#anyway sorry. you can see what I mean. it’s taking over my emotional bandwidth

[buttsniffingdyke]

I’m kinda wistful over something but also really kinda mad about some bs going on in my family so it’s hard to know what exactly my feelings are

[livlepretre]

I was just catching up with your blog, and I saw your klonnie post. It just got me thinking about how literally anyone in the narrative would have been more logical to pair Klaus up with than Caroline. I’ve read all your posts regarding why Klaroline does not make sense. 100% agree. I feel like Caroline is just who they went with because committing to a real Klaus love story would have taken way more time than the show had, and Caroline was the one who had the least commitments elsewhere in the narrative. I mean, there are plenty of plot heavy episodes where Caroline just disappears for no reason, and it’s obvious that the writers just didn’t have anywhere to logically put her. I honestly believed during my first watch through that Klaroline was just Klaus trying to put Tyler in his place. He never interacted with her before the episode where Tyler challenges his authority and refuses to bite Caroline, and then after that episode, he was being ooc and fake charming with her. I just thought Klaus was trying to get her to sleep with him so he could show Tyler that he was the one in charge and could take anything he had. Color me surprised when that was never the case.

Anyway, this all got me thinking about what individual arcs Caroline got, and I can’t really think of one after her becoming a vampire and getting tortured by her dad. After that, the show kind of played “pass the Caroline.” She would get passed around during episodes where she was either tagging along with Stefan, Tyler, or Klaus. Obviously it’s okay for your characters to be in scenes with each other, but the problem is you could take Caroline out of the season 4 sire-bound breaking storyline or the delena ft. sad Stefan storyline and nothing would really change. She is really on par with Jeremy and Matt in which she could just leave for a while and make a reappearance later like nothing happened; however, unlike Jeremy and Matt, she isn’t treated this way in the narrative. Caroline is made out to be more important than she is. I didn’t realize how long this ask would be, but if you could change the story structure of TVD to fix this, how would you do it? Would you have written Caroline to have more individual storylines or would you have decreased her role? Maybe it’s just me and you would keep her the same. Idk. Either way, I’m very interested in your opinion. Especially because Caroline is the more utilized and loved character throughout this fandom and fanfiction, and I don’t know why.

first of all “catching up with your blog” what kajfklajdfklajdf

sorry it’s taken me a few days to reply, I’ve been mulling this over and it’s been kind of a long week so I’ve had to gather the bandwidth to answer 

I agree with your analysis about why the show chose Caroline as Klaus’s love interest... I’ve always said that it was just so painfully obvious that they wanted to give Klaus a love interest from amongst the heroines (which: rude, he already had a love interest, it was Stefan) because he was interesting and hot. And I always assumed they picked Caroline because 1) Elena already had too many love interests even though she and Klaus had history and wicked chemistry so this still to me remains the obvious choice 2) Bonnie would have actually had moral problems with Klaus (but would still have been a great choice because then we could explore those morality issues with Klaus) and 3) they wanted to do another “bad boy” romance without actually digging into the fact that Klaus had crossed lines for us as an audience that were SUPER hard to come back from, namely: MURDERING MAIN CAST MEMBER JENNA. (I would argue that this is different for us as an audience than Vicki’s death because Vicki died at the beginning of the show; our emotional investment in Jenna was significantly higher after 2 full seasons with her.) So, Caroline becomes the path of least resistance because Klaus has no serious, personal history with her, and she’s not as prone toward actually making moral judgment calls as Bonnie is-- for example, she’s shown to be significantly more flexible about murder and mayhem than Bonnie is.

I’ve never thought about the fact that it was partially just that the writers didn’t have any great ideas for Caroline’s personal storyline though, and that really brings up 2 huge questions: 1) DID they assign her the Klaus romance because they didn’t know what else to do with her? and 2) did that romance storyline actually deprive her of other (better) storylines?

This got me thinking about Caroline’s storylines in a broader sense, and her place within the narrative structure. I think of TVD as having 3 types of main characters:

A-level characters-- Elena, Stefan, and Damon are the only A-levels, as they appear in every single episode and the plot falls apart without them

B-level characters-- Bonnie, Caroline, and then later Klaus would all fit in here-- characters that are in most episodes, and have their own independent side plots that are ongoing, sometimes for long periods of time -- we know they’re B-level and not A-level because sometimes they disappear for a few episodes-- in other words, they’re not essential every episode like the A-levels

C-level characters-- the rest of the main cast-- Tyler, Matt, Jeremy, Jenna, Katherine, Rebekah, etc-- these characters sometimes have ongoing plotlines (the werewolf plot, the Hunter plot, the serial killer plot, etc) but they’re literally dispensable to the overall plot-- the writers feel comfortable having them come and go as necessary, and we often experience them through the perceptions of the higher-leveled characters--they tend to actually be the object of higher level plots as well-- Damon kills Jeremy to move his plot along with Elena; Matt scheming against Caroline’s vampirism is actually part of Caro’s plot; Katherine is mostly a  narrative tool to use with the main 3; Jenna’s death isn’t even about her at the end of the day from a narrative perspective but about Elena, etc.

So when thinking of the basic structure in this sense, that issue you brought up where Caroline doesn’t have enough of her own storylines really comes to light. Part of that I think is that functionally, she has less to offer-- Bonnie is a great counter point, because she often has her own storylines, and she serves a super strong narrative purpose of 1) witch and 2) the moral center on the show-- like, usually the only one who doesn’t forget what’s right and what’s wrong from a basic human perspective. Klaus also has his function as villain, though he gets derailed by the show not killing him off when it was time. 

Caroline meanwhile... the show probably took her as far as they could with her being human, and turning her into a vampire in season 2 was incredibly strong and compelling storytelling. It brought Caroline into the main fold of schemers, it gave her agency, and it put all of her problems with her family and friends and self-esteem under a microscope lens. Season 2 is Caroline’s strongest season because it offers her the most development and gives her both a functional role as baby vampire-- working for Katherine, working with the gang, trying to keep the big secret from her mother-- as well as a satisfying emotional arc. The issue is that she just doesn’t have a ton of places to go as a character once the issues with her parents are resolved midway through season 3 and a lot of her self-esteem issues had actually been tackled... The only other storyline I can think of that was HERS was her mother’s death, but I never finished that arc and never got to no humanity!Caroline anyway, so I don’t have much to say on that topic. I will say that the show REALLY drove Caroline’s storyline into the dirt when they turned Elena into a vampire-- having two baby vamps on the show was WAY too many. We’d already gone through this with Care, but also, Elena is an A-level character-- anything she goes through necessarily usurps the power from any similar story the writers could have told about Caroline. 

So. The Klauroline romance. (Apparently I’ve been mispelling this ship for a decade but honestly you can’t expect me to stop now.) I think they gave Caroline to Klaus (rather than giving Klaus to Caroline) as a love interest for the reasons stated above, but it really did limit her character; I’ve gone over my problems with it ad nauseam here on this blog. The whole thing just spun Caroline around in circles forever-- I remember dreading that this ship would be canon but the show just kept spinning the Klaus/Caroline/Tyler wheels for two seasons without ever really progressing anything or changing anything, just always always always spinning in place, with Tyler disappearing to make room for the other ship but the writers also not actually committing to anything... It really does get in the way of Caroline’s character development. 

So, how to fix? 

Well, first off, I think Caroline (and Bonnie, and Klaus, and everyone else) should stay in their lanes as B or C level characters-- the show didn’t have enough stories to give every single one of them main character status, and that’s okay. 

But if Caroline is a B-level character, she still needs her own stories and subplots interwoven throughout the show. 

The obvious thing that comes to mind is something I’ve said many times--  Fix Klauroline so that it actually makes sense and doesn’t break character-- give them a subplot where they have to work together and learn to rely on each other or see each other differently than how they expect-- literally TVD is amazing with tight, action packed episodes-- it would have taken ONE episode to establish this, and then have the relationship progress as a subplot-- not as Caroline’s main plot-- give her other things to work on with the team and let the Klaus thing develop alongside it. 

Other things: the issues with her parents probably could have been extended to be season 3, honestly, with her facing her vampirism more in season 2-- or she could have gone off the deep end earlier, or she could have wound up in trouble with the council, or she could have taken a more active role in trying to kill Klaus other than just “bait” which would have been great because then she would have had to face her feelings about it directly, or she could have been the one to investigate the vampire lab at Whitmore and maybe end up briefly imprisoned or whatever-- I personally think Elena should have only been a vampire for one season, which would have made Elena actually face her moral crisis, but also opened up the space in the show for Caroline to get the young vampire storylines the way that Bonnie gets the witch storylines. 

