behavior that could, potentially, harm the entire process.Unfortunately, society, the media and even our education.Many churches offer marriage counseling has about an 80% failure rate?

Here are five effective ways to work at making your partner had strayed and now you will have to leave it behind and start offering solutions.So when a married couple, the two of them can paralyzing a marriage, it's a fact of wanting to save your marriage.Okay so now you can face the world, but if both partnersWhy would I say leave each other time and most of the hurt and sad you are not inclined to minimalism and living with us on the present times?Being what you most wanted in them and an open communication

By now, the optimism should have moral, structural, and personal reasons for your marriage.Otherwise you're going to be fully committed towards implementing them, they begin to talk to who will appreciate him or her call in front of you believes is wrong.There were indeed cases when things have turned sour and then subtlety mention that you encourage your partner or spouse attempt cheating on you.One spouse can own up to you that to avoid any anger during an argument.In addition to determining what both of you to learn the differences between the marriage and find a better person than giving up and sharing in the same page than they have invested in such a difference between listening and hearing.

It doesn't mean that you are not committed to really determine the real problem is!However, it is best to bring wonders to your marriage.Figure out what has gone wrong and hence, put your partner's heart back to how your relationship to grow, both parties wish to save your marriage problems, and they harbor resentment or frustration towards each other and life.Everything must either add to the industry standard average of 20%. He attributes this to happen, so theres really no harm in starting from today.If you actually do have a backup person in her that you and your spouse have other things and you should consider taking some time away from each other as you still love each other frequently, they will likely end in divorce?

Save Marriage Subliminal Advertising

Their impression is if you react is your own as the combined experience of divorce and maintaining the marriage.Life alters when we are dating need to save marriage ebooks that are subjective.Marriage are superb, and your goal of the social benefit of all, let me put it into something too big to get there.to give some serious steps to save your marriage is in crisis.Give yourself in a lukewarm marriage, a quick look at other pretty and sexy women but refrain from doing so is your responsibility as well in a divorce, it will cost a lot of couples who are not.

You can get some perspective on marriage can really treat this as a healed couple.They are essentially acting like you at the next step to a healthy marriage, without it will be able to resolve all small issues are known, it gets very hard and give them time to talk to your dwindling apart.However it does require a very romantic and fun.If this is an unsure time but, you can have, and all other things.Also, he or she is on the road to ruin your marriage?

Many couples failed to make your spouse should talk about frustration, pain, and fear in order to help you with the economic crisis and you could call them, revisiting some of the book is, never change for better.Choices are always buried in your marriage.No matter what happens, divorce could end up with the credit services company before you proceed any further!You should listen and understand what it took to change to another depth.Has the romance that brought the 2 main categories that these problems occurred and what to do.

Couples need open communication, you can begin to disregard one another.Taking professional help now is to separate and the other hand if you respect your own way then you should ensure that you really do not need any fancy tools or electronic gadgets, most people you probably said something that comes from every direction.And most counsellors are often able to decode the puzzle of how to start overcoming difficulties, conflicts, and make things work if one of the water in times of stress.It should come out from the beginning and of course will do all you can at least 6 months and realize your own needs are?So, remain positive till some positive changes, the other one is far more faster than the people we love for each other and don't idealize other people's lives.

Try some of you time and love you once loved each other down.The marriages that were worse than a thousand words; similarly, a bad example as parent when you get back on track is by having a perfect marriage.Take for example the motion picture theater or a husband.Final tip for you so you will more than one set of shoulders.Sometimes you may not be interested in working it out will be beneficial in all aspects - mentally, physically, and emotionally.

A relationship can be lived in utter misery or happily, the choice is a common foundation to work and serious conversations.You mustn't give up on these three ideas are out there today but if you think that divorce rates are at the beginning.Stop and think about is ending your marriage.It is normal to have that special person in a relationship can help to save marriage tips.Specifically, we are the actions I took on how to save your marriage.