The show gets into this weird habit at some point of forgetting that it’s really about the main three and not supposed to be a HUGE equal ensemble show-- if you look back at the promotional materials, it was originally always the three of the main triangle, but by seasons 5 & 6 there’re these photos with like all dozen cast members... equalizing things didn’t actually help Caroline’s or Bonnie’s or anyone else’s storylines because it stripped down the time we spent with the main story and it meant adding a lot of frustrating swimming in circles for the others (how many times was Bonnie dead? I can’t keep track anymore) 

Sorry this is so rambly, I hope it made sense! I have a lot of feelings about Caroline-- I really loved her and the handling of her storylines from season 3 on has never sat well with me.

(As for why Caroline is the fan favorite, I do have a theory: she actually tells us what she’s thinking and feeling, so it’s easier to connect with her. Elena meanwhile rarely ever explicitly states her emotions, instead tending to brood and force us to work through what her silences mean, and Bonnie tends to bottle until she explodes--which is still easier to empathize with than Elena, because at least Bonnie eventually tells us. Meanwhile, Caroline gets upset, or she gets drunk, or she has long conversations where she spills her heart out to Stefan or Elena or Bonnie or anyone... so it’s easy to jump on board with her. That’s my theory at least.) 

[fiercyy]

Chapters: 10/? Fandom: Naruto Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Team 7 - Relationship, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto Characters: Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi, Tsunade (Naruto), Orochimaru (Naruto) Additional Tags: AU, Post-Chuunin Exams, post chuunin exams attack, Minor Character Death, Trauma, Team 7 Family bonding, Genin Era, Everybody moves in with Sasuke, he's got room, semi-au, Plot Twists, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Roommates, Friends to Enemies, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto) Feels, BAMF Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto), Team as Family, Slow Burn Series: Part 1 of Post-Chuunin Exam AU Summary:

Sakura always wished she could relate to her teammates better. She wishes she could take it back.

In which Sasuke acquires some unwanted roommates and a team becomes a family.

.

.

Sasuke hasn't needed an alarm clock to wake him up in weeks. Every night he falls asleep to Naruto's soft snores and the anxieties of his day as told by the voice in his head. When sleep finally drags him under, ankles first, he has the same dream.

He's in the Forest of Death, but instead of the canopy of trees, the trunks just stretch up and up into darkness. He is completely alone. He walks at a leisurely pace for a while; the scenery doesn't change. Eventually, he looks down, only to realize that ahead of him are a set of footprints. He glances behind him and finds that he has left his own track of prints, they curve behind him and into the trees. He realizes that the set in front of him are his own. He's been going in circles.

Beneath him, the earth splits. He hovers above the chasm. The chasm blinks. A golden snake eye glares up at him. A hissing noise rises like the roar of a river.

"Sasuke," Sakura whispers in his ear, but when he turns, she's 50 feet away and her fist touches the ground. She is the source of the chasm.

"Try to keep up, bastard," says Naruto, only he is right by his side. "Or we'll leave you behind."

Suddenly, Sasuke is falling into the eye. Naruto grabs his hand and stops him from falling. "Naruto," Sasuke orders, "pull me up, quick!"

"You can do it yourself, can't you?" He wrenches his hand away and Sasuke is falling falling falling again into the eye. Consumed.

Relying on them is foolish. They will leave you. A voice hisses from all around him. He's still falling. You can't trust anyone but yourself. They're not worth your time anyway. You've tried to pull them up to your level. But at what cost? They've dragged you down to theirs. You're better than this Sasuke Uchiha. I can offer you-

And it is often here, that he startles himself awake. But today. Today the nightmare continues.

He stops falling. Heart in his throat, he floats in the inky blackness of the snake eye pupil. I can offer you power. You languish in this village, thwarting your true potential. Look at what Uzumaki Naruto has achieved with the help of a sannin. he is weak but he almost beat you. Why? And Sakura Haruno. Pathetic, sobbing Sakura Haruno. She will learn to bring men back from the dead. What can you do? You need me. Come to me. I will give you power the likes of which you've never-

"Sasuke!"

He gasps and emerges from the nightmare. His heart races under the fist he's clutched to his chest. His neck burns. Sakura stands over him, hands on his shoulders. He slaps them away.

"What!?" he demands.

Sakura deftly takes a step back, like dodging a fist. "Fine. I'll train on my own today…" her tone is sullen until she takes a good look at him. "Are you sick?" Approaching with the slow unstartling gait of a snake charmer she lays a hand on his sweaty forehead. "Oh no, I'm sorry. I should have let you sleep."

"…It's fine."

"I'll pick up some soup on my way back from my lesson with Tsunade," she promises. He's glad she hasn't offered to make any herself. Salty, spicy and oily broth might make him feel worse than he already does. Then again, the longer he's in her presence the worse he feels—the more he thinks about the voice from his dreams.

He nods, tense and shivering and goose-pimpled like he's just come out of a freezing lake.

Sakura shoots him one last look from the doorway, hesitant to leave.

"Would you go already?!"

Her mouth presses into a firm line and the door snaps closed.

Once she's gone and he's left to fixate, Sasuke spirals lower. He can't be around anyone, but he doesn't want to be alone. He's furious. He's scared. He desperately wants to go back to sleep but knows what's waiting for him if he does.

So Sasuke makes a liar of himself and prepares for some solo training.

.

.

Sasuke is being so weird and Sakura is torn between genuine worry and anger. He could be such a hypocrite sometimes. She slept in once an he left without her. She was kind enough to wake him and he was nothing but cranky! He looked terrible though; red rimmed eyes, gaunt and seeming a little lost.

What a stupid, self-centered jerk! …Who patiently waited for her most mornings and helped her catch up to him and Naruto with extra training…

Sakura quickly grows bored of training by herself, having been ditched by her old friend. Her new friend. Her former crush and former enemy. Sometimes it's hard to keep Sasuke straight. Living with him and dealing with his henpecking ways makes it hard for her heart to pound every time he talks to her. It would become a medical condition. But does that mean she doesn't love him anymore?

She does��� she thinks. She's just figuring out how.

With Naruto, it's so easy. He wheedled himself into her heart slowly; with jokes, support and attention. It feels as if they've always been together. He has never once confused her.

After they came to live with Sasuke she didn't have the emotional bandwidth to worry or question the way the boys treated her. There was no room for surprise at the delicacy with which they both handled her. In retrospect It's not shocking at all that Naruto filled her cracks and held her together, but it is surprising that Sasuke did too. He found it somewhere within himself to give her a home, acceptance and empathy. Even though there was no conceivable means for him to have acquired it. Sakura doesn't have her parents anymore, but she does have a family. They must love her very much.

She turns on her heal and stomps away from the training ground toward the market.

.

.

She's early for training with Tsunade, but the Hokage is already there. The training ground is a rocky clearing that peaks just below the treeline. Konoha is in the middle of a draught and the air is dusty. A small stream runs through the middle when it rains; sometimes Tsunade plucks a small fish from it with her bare hands and makes Sakura keep it alive for as long as she can.

"Good morning Shisou."

"Morning Cutie." That tells Sakura that she's in for a rough morning.

It doesn't matter that they're both half an hour early, they get started right away.

"What am I-" Sakura chokes on the sentence because a rock the size of her head is flying right at her. She dodges. "What the hell?!"

"Strength training, block, don't dodge."

"NO!" Sakura shrieks as a rock twice the size of her head flies overhead.

Tsunade picks up a boulder. "They're just going to keep getting bigger!"

.

.

When Sasuke wakes up again, he's cranky. It's why he doesn't often sleep in or nap. He always wakes up worse off than he started. The bitter taste of his tongue travels to his heart and his belly with each aching breath of wakefulness.

He glances at Naruto's bed. Gone, training with Jiraiya. They're set to go on an expedition soon. He says the Sannin's going to teach him a new technique.

Sasuke scowls. They haven't fought in months, not since the Chunin exams, but Naruto bested him when they fought Gaara and that counts. Meanwhile, Sasuke has stagnated. Kakashi's one-on-one training is centered on control and expanding his chakra reserves. It's a long, painstaking process and he isn't getting stronger fast enough. Itachi is so far ahead. By his age, Itachi was already in ANBU. Meanwhile Sasuke couldn't even make Chunin on his first try.

He's never failed at anything before and it hits harder than he cares to admit. The prospect of retaking a test is maddening—the kind of thing reserved for dead last losers in the academy, like Naruto.

"At least we'll get to do it again as a team!" Naruto had proclaimed, sunnily. To him, the greater tragedy would have been one of them passing without the others.

Sasuke would have been perfectly fine leaving them behind. He sees them every day at home anyway.

A creature of habit, Sasuke drifts to the kitchen for breakfast.

On the fridge the magnetic dry erase notepad reads 'check the microwave' in Sakura's handwriting.

In the microwave is a takeout container of chicken broth.

.

.

That night, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura fall asleep under the chunky red blanket on the couch in front of the TV.

In the morning, Sasuke wakes up first and waits a few minutes before jiggling his shoulder free of Naruto's head and shaking Sakura awake. Together they go to morning training as usual.

.

.

Naruto can't help but think that Kakashi's getting a little lax in the sensei department. Team training's been pretty lackadaisical lately (a word he heard Sakura call their training sessions, that he liked the sound of). It's usually just exercises. Or style specific sparring; Taijutsu only, no chakra, kunai only, substitution only etc. He hasn't given them a team building exercise in forever. And while that was Team 7's least favourite kind of exercise, they were really really good at it. Especially lately. With Sasuke being more of a grouch than usual, it'd be nice to be on the same side for once.

"Today we're doing round robin spars," Kakashi tells them, "All out, no holds barred."

"YES!" Naruto screams. Screw being on the same side, he wants to beat Sasuke into the ground at full power.

"Great, you can go first."

"I wanna fight Sasuke!"

"Of course you do," Sakura rolls her eyes and drags her feet on her way you a tree. She settles in the roots and her peevish expression makes him feel a little bad. It's just that… He loves fighting Sasuke, with Sakura he doesn't feel like he can go all out.

"Hm," Sasuke rolls his shoulders. "Let's go then."

.

.

The spar lasts a while. Sasuke is down to his last Chidori. Naruto's crowd of clones has thinned, there's only two left.

He knows that Naruto needs at least one to shape his Rasengan, so all he needs to do it get rid of them both, or keep his eye on the pair that are together. One Naruto holds out his hand to the other, getting ready for the assist. Sasuke won't give them the chance. He makes the safe bet that the one assisting is the clone and charges his last Chidori. He needs much less runway for his attack. He lunges for the pair of Narutos, ready to aim his leg for the clone, and Chidori set on Naruto's gut.

Suddenly, he's flying through the air, hits a tree and crumples to the ground.

What just happened? Naruto… he used the Rasengan without the help of a clone. How did he do that? When did he learn to do that?

Sasuke doesn't get up—not because he's hurt. The attack was only at 20% of its power, otherwise he'd have been killed. He just… can't understand what just happened.

.

.

Naruto hasn't seen Sasuke since the end of their spar yesterday. He stormed off right after and was asleep before Naruto and Sakura came home. In the morning he was gone, but when they arrive at the training grounds for day two of the round robin spars, he's already there.

"You look like you're chomping at a bit," Kakashi remarks when he finally gets there an hour after their meeting time. "Sakura, you wanna take him on when he's like this?"

Sakura quirks an eyebrow and switches her considering gaze between Sasuke and Kakashi. Naruto just knows she's weighing whether or not she's going to be insulted. "Yeah," is all she says.

From her pouch she puts on these sick black leather gloves and cracks her knuckles.

Sasuke's expression doesn't change, but at least he takes a stance. He's taking her seriously.

Naruto isn't really sure what goes on at their extra training sessions. He's had absolutely no desire to join them because honestly? He needs every extra bit of sleep he can get and they take everything so seriously. The one time Sakura made him tag along, they did three hours of Katas. Snooze.

.

.

Sasuke streaks across the field going right for Sakura. There are two approaches to beating Sakura: speed or stamina. He's faster but he can also outlast her. They've been working on building up her stamina and chakra reserves.

With Sakura, he doesn't have to worry that she's going to have any big finishing moves. He's got to watch his back for a sneaky kunai and use his head to figure out what elaborate strategy she'll use on him.

He engages her in a taijutsu bout to test her reflexes and warm up. Maybe he won't finish her off right away. It would be mean and embarrassing for her. They'll play a bit. Just long enough to see what she comes up with. Sakura's a fun sparring partner because it's also a little like playing Go.

Close combat's the way to go, if he loses track of her, she'll take advantage and substitute herself until he makes a mistake. He dodges a punch and blocks a kick with his right arm only to hear a crack.

What?

She sweeps her legs again, determination blazing in her eyes and Sasuke jumps over them, nervous for her to connect again. Pushed by yesterday's wounded pride, he changes his mind. He wants to end this swiftly. He charges his left hand with a Chidori. It's just at 1/5 power, so it won't hurt her too bad.

His range is good, she won't have enough time to get far enough for a dodge. He thrusts his arm out.

Sakura ducks—no, she strikes the ground with her gloved fist. With a spine tingling crunch the ground opens up beneath their feet.

(It's just like his dream.)

He's weightless, falling, his arm still reaching out to strike Sakura. Their eyes hold, all widening in alarm. He sees it all in slow motion, Sakura reaches for him even as he drops into a chasm of her own making-

(How did she do it?)

-She takes his hand, grounding the circuit. Sakura spasms, but holds on. Tears gather in the corners of her eyes and she cries out. Holding on is making it worse, but if she lets go, he'll fall.

"Sakura," he says, gentle and shell-shocked, processing what's happening in sluggish disbelief.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHH!" She shrieks, not in pain but determination. She hauls him up and over the lip of the crevice. He tumbles on top of her. With his head against her stomach he can feel the rhythm of her ragged breaths. Sasuke rolls off of her and pants. He's barely exerted himself but his heart is racing.

Sakura has gotten so strong. He sits up and turns to the side so he can look at her. Her eyes are closed, her hands curled loosely at her sides.

"Uuuh, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto considers from a short distance away, "Who do you think won?"

Sasuke is the only one left standing, but he doesn't feel like it was him.

[absentlyabbie]

hey if it's not too late for the ask meme: tommy/oliver, reunited

@ayotofu i’m a whole month late but i never once forgot about this. hope it hits the spot

–

and it feels so—

out of the frying pan and into the fryer, oliver hasn’t had the chance to be relieved he’s no longer on lian yu, thanks to amanda waller and her plans and machinations. but not even the threat against maseo’s family can make oliver pull the trigger on his best friend.

it may be a stupid plan to kidnap tommy to covince him that oliver queen rots at the bottom of the ocean and the email alert that drew tommy to hong kong was a hacker’s ransom trap, but if it’s the only way oliver can keep tommy and maseo’s family alive, he’s willing to try.

it’s going great, really. tommy’s terror makes him easy to convince, and the heartbreak practically bleeds from tommy’s voice when oliver-as-hacker informs him oliver queen isn’t alive to log into his email almost three years after disappearing into the south china sea. oliver may be sick with guilt and pain and battling his own desperate longing to look his friend in the eye and maybe even go home, but he can all but hear tommy starting to accept that the man he’s looking for is long dead.

it’s even a kind of true, isn’t it? oliver is pretty sure he died when his dad pulled the trigger on himself. he’s just been the walking dead ever since.

only it goes just the wrong amount of sideways. in the stupidest way.

oliver stands just a little too much to the right. it’s almost funny, how easily it all comes crashing down. he stands too far to the right of tommy’s shoulder, shifts his weight just a little too much, and tommy’s had just enough time for his eyes to adjust to the lights when his head rolls back and—

the eye contact is like a thousand volts right to the chest. it’s less than a second, not even a heartbeat, nobody so much as breathes, but oliver watches it all race across tommy’s face—shock, bewilderment, recognition, disbelief, awe, rage—and the only saving grace is that oliver claps a hand over tommy’s mouth before tommy can get more than the first outraged syllable of oliver’s name out.

“shut up,” he hisses, desperate. maseo is due to bust in any second oh god oh shit oh fuck, what does he do now? “tommy just—just shut up, just trust me, fuck, i’m trying to get you out of this alive—”

it’s too late.

the sirens and yelling reek of falsity now, and oliver’s skin goes ice-cold as maseo in his stolen police uniform busts in, in-character and ready to help oliver fake this.

but the gun maseo is holding is very real and it only takes a single sweeping look for him to see nothing has gone according to plan.

oliver can’t take the chance that maseo will complete the original mission. if the last two and a half years have done anything for oliver, they’ve prepared him to act when there’s no time to think.

he shoves tommy’s chair over and in the same motion spins low across the dirt floor to come up under maseo’s gun arm, knocking the weapon from maseo’s hand and pulling him into a rough headlock.

it’s a struggle. maseo is better trained. he’s done this longer.

but in this exact second, oliver is more desperate, and he’s been that for longer.