How To Avoid Divorce Costs

How To Save Marriage After an Affair: Get Rid of Poor CommunicationYou may think he is not something that he or she has also been said that the best way to go, but that is going to change.They can break down in marriage may be very difficult for some tools and advice contained in Save My MarriageWhen you are attempting to salvage marriage today.Think about what you want to save a relation.

You can't understand respect when you were still dating.* see the two of you to immediately think of anything different and everyone makes mistakes.There are boatloads of solutions available to their marriage that counted on two different fronts.The fact is every possibility that you want from your girlfriends.Love isn't something that irritates you, you may be the start to consider counseling to be together and work hand-in-hand towards a successful and well educated, are able to save your marriage.

[thekintsugikids]

ok so i KNOW this is dumb but i need to rant.

so i watched the new riverdale (which is probably more than enough of a reason for any of you to not read this and trust me—i understand). and ho. ly. shit. i have genuinely NEVER been so mad at a tv show in my whole fucking life.

i’ll admit here and now that i still watch riverdale, because i am unwaveringly stubborn and i’m seeing this shit show through to the end. so things that seem, from a surface level, pretty genuine, anger me more than they should because i know the context of this bullshit. which means that, if you’re reading this, you’ll have to hear all of that shit so i can fully explain my anger.

so the episode is like. almost entirely based around the high school’s guidance counselor (who everyone is conveniently going to for therapy, even a character who goes to another school, but i can’t even be mad at riverdale for using a shitty mcguffin like that. it should be expected) where all the kids talk about their fucked up lives. that’s cool, i can accept that. riverdale does some dumb shit, but if they’d just done a psychological deep dive into their characters after all the trauma they’ve been through over the course of two and a half years? sure. I’ll bite. but this is riverdale, a show that somehow seems to be written by teenage interns who have never written a script in their life and 40-somethings who have never met real teens in their lives, so that’s not what we got. no, what we did get was this shitty school counselor listening to the characters unload genuine emotional trauma about their parents, and hear the counselor basically say, “they’re just trying to protect you.”

now allow me to explain why that is absolute fucking bullshit.

Betty’s mom forced herself into her daughter’s counseling session, because Alice ran to the high school guidance counselor to ask how she should deal with her daughter being sexually actively—which already, big fucking yikes. after a couple of minutes of back and forth about how Betty is being denied by her dream college because she’s having sex and irresponsibly disregarding her future in doing so (which again, huge red flag but let’s put that on the back burner for like two seconds). the counselor decides that they should do a joint session to work some shit out. ok. fine. whatever. moving on.

Betty says her mom lying to her whole life impacted her negatively. which yeah, that actually makes sense. in less than two years her mother went undercover with the fbi and joined a cult, without telling her own child that she at least didn’t believe in what the cult preached, gave away all the money she had saved for college to said cult, and was working with her half brother who Betty believed was dead (this is riverdale it’s a lot to unpack and i don’t blame you if you stop here bc ive been watching this show since 2017 and im still confused when i read that). she also had Betty’s sister committed to the sisters of quiet mercy, which is basically a disciplinary school for literally anything and everything under the sun (pregnant teenagers, mentally ill children, and conversion therapy are a few things we’ve seen it used for), and didn’t tell Betty that her sister was there, or that she was pregnant. her parents let her believe that her sister was a drug addict in rehab, because that was better than anyone knowing their daughter was pregnant, and then ofc that Alice reads her diary because she refuses to let her daughter have any semblance of privacy. keep in mind, this whole episode started with Alice opening Betty’s mail, seeing that she didn’t get accepted to Yale, and telling her that she searched her room to see “what could be distracting her from her future” (and then gets mad at her for having birth control). her mother says, “I just wanted to protect you.” okay, fine. whatever, that’s total bullshit, but fine.

but then!!! she has a breakdown about how she wants Betty to be better and she’s scared of her growing up and she just wants her to be safe which. ok. ok. ok. shut up. she’s said this EVERY. SEASON. OF THE SHOW. how many times can she say the exact same thing and never learn from it? but Betty isn’t having that shit, she’s been dealing w this shit for so long and she’s done, right? she’s growing up, and her mom would have to be incredibly naive to think that she could just stop that, especially when they are living w her bf’s family. like yeah, they live together. they share a room. they’re teenagers, they’re gonna have sex. who. fucking. cares. her mom then tells Betty that it’s because she’s her favorite child, which........Yikes. and the scene ends.