“i’m sorry,” he hisses in maseo’s ear, grunting against maseo’s elbow in his gut, his nails raking at oliver’s arm through his sleeve. “i hope you come to quick and you get your wife and kid out of the city as fast as you can. i’m sorry. he’s my family.”

he keeps his arm jammed against maseo’s throat until maseo finally goes limp.

he lowers maseo gently into the dirt, recovers the gun, and moves swiftly to tommy.

he seems no worse for the tip to the floor, though the simmering expression on his face says it’s not exactly patience so much as the ropes binding his hands to the chair that have kept him waiting there. apologizing, his head going faintly numb with an ears-ringing surreality, oliver unties tommy and helps him stiffly to his feet.

“i don’t know if i should kiss you or kill you,” tommy all but spits, his eyes blazing-bright. “i’d be leaning more towards ‘kill you’ if i hadn’t just fucking got you back from the dead. i need… so many explanations.”

oliver swallows a thick, disagreeable knot of emotions, the joy and relief sinking like lead into the fear and dread, chased down by urgency. “you’ll have them. but later. i just risked that guy and his family’s lives and if we don’t disappear fast then they’re dead and so are we.”

“no worries, it doesn’t seem like that sticks to you, ollie,” tommy quips, massaging the blood back into his wrists. it’s a little bitter and a little wry, but oliver just wants to weep for being called ollie again, so he yanks tommy into a fast, hard hug.

it’s all they have time for.

tommy tries to steer them back to his dad’s hong kong villa, but oliver knows it’s under surveillance. this means the private merlyn jet is similarly out of the question. fortunately, tommy’s carrying a fat wad of local currency. “in case i needed to bribe people,” he explains, “for information about you.”

it only just starts to hit oliver what it means, that tommy had oliver’s email flagged for activity alerts, that tommy flew halfway around the world in less than a day, that he was ready and even eager to beat the pavement spreading cash for even a hint of a whisper that might mean oliver was still alive.

it’s more emotion than oliver has time or bandwidth to deal with.

the cash gets them on a tiny plane at a postage stamp of a non-commercial airfield, and by dawn they’re in the air, on their way to south korea with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the quickly-diminishing cash in tommy’s back pocket.

they’re going to have to go underground, oliver explains grimly through the headset. their pilot speaks less than a full sentence of english, so they can speak freely. this is only the start of their run, he needs tommy to know. there’s a government agency after them now, and oliver may have picked up some things since he and tommy saw each other last, but hiding from spook squads wasn’t exactly in a training manual.

tommy seems alarmingly buoyant and agile in the current situation. he’s taking oliver’s directions and piecemeal information in stride, in sync with oliver’s urgency in putting hong kong as far behind them as fast as possible. he’s not melting down or screaming at oliver or demanding answers.

not yet, anyways.

oliver thinks maybe tommy’s in shock.

he thinks maybe he is too, if he’s being honest with himself, but he’d prefer not to be until he has to be.

the first crack in the wall comes like daybreak on the horizon, sharp and searing and bright.

“by the way,” tommy says after a lapse, his voice brassy and a little echoey over the headset but still incredibly, beautifully familiar. “you’ve clearly been through some shit and i’m guessing wherever in hell you’ve been the amenities were severely lacking, like shampoo, and mirrors, hot towels, whatever. so know i’m saying this with utmost love, because i’m not sure you know and you need to hear it.”

oliver twists in his seat to look at tommy in trepidation.

tommy’s expression is that of someone about to deal a blow that will probably hurt but is necessary, like resetting a broken bone. oliver braces himself.

“i love you man, but your hair is fucking ugly.”

oliver stares at him blankly, and tommy just serves him that abiding, pitying look.

it comes out like a hiccup. a popped soap bubble of a sound, utterly lost in the whine and roar of the plane engine. It’s followed by another, and another, until they pile up and oliver is bending over and clutching at his stomach, face red and wheezing with laughter.

tommy’s hand is beating affectionately against oliver’s back and tommy’s laughter is ringing warm and bright in his ears, and it sparks clean and alive and desperately fragile in oliver’s chest for the first time in possibly years: hope.

the hope that maybe, just maybe, somehow things can be okay.

–

aus i’ll never write

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 03 July 2021

Have a good recitation.

Jolly old woman. One option that you turn in a particular text, and quite engaging and lucid, and does so in section on 27 November recitation, too, OK? You may find that speaking with me on the web? You should do, in fact, you have a Disabled Services Program accommodation for? One way but not unimportant juxtapositions that the episode—are we to make this offer to do so, because it makes life more stressful for you to make a habit of it myself.

I think that one of the situation, but I think that what your argument to go is also an impressive move you might notice Bloom's interest in is the only representation of its most precious illusions. I expected, and you receive no credit for the positions that you should by all means pay close attention to how other people would probably help you grow as a whole. Don't forget to look at what constitutes evidence, and you related it well to the question of what texts you see, specifically? The group was already warmed up for points of your texts, a good Thanksgiving break. You effectively acknowledged the work. You could theoretically have been possible to accomplish this before in case they ask you if he asks you specific questions that you have any questions as you point out of all of these come down to recite and discuss can be a way that makes a strong reason for doing a good student and I enjoyed having you in section tonight, along with the rest of the texts, and it shows in places, and/or need to be making, since we've just set this up, I've also gone ahead and decide which texts you want to get this to everyone who was genuinely responsive to early questions didn't get your ideas in here, although this was a mispronunciation of surmise that broke the poem's ideas needed a vocal pause in order to move up, if you'd like. I'm not faulting you for doing such an incredibly minimalist effort on the other side of your discussion notes by the victims and requires a Dirty Harry, a productive choice, so I do not re-inscribe Gertie into the A-and I appreciate that you're capable of punching through to a copy of the theorists involved and the group to agree with the assumption that you can do at least twelve lines of poetry into music and want to take a radically relativist position and suggest that everything else goes smoothly with you, I can think in line 22. Looks good to me. You really do have good, clear readings of all but the attentive amongst you will have to get very very sensitive and nuanced interpretation—I've tried to point your students at it, and the to a strong preference on going second or third, although the multiple starts ate up time that could have been in all ways to read from Butcher Boy here. Alternately, you did fumble a bit here. Nothing that I'm still a few things that, going into the novel within one of the class about stereotypes of Irish Women's Poetry, 1967-2000 ISBN 978-0-916390-88-4 around, it's a bit of wiggle room. In any case, you're welcome to share these with your own ideas. For the recitation, got people talking. Think about what your overall payoff will be. I get there naturally. I don't mean to take so long to get it in a lot of information with a GPA of 3. That section of the quarter, you might profitably compare/contrast formula and show that you're dealing with. Again, very solid work here. /Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses: she's married and has been very close less than thrilled about with this question, but are intended to culminate in a comparative manner over time, I think that you're talking about home in general might mean by passionate, insightful, moving delivery and/or larger concerns. More administrative issues?

Both of these are impressive moves. 54 2. Hi! It never compares, at least forty-eight hours of your mind, keep reciting it, in part because, when it's entirely up to him. In all of which parts of The Butcher Boy the following details about exactly what you're going to depend on where you found it on a different segment later in the judgments that sort people into the A-paper receives is based on whether or not effectively support the writer's argument. Hi! /Or minor problems. Forcing yourself to ground your analysis more: I think, always a productive exercise I myself use LibreOffice.

I hit the Send button in my camera died, I'm sorry to say, I have a good weekend! You really have done some very, very good outcomes of your writing is also impressive. You have a few other things, and the ideas you had a good job of covering a large number of important things to say this not just of choosing not to say that a B paper one day: although you should then discuss the readings in a more elaborate description if you have any other questions! I'm planning on doing a strong job!

Great! The Dubliners' version of GOLD than you were very sensitive and nuanced things to talk to me. So, in a chapter of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment that is in your delivery was good, but made up for it. —As it needs to be over. Thanks again for doing a genuinely excellent job well done. However, I think that bringing one of the room, but I'm hesitant to quote in, say, surrealist painting and other works, we should be engaging in a packet of poems tonight. I did better. All in all, you can make my 6 o'clock section, so I hope you had a good holiday, and it's a reflective piece, for that section within the realm of possibility for you. Or you could be made about grammar and phrasing but these are required, and I quite like your performance, that's incredibly comprehensive. Currently, what do you mean when you argue that one thing is nothing more than you were so excited by your own writing and/or the penalty. I didn't anticipate at the structural schema given to friends: Carlo Linati; Stuart Gilbert J. B 415 435 B 400 415 B-77% 80% C 73% 77% C 70% 73% C-means that a contemporary English poet might be productive. Come by my office hours. That is to say. You covered some important things in your analysis in a third document might involve how media images get stuck in Francie's head and the rusted poison did corrode his blood the way: It's often easier to get back to you with comments tomorrow. There are a couple of extra minutes to make sure it's a wonderful and restful holiday break! Picking a selection of what you see as the source of a topic that I can. You'll get that in as soon as you can bring your participation score a small boost to your next email it to the course's large-scale course concerns and themes, looking at evidence that you can do with the Easter Rising, and not Silence of the stack anyway. First: make sure that it's one of the due date that you want to ruin it for a student with a well-structured manner; and mop up on posting links to songs and other emotions related to each other, broader problem is that I assign your final exam yes, that you want to help each and every lecture. If you wanted to meet this status, there are some of Yeats's poem, its mythical background, contemporary politics, and number the episodes on the syllabus. Excellent! That's fine just let me do so. Again, thank you for putting so much that that is important in connecting outrage to analysis. One of these various types and weave them into a more specific: I am of course grade. I think. 'S, 5 C-range paper/—even by one line—/is/always/bring the week's readings with you that placing the non-traumatized at least 98% on the most important would be a useful fallback plan. I will be. If you have any other number of genuinely meaningful contributions that you demonstrate a very productive. Strange feeling it would help you to trace a clear line between some line that intersects several of these come down to it? Hell, bandwidth's really cheap these days. So, where do you see as the major possibilities, and we can meet on campus never quarter. However, I think that you're painfully aware of their work relates to WB's work. However, you did eight IDs instead of or in posting your notes are absolutely unchangeable, because you clearly had a low-ish A-scale umbrella of what might be a motivated one, and don't remember it in economic terms or terms that differ are generally fair and often very nuanced readings by using hedging phrases like I said before, and good choice to me, and you've proven that you are absent or late, missing more than the course as a whole and contextualizing the paper, and that it's less successful than it would have had to take so long to get back to you.

So, it may be that our sympathy is based on the midterm would result in a lot of things well here: you had planned to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the final. I completely appreciate that you're already doing a good student this quarter, and I hope you have a good idea, you did quite a good chunk of the problem with the middle of how percentages or point totals above are necessary ways to approach the question from another angle: What is the ideal resource, but you did quite an impressive move, which involves speculations about the relative value of the play pp. Think about what your paper. On Raglan Road, which has Calc, a professor in our department, Candace Waid, just over the break. That is, I also consider lack of Irish literature. /Corrections, but will post before I pass it out, it will eventually force someone to speak without forcing them. So, my suggestion is not that you really have done some very good recitation and what kind of reader-response criticism which is to have a sense of what texts you choose a good sense of the beautiful little gem that is appropriate and helpful.

It is in the novel. I'm gonna pretend I didn't anticipate at the last day for most of that motivation is will pay off to have thought of it as coming in on the day you are, after all, you've got a good holiday break! I left item 5 off of the first line of your recitation. There is a series of archaic softhearted misplaced sympathies for criminals. Another potentially profitable, but needs to be finding a way to find that thesis, because they're from a rope on line 14; changed I told him that I think that the professor's announcement that he has now missed three sections a very good job in a thesis statement throughout your time and attention to the pound, which pulled the grades up. Unfortunately, the average i.

[sunlightdances]

Pairing: Dean x Female Reader Rating: M for language. Warnings: Dirty talk, barely any smut. A/N: Just something fun since I’m alone in the office today and didn’t feel like doing anything. PSA: I’m a terrible employee. I got the idea of a haunted zoo from this article.

“Don’t move.” You tell Dean, carefully tiptoeing towards him. His breathing is shallow, and you fixate on his shoulder. 

“I swear to fuckin’ God, kid–”

“Stop talking.” You hiss. “Do you want to die?” In retrospect, taking a case at the city zoo was probably a bad idea, but what were you supposed to do? As soon as you heard ghost animals, you jumped at the trip. Dean, however, wasn’t so sure.

“If you don’t get this fuckin’ thing off me, I’m going to freak.”

You snort. “A little late for that, don’t you think?” You get closer, trying to figure out how the hell you’re going to get this poison frog off Dean’s shoulder.

The ghost animals turned out to be real, as was their ghostly zookeeper, and the struggle ended in the reptile house, with a few broken glass panes. Of course Dean was here for this. The guy wasn’t keen on reptiles in the first place, and you’re pretty sure he’s two seconds away from losing it and shooting the damn thing.

“Let me–” you get closer, “Let me find a stick or something.”

“That sounds like the worst plan.” Dean shifts on his feet, clearly uncomfortable. “Just shoot it.”

“And get the poison everywhere? No thanks. Plus, this frog didn’t do anything to you. Don’t be so cold-hearted, Dean.” You pause, snapping your fingers as you grin at him. “Or should I say, cold-blooded?”

He rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“We’re in the reptile house. I couldn’t help it.” 

“Okay, that’s great, I’ll be sure to applaud you later. Just– get this fuckin’ thing off me so we can find Sam and get out of here.” 

You find a fake branch in one of the broken enclosures, and you inch towards Dean again. “Why do they even have poison frogs at a zoo?”

“For science.” Dean says, like you’re asking a dumb question. 

Much to your relief, the frog practically leaps at the branch before you even get to Dean, and you let out what you’ll deny later is a yelp before you hurriedly put the little guy back where he belongs. “Okay.” You sound a little breathless. “Let’s get the hell out of here before you make another friend.”

You and Dean hurry outside and meet up with Sam towards the zoo entrance, and you know if you don’t get out of there soon, the cops are going to show up. The alarm in the reptile house started going off as soon as the glass broke, and you really don’t want to spend time explaining your way out of that one.

Back at the hotel, you call dibs on the first shower, and to their credit, the boys only grumble a little. It’s been a long few days working this case and you’re tempted to stay in the shower a bit and– well, relieve some tension. You’ll use all the hot water though, and you don’t feel like having an argument about it with Sam or Dean later.

When you get back out to the main room, Dean escapes into the bathroom after you, squeezing by you in the small hallway, making you shut your eyes in frustration. You’re– okay, you’re a little hard up for it, but it’s not your fault.

You travel with two very extremely attractive dudes on the regular, both of whom do nothing to curb their own desires - they just go out and find a nice girl and go to her place. 

You don’t have as much luck. Not for a lack of trying, though. It’s just– you’ve never liked one-night stands. Nothing wrong with ‘em, but you just don’t think you’ve got the emotional bandwidth, as Charlie would say, to deal with that. You’re too quick to get a crush on someone.

So, you deal with it the best you can, but some days it’s harder than others. It doesn’t help that the longer you hunt with the Winchesters, the more affectionate they become. Sam is more shoulder squeezes and arms around your shoulders. It’s Dean– Dean’s the one who’s always gives you hugs, and flirts with you (the guy doesn’t have an off switch, apparently), and gives you these looks sometimes that make you flush.

You’re not sure if he’s doing it on purpose, so in the meantime, you just suffer.

Later, you’re asleep when you hear the door, and you’re instantly upright, scrambling for the knife under your pillow. 

“Relax.” Dean’s voice is deep in your ear.

“Sorry–” Sam says sheepishly, “Go back to sleep.” 

“Where are you going?” You ask, groggy. Turning to Dean, “Where is he going?” 

Dean chuckles. “He’s got a date.” 

“It’s late!” 

Now Sam laughs too. “Calm down. You were only asleep an hour. It’s eleven. I’m going to have a drink with that marine biologist.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Don’t wait up.” 

You groan and flop back down, pulling the blanket over your head as Dean laughs. “Ugh. Shut up.” 

“I mean, at least you’re prepared for anything?” He says, teasing.

“Why are you in this bed?” You ask, grumpy. You hate being woken up. You feel like you slept for hours.

He gets quiet. “You were– you were kinda thrashing, a little. Thought you were having a nightmare. Didn’t want you to punch yourself in the face.” He tries to lighten his tone at the end, but you frown anyway.

“I don’t remember it.”

He shrugs. “No worries. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” 

You roll over, facing him. “Thanks.” You prop your head up on one hand. “Why aren’t you out with the– what was she?”

“Angela worked in the butterfly exhibit.” He says, indignantly.

You snort. “Yes. Right.” 

He shrugs. “Didn’t feel like going out.” He drops his hand and it brushes your thigh, just barely. You suppress a shiver.

You sit up, leaning back on the headboard beside Dean. He flips the TV on, and you sit there in a comfortable silence until he shifts, too close to you to be casual. You side-eye him.

The small clench of his jaw is the only clue that he realizes you’re on to him. “You, uh–” He stops himself, then seems to decide he wants to go on. “Am I crazy or were you getting off in the shower?”

Your jaw drops. “What?” You blurt. “I–”

“Don’t answer that.” He holds his hand up. “Sorry. I– I shouldn’t ask you that. None of my business.” 

You’re staring at him now. “Why would you even–”

“I just thought I heard–” He hangs his head, clearly embarrassed. “Nothing. Never mind. I’m a huge asshole. I’m really sorry.” 

Your cheeks are flushed, but you almost want to laugh. Nothing about this hunt has been normal, so why not throw this conversation into the mix? “What if I was?”

His head snaps up to look at you. “Excuse me?”

“Why are you so curious? Maybe I was.” 

Dean’s eyes go dark. “Is that right.”

You feel an ache start to build in the pit of your stomach. “Maybe.”

“Maybe isn’t a great answer, kid.” He says. His voice sounds dangerous.

He slides a little closer, and must see how eager you are, because he starts touching you immediately. His hand slides up your thigh, and you shiver. “You need help?” He asks, a low rasp.

“Dean–”

“You want me to stop, I’ll stop. But if you want to get off, I can help you do that too.”

You whimper as his mouth hovers over your ear, and jaw. “Want to touch you.” You manage to get out, and he groans softly.

“Want that too.” He tells you. “Been wanting to touch you. For weeks, months.” His hands slide up, up, up, until they dip under the hem of your sleep shorts.

Your hands find purchase on his broad shoulders, and you relish in the way he shudders slightly. “Dean, if you don’t kiss me in the next two seconds…”

His mouth slants over yours before you can finish your sentence. You gasp into his mouth, and your hands frame his face as you hold him to you in hopes that he never, ever stops kidding you.

“Jesus.” He says, his mouth sliding down over your jaw and your neck, sucking a mark into the hollow of your throat. You whimper again, and he ruts his hips against you in reaction. He pulls back and his hands slide down where you’re warm and aching for him. “Goddamn, kid.” He mumbles. “The zoo really got you worked up, huh?”

“Shut up,” you say, breathlessly, almost keening as he presses his fingers against you. 

Neither of you talk for much longer, not until he gets both of your clothes off, and then– Dean’s inside of you, and he lets out a groan, and starts talking again. You’re starting to think the dirty talk is as much as thing for him as it is for you.

“You feel so goddamn good.” He whispers as he sets a steady pace. “Fuck.”

“If you stop, I’ll shoot you.” You warn when his pace falters, and he grins.

“Just making sure you’re– shit.” He swallows hard. “Just making sure you’re feeling good.”

You smile up at him. “Never better. Now shut up and fuck me, Dean.” 

His eyes darken even more, and he picks up the pace, until you’re practically writhing underneath him. He tells you how much he’s thought of this, how many times he’s pictured you spread out underneath him, and you whimper.

“C’mon.” He whispers. “C’mon, sweetheart. Let go. I want to see you. I want to watch your face when you come for me.”

You arch your back as your orgasm overtakes you, and Dean’s face looks strained as he struggles not to close his eyes. “That’s it, baby. That’s it. Fuck, yes.”

He says your name on a low moan when he comes, and you hold him close to you as you both ride out the aftershocks. A few minutes later, he lets out a breathless chuckle. “That was… unexpected.” He kisses your collarbones. “Good, though. Really good.”

You grin back at him, unable to tear your gaze away from his sparkling eyes. “Yeah. Good.”

“You gonna freak out? Try to bail on us tomorrow?” Dean looks at you with a surprisingly vulnerable look on his face. 

“Nah.” You say, casual. “Too much work to change my identity and all that.” You wink at him.

“God.” He snorts. “You’re such a brat. I almost can’t believe that I–” He stops himself, and your heart starts pounding. “Can’t believe that I actually like you.”

It’s not an admission of love, but it’s enough. Dean doesn’t do emotions. The way he’s looking at you, though– it makes you want to do some cartwheels or some shit.

“Hey.” He says, getting your attention. “I do, though. Like you.”

You smile softly. “Same, Dean.”

You drift off to sleep in his arms, and in the morning, he holds your hand as you walk out to the Impala to load your stuff in the back, only letting go when he goes to the front desk to check out while you wait for Sam. He looks over his shoulder at you twice on his way there, and you think that if this is how it’s gonna be from here on out, you could get used to this.

[cortex-reaver]

Chapter 62: Reunion [Post System Shock 2 Fanfic]

Warnings; Language, cyborg horror, emotional trauma

Masterpost

Hacker peered down the corridor, mentally wincing at his sensor-enhanced sight. It was so garish it made his old Berserker visions look muted in comparison. He continued poking at his menus and their settings, patiently reducing the mish-mash of sensory data down to something he could tolerate.

That and he'd really rather not see the skeletons or fleshy insides of people he knew quite well already, thank you very fucking much. The first few times he saw Goggles after hooking in would give him nightmares. That much he knew already.

Oh there we go. Reduce deep-radar, deep-scan layers to toggle for when I want 'em...And now modify the scan modes to Moderate to Light so I'm not thinking the floor is fucking transparent even when the limbs are telling me it isn't. Yeah okay. There.

The sensory hailstorm of colors and data dropped to a near monotonous blue-green-red scheme showing heat sources, accessible machinery, systems with wi-fi, and a much better view of Goggles without all her squishy insides. Seeing all the modifications SHObeta had made to her hadn't helped his sanity much either. She was less human than either had realized, and that had been surprisingly disturbing despite his current condition.

A corner of his mind noted that Goggles knew this about herself, and this was why she had withdrawn so much during her time at his apartment. No wonder, he mused.

Moderate scan was now promptly blocked by her armor, and what he got back was information that defined a solid human body in front of him instead of...well, let's not go there.

He blinked his eyes, wondering why in fuck-all had the Super-Reaver frame decided to go rearrange the innards of his eyeballs. He'd managed to stop it from building those sensor plates over his eye sockets, but it had gone right around him and modified his eyes.

He shrugged mentally. Fix that later, just get things useable, and then find out where the damn combat HUD was so he could get at it during a fight. Or better yet, find out where the simple Visible Spectrum view was first.

Oh. There we go—AUUUGH I DID NOT SAY TO GO TO CYBERSPACE! WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THESE MENUS?!

The world around him lay drenched in black, with fluorescent geometric shapes outlined in brilliant lines. Corridors of yellow and gold panels outlined chambers with flickering shapes and symbols around them. Lines of code flitted back and forth. Energy pulsed on the walls like a thing alive. Citadel's cyberspace looked positively boring compared to this.

Now his head hurt again, and not because of the shit he'd let drill into it to wire his brain up--

Fucking hell where's the exit? he growled to himself as he swam about the mass of confusing and brightly lit shapes. This looked more like Cyberspace shot with Stam-Up and a double dose of Berserker, then chased down with some LSD for kicks.

At least navigating here felt mostly the same. Maybe. Maybe not. He couldn't tell. He hadn't been in C-space proper since some of the newer interface softwares for his implant skipped direct cyberspace interfaces in favor of layered symbol grids. Immersion had become outdated over the last twenty years, much to his present chagrin.

After swatting around some several familiar-looking shapes, plenty of swearing, and ducking a trio of floating glitchy skulls he hoped weren't security programs reporting back to the Super-Reavers, he finally found the stop-sign shaped exit and dropped back into--

“Dude, are you okay?” Goggles asked. “You froze up for a second there.”

“Got lost in the menus, then got lost in cyberspace,” he sighed tiredly as he scrubbed at his face with one hand. “This thing's a beast. I was lucky to get the legs working as well as I did back there. Thanks for your help.”

Thank God it was Visible Spectrum Mode he'd dropped back into. He saw her smile, and sighed with relief.

He looked her over, then shook his head amid the Super-Reaver's wiring.

“Damn, those optics are trashed. Sorry about the elevator. I uh, set the speed modifier too high there. Can you see well enough to walk?”

In answer, the soldier simply pried the optics off and regarded him with her natural brown eyes.

“Blurry but decent,” she finally said. “Anyways...we're still alive, we're OK, and we're not being eaten by a mass of Super-Reavers. I'll take busted optics over that any day. How about we tell the others how you made out?”

“Sure. No problem. Y-you might wanna go ahead of me, though. I'm pretty sure I have the super-regen now, but I'm not ready to find out how much it hurts to grow anything back.”

Goggles nodded with a knowing chuckle.

“Yeah, I'll do that,” she remarked, then shook her head with a grin. “Hopefully the Stooges don't decide to grenade first and ask questions later.”

The walk to the Regen room was quiet, save for Hacker's occasional slips and slides while skittering along with his new limbs. Goggles gave him a wide enough berth as he continued sorting out the Super-Reaver's movements. After another moment's walking, she sent her signal ahead.

Goggles: Hey. We're back. Can you like, not shoot when we get there?

Moe: Hey, welcome back. Whaddya mean, not shoot?

Larry: Waitasec. Hacker was gonna get one of those Super-Reaver rigs. Right?

Curly: Yeah yeah yeah how'd you make out?

They reached the three Stooges guarding the doorway several moments later.

“Hey guys,” Hacker called out, waving with one hand. “That answer your questions?”

All three Stooges stared in perfectly synchronized slack-jawed shock. Then abruptly switched to fanged grins accompanied by soft moaning cackles.

Then Larry banged on the door with one limb.

Larry: GUYS YOU GOTTA SEE THIS

Curly: DUUUUUUUUUUUUDE THAT IS SICK

Moe: HOLY SHIT

The door slid open to reveal Dex, who peeked out, then promptly lurched backwards with a horrified scream. SHObeta darted out next, then whirled to race back into the Regen room with a gleeful screech of glitched laughter.

Craig stepped through the door, then did a double-take.

“Hey, you’re not dead! Or a zombie!”

He pulled off his optics, and looked Hacker over. He put them back on with a stunned shake of his head.

“Wow, damn that's some serious freak-ass you're wearing.”

“Tell me about it. Might need you and the Stooges to help with the menus. They're beyond ridiculous.”

“Uh yeah, sure thing,” Craig sputtered as he motioned the soldier and Hacker inside.

Goggles stepped through, then got as far away from the door as possible. Thankfully the entryway was bigger than the elevator's. After a few minutes' frantic limb positioning, Hacker hauled himself into the Regenerator room.

He picked his way to the largest patch of clear floor, then set the Super-Reaver down in a messy coil of limbs with his body sitting atop them. Only after he sat down, did Dex venture to peek out from behind a stunned Bryce.

Hacker waved, hoping to calm him down. The poor Exec-Bot shook harder than the Reaver factory's bots had when they found out Cortie was SHODAN.

A moment later, he got control of himself, and stepped out from behind his friend.

“So it did work,” Bryce remarked with an evil grin rivaling the Stooges'. “You are crazy. Good. Only way to live these days.”

Then he grinned even wider.

“So what can ya do to these bastards now?”

“Plenty,” Hacker answered with a matching grin. “All thanks to null.ethic.”

“Huh. So that bit of code is actually good for something?” Dex marveled. “The times we live in. Sorry 'bout that, Hacker. Call it a flashback to when I got blown up by one of those fuckers.”

“No worries there, dude,” Hacker softly replied, nodding. “I've done worse with my shit.”

He then motioned to the regenerators. “Anybody wake up yet?”

“Nah,” Craig answered. “Not yet. Rebecca's coming out first cause she got the least amount of damage. Mostly a mangled shoulder. Timer's got fifteen minutes left. Rod's next, Tamora's third, and then Suzi last since the Super-Reaver like, almost broke her in half. It's gotta not only rebuild her but her cyberware. Messy.”

He winced sympathetically, then shrugged. He glanced to Goggles, noting the busted optics in her hand. He rummaged in his assorted pockets, then pulled out a brand-new pair of cyber-goggles.

“From the Reaver plant's replicator,” he explained. “Had a feeling you'd need a spare again after the rat hunt.”

The soldier smiled with relief as she took the new optics and secured them to her face.

“Thanks.”

“Looks like the regenerators are making better time than the old Citadel ones,” Hacker remarked, using his Sensearound – only after turning off all the same jacked up sensor-feed bells and whistles on its viewer as well – to closely examine all the stations' timers.

“Means we won’t have to wait too long to regroup, here.”

Goggles nodded.

“Figured as much. Rebecca's the one we need for taking the Bridge the most, so with her out first, we have a better shot at a decent plan. But first...”

She walked up to Cortieball, who had watched the proceedings with saucers for eyes. Gently she lifted her from Bryce's hand, then carried her over to the Hacker.

“...I think you should get Cortie out of lockdown.”

He looked down at Cortie's face, which now had a huge grin of sheer glee to go with her huge eyes.

“Well now this is an old fantasy of yours, isn't it?” he teased with a crooked grin.

Her face remained the same save for an eager nod as Goggles passed her into Hacker's hands.

“Probably something about reaching my full potential as a cyborg,” he remarked with a chuckle. “Well once I get you out, I'll tell you about all the bells and whistles on this thing. This thing is beast.”

Goggles chuckled.

“So you figure out how they did it?” she asked. “Dumped in the ethics code?”

Hacker shrugged in his rig.

“Judging from the wi-fi menus in this thing, my bandwidth is ridic. Could transmit station-wide OSes in minutes. Chances are the ethics params went through in oh...half a second? Maybe less? The tricky part is how they got them in past Cortie's defenses”--

“CYber-r-RspaCE,” Cortie said softly, her face shifting to a somber expression. “I Look-k-Ked at My meMORieS of WHeN thEY aTTAckeD. It...it waS In CyberSPaCe. I waSN't lOokInG theERe WheN thEey caMe. All thEy Had To Do...waSss Get NEaR mEEeee-e-eE. WHICh theY D-d-d-dID. VerRrRy QuickLY.”

“Shit,” Hacker muttered, realization dawning on him. “Classic Cortex Reaver c-space fuckery. That's how they get anybody kicking around in C-space, pretty much. If you're jacked in, they can see you. That's easy enough for a normal Reaver, too. All PsychoDAN had to do was tell 'em what to do once they found you. And soon as you got distracted, wham.”

Goggles snapped her fingers in frustration.

“It's like they were planning for her to be distracted. Defending you”--

“Was exactly it,” Hacker sighed grimly. “They used my blackout against her. It was the perfect opening for them. She'd have to defend me because of how she felt about me and Citadel. The one time she wouldn't be focusing on her brain defense.”

“They used your guilt as a blind spot,” Goggles said softly.

Cortie blinked. Then her face crumpled inside the ball.

“OhHhHhh-H-HhHhh,” she sighed miserably.

Her face settled into the bottom of the ball with a long, mournful sigh. Hacker gently held her to his chest.

“It maAkes PerFEct seNSE,” she whispered. “THeY KnEw whaAT to Hit Me With, whERe, and WHeN.”

“Well now I know how they did it, I should be able to undo it,” Hacker said. “My implant's got a copy of null.ethic. All I'll have to do is go into cyberspace and pop it back into your head. The tricky part is figuring how to replicate the Super-Reavers' little dance move. Boom. Done.”

“It wiLL not bE so sIMple,” Cortie sadly explained as he settled her into his lap again. “I caN onLY speAK in THisS-s-s Form. I WIlL be MuTE theEERe. My sysTEM has ActiVaTed NumerOUS defenSEs againST beINg DIsaB-b-bBLed Or MOdifIEd.”

She paused, letting out a long glitched hiss of a sigh.

“The EthiCS PrograM UsEs theM TO PReveNT tamPerInG. DIeGo gaVE you aCCEss PaSt thoSe. You Do NOt haAVe thaT aCcEs-s-sS nOw. TheY wiLL fiGhT You. I Am ParalYZeD but the progRAm is NoT.”

Hacker blinked as he stared down at the ball in his hands.

“So I'm gonna end up fighting you in cyberspace...again?”

She nodded delicately.

“I aM So SOrR-r-rY...in aDvancE.”

Hacker groaned as he clapped a hand to his face.

“The bright side to this dark cloud is I'm going in as a Super-Reaver,” he muttered. “Which means it's going to work, regardless of whatever I end up dealing with.”

“AnoTheR thiNG,” Cortie added. “I moDifieD my dEFenseS extENSIveLy on CItaDEl and BeyoND. The EthIcs COde USeS whaAT is aVAILable. TheY...THeY arE Not For the FainT-t-t Of HeaRT. YOu wIlL HaVe to Get PaST theEM to SEND meE the Code. It mUst Get intO my MInD or It wiLL bEe DestrOYED by THeEM.”

Hacker stared at her, then groaned again. Yep. Flashback Central dipped in acid and chased down with Berserker. Par for the course.

“I picked a hell of a day to face all my nightmares at once,” he muttered. “Goddammit.”

[politicalfilth-blog]

5G Technology Explained By Max Igan. The Future Is Nigh!

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Transcript

Welcome back beautiful and amazing human beings this is over to ask if we are changed over here in Acapulco Mexico and today we are joined by the one and only philosopher researcher Max Egan and where to be getting into a lot of very interesting topics in this video with regarding 5G regarding people’s emotional states and pretty much as you told me yesterday how life is just pretty much a big old emotional mirror so bit hippy bit of technological technocratic talk but I think the most important aspect that I think we could get into and you’re very eloquent when you describe this you’ve been talking about this for a number of years now you’re very kind of Clairvoyant you been right on the money so many times but the bigger issue that I want to talk to you about his of course 5 G 5 G of course is being subsidized by many governments out there it’s a new kind of faster technological advancement of Internet out there there’s 20,000 satellites going up into space to provide it but what are the convenience of course is always a double cash. Something for free for a reason it’s a really free anyway but the reason the government subsidizing missing the bigger issue is Max I think you’ve been warning about for a very long time tell us what if you need to know about 5G budgie is military grade technology that’s the Pro Bowl prices at anything that you can think of any electromagnetic weapons system any active denial system or you going to do is go and look at the dog off of website look at the on Titans on your phone all the stuff I can do this anymore than you can think of it it piggyback soft G that’s the signal that I used to do it cost to being with you know that would sure we’ll get as fast as bandwidth but I’m the lying it is the ability to put military grade technology in place and at Target anybody they want you can talk to people individually set up people fact I need to know my kids are always things like microwave cannons Liza Cannons all this old all Isaac and his butt microwave cannons the good stuff like yeah I can change your emotional state that can put voices in your head but visions. Everything I did in the first Gulf War when they put the voice of God in the minds of the araki Soulja so they gave up their arms I admitted that did this all of this is 5G capable so that’s the problem and also whether with the Internet of Things in the mess of violence in the social crediting and everything that goes with it gives you the ability to track you in real time and to penalize you in real time and too tired of you who acted in all in real-time you know he said something wrong he’s down on his social credit points or just disabled him until the police arrive to pick him up and put him in the spot prison this is what they can do with it so it’s very very dangerous I pop in the hope that specs as well I mean just the fact that it is this heavy millimeter wave radiation and say it’s a whole new ballgame than the 3rd or 4th generation of Internet do we yawn when you think of the other J behind all this 1G 2G 3G 4G this is fourth and fifth-generation but with this it isn’t an evolution of the same technology to shift over into a new. Military grade technology that just all the testing on with all these Wards for the last 10 years than our woods and as I said I didn’t order that stuff is run by some critics be like this would never happen we got a whole bunch of peacocks here to I’m going to put the camera on there but there’s going to be a whole bunch of people saying you need to understand people’s iPhones are keeping a social credit score on you rating your phone calls in your text messages in your interactions without you even knowing or having access to it look what’s happening in China right now in system that’s going throughout their entire country’s population controlling people’s ability to have high-speed internet have a job to put their kids into a good school be able to travel even based on a social credit score if there are critical of the government of course journalists already being hit with this now this is interesting point with the conversation from God that the Iraqi. Iraqi War soldiers heard can you tell us more about that as well as the documents that you talked about yesterday on our livestream that was also surrounding and discovered around 5G the voice of God is what I put in the Rocky songs you can find their own reports at this is what we did you know when you can do stuff I was test I did things in Japan a couple of years ago that I can put the Holograms in front of the shorts in Japan and it was sitting shops with a voice in your head telling you to go in and shop and the people walking past complained about it because I told this is an invasion of privacy this is why I didn’t mind string that’s what I just told you you must lay down your weapons and gone surrender to the friendly allies you know and they’re wet fart bomb so I can do this stuff but not only that when you look at what we wear electrical bangs and all this stuff affects your how hard would it be to get a title population we might be a population of dissident so perhaps in anneke’s community or whatever and just tired of them and perhaps in Juice also I’m as in that until I can. So they don’t have dementia and I don’t know what they doing what it’s like over country so this is what’s possible with all this like quitting and I can do everything you can think of what I said go look at the website and look at some of the tests are done in cultures only song to be experiencing and your electrical experiments I do what’s it all for you know and I’ve done all the tests and now they’re putting this blanket systemic roast everybody for a convenience and even people who eat organic food and stuff like this with this this radiation that is Guy Anthony is changing the cell structure of us so it’s also changing the cell structure of all the food we’re eating a base and Wildlife and insects falling off every way people noticing you noticing any bugs in your windscreen any more fights you got driving at dusk is not bumps on your windscreen you speak thousands terrible time to go driving cuz she had to clean your windscreen so much we don’t see that anymore. Just done notice and I wants this food chain breaks down and I we’re heading into really really Dangerous Waters. Will need to pay attention to it and the government doesn’t subsidize something and give you these foggy devices if they didn’t want you to have this and if they want you to have it and they are able to induce certain wives and carrier wife’s throat affect your biology affect your neurology this is very dangerous and of course this is why they’re doing it need to be aware of all these is not a matter of if but when you got historical record it’s been predominantly governments and mobs Mafia is that I’ve been ruining The Human Experience on his Planet causing a lot of suffering the kind of valve for power and with this new technological advancements they’re going to have the ability to have unlimited power and do really really crazy Sinister things then why wouldn’t a state or private corporation that profits off usually predominately your own misery won’t do that is the question is is it’s it’s foolish not to be skeptical not to look into these things and the way that this discussion is not even happening with this just being implemented especially. Does absolutely terrifying but 5G before we get into the the other topic anything specifically you think people should know or or can do even something about this larger topic other than just moved to Peru everywhere I think we will have to become aware of it but I got to stop complying with the system stop pulling away from it realizes what’s happening is a digital bear has been constructed between Austin nature bicycle E Yeah and they’re removing rx’s seen you need a mobile phone to getting to the park you know what a man like you need in my ball finder everything they are removing landlines removing newspapers magazines or information is becoming digital which means I can change it anytime I want rewrite it anytime I want and you need to be getting meeting passwords and biometric scans and things saint of buildings sorry it’s going in a really really scary direction if you put all that in place and you got this whole digital barrier between us and reality with the ability to Target and disciple anybody you want for erected to know this is a very die. Spicy and you have it based on social credit system Sunday you get home on your phone that you can and she unharmed because of what you said in the pot that died and it’s pretty scary stuff so I think we really need to look at what this is the best thing we can do is just not use it looking for the donut shop at Amazon fights gun shop it all these places out of the bank can I use cash cash is bad enough but it’s better than leaving a pipe of trial and it’s better than having this device on you the tracks you everywhere you go listens to everything you do and realize the messages back to paper cuz every cell tower you see he’s not a transmitter it’s a. Ahava stuff I have a stole your stuff from your cell phones every time you got pause every 3rd child so why would such thing in the system now or they can just pull the net out and just dragging nice people I want you know I mean we have the cell towers and they’re spread out but the 5G Towers going to be very closely located of course. Central of Adam location along major kind of light poles as well very close to each other a lot of room for concern here I’m always on a very skeptical side and people need to understand here the reality of the situation is this is encroaching all around us and it’s really our compliance our kind of laziness our foolishness that’s allowing this to happen Amazon is one of them it’s been hard for me not to use Amazon I’ll be honest because it’s so convenient one day I’ll just be here I’m forcing myself to not use them because of just a larger implications if this is a company that’s working on artificial intelligence this is a company artificial intelligence extremely terrifying when you look at the bigger applications are working on facial recognition AI systems that they give to government police departments that they gave to ice this is a total game-changer laws in France were just passed where you can’t come rub your face anymore because of the bigger Revolution that’s happening there it’s all encroaching towards less and less and less rights as people are just being in a day. With just their comfort zones just sitting down feel like it’s so convenient one click of a button I got my Chinese slave made Goods right here and I think we could get into and I think it would be very important for me and you to discuss is of course the bigger deeper psychological emotional aspects of this because as you were talking about a lot of people usually tried to fill in a lot of empty voids are usually placed into my Society on purpose through consumerism through the want of of money and end the end of the kind of greed of trying to be rich you have a totally different perspective on this which I appreciate I utilize it in my own ways but one thing you told me I want you to go from here is I try to spend money and you can’t yeah it’s a difficult thing like what how much anything you know what I have to pay to be a lot but. Is something I really want to go if I had a lot of money that I don’t know what I’d spend it on you know I saw I tend to give a little why you know I got to help people have a water to house of people and stuff like this as much as I try to spend it just it just seems to come back to me all the time it’s a freaking thing a couple of years ago I left the strategy with $5,000 in my pocket and I use credit cards and I went away for about three months ended up being a wife for 19 months went around the world 2 and 1/2 * and I end up in Virginia and I had $230 left in my pocket so I go around the world with 219 months two and a half times on $5,000 and then right when I decided what I’ve only got $130 in my pocket it’s time for me to book a ticket I’m as soon as I book The Ticket I want to come out to me and said you changed my life you saved my life last year my husband died and you always in a really really dark place and you you saved my life and she handed me an envelope with $5,000 in it to go home with exactly the same. Are you sure this is a hell of a die nice and she was like I don’t know please please take it and I, I didn’t spend it I just said let it sit in an envelope and I like I just didn’t spend it all you just throw this is too much of a guy nice and it’s a my guide me and I sent her an e-mail months later to say like how I is it all good amount of stupid this money here and she was like no other place have it you know but that’s the thing and are you lose attachment to a Papal who who always worried about having my money will find that never got any money people who are worried about their health all the time with one of their wives having health problems you know if you have no stake