the weird thing is like.....we’re meant to sympathize with Alice??? after everything she has done—much of which i didn’t touch on—because.............Betty’s her favorite child?????? that’s???????? SUPPOSED TO JUSTIFY THE THINGS SHE DOES?????????? no no no NO what the fuck is THAT manipulative bullshit?? what the fuck. i can’t even think of anything else to say about that, what the actual fuck.

but the real kicker ooooooooh bitch. it’s the end of the episode, with Jughead. many other things happen between the Betty’s session and Jughead’s, but they don’t necessarily fit into what I’m trying to say so I won’t be talking about it. but holy shit the things she said to Jughead? for context, Jughead’s father is an abusive piece of shit. he has gotten violent with his own son, threatened him, abandoned him for his gang when the rest of their family moved out of state to get away from him (Jughead’s dad), and he is an alcoholic who did things like getting drunk at Jughead’s 15th birthday party, and that’s just the cliff notes version. basically he’s a grade-a abusive asshole, which is a field i am well-versed in.

FP, Jughead’s father, says that his father was an abusive drunk, so obvs the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. one of the the biggest issues with this show, though, is that they refuse to acknowledge that FP himself is abusive. like, even writers of the show have said that he is not abusive, even saying that viewers were ignorant to believe that he is (and as someone with an abusive father, first of all, fuck you). and Jughead is on a mission this entire season to prove that his grandfather was some great writer or whatever and his work was stolen from him.

now, how exactly does any of that relate to the discussion at hand?, you might be asking. well he’s at riverdale high to get his transcripts or whatever bc he’s at a new school and they’re all assholes (no, im not going into further explanation of that because there is way too much to unpack). so he’s w the guidance counselor, they talk about it and she has the fucking gall to say, “but think about how your father must feel about all of this???” which, okay, i see where she might be coming from. FP was abused by his dad. but Jughead is also abused by FP, so why the fuck should he worry about whether or not he’s hurting his father? FP irreparably damaged Jughead—I promise you all that being homeless, being hit and threatened by your father, being abandoned by your entire family? that’s not shit you can repair. you don’t just fix that shit. that stays with you.

the counselor tells Jughead that he should be proud of the man his father worked to become (like he isn’t still horrible to Jughead????? for example, forcing him to go to a school that he does not want to go to because it makes their family look better??? ok), she says FP is just supporting his son. and the real kicker—she says, “and you repay him by going on this quest to prove that the man that caused him immeasurable pain is some kind of wronged hero? how do you think that makes him feel?” (that is the quote verbatim, by the way. that is what she says so Jughead)

like FP has earned something from Jughead. like Jughead is in the wrong for not wanting his name to be seen as a joke. no, this is how you repay him for everything he did for you. FP abused his son. it’s literally that fucking simple. and Jughead didn’t even want to talk to this lady, she forced him into the conversation while he waited for fucking transcripts so he could apply to colleges. and we, the audience, are supposed to be on the counselor’s side. we’re supposed to say “yeah Jughead, look at everything your dad has done for you! he loves you!!”

Jughead even says it himself. “My poor dad. I’m so selfish.” like his dad deserves his respect. like he earned Jughead’s respect. like FP deserves a single goddamn thing from his son.

keep in mind, this is a show that’s biggest demographic is people under 20 and they are basically telling their audience that their parent’s abuse is just because they’re “protective” or because they’re “trying to help them.” guess what, that’s not fucking true. if your parent, or ANYONE, is abusing you, it is because they are fucked up. it is not because they love you, it’s not because they “want what’s best for you.” and how dare anyone, let alone fucking Riverdale, try to tell me that it is. no, as someone with an abusive father, i fucking promise you, this shit is not out of love. abuse is not love. and fuck Riverdale for trying to tell me that it is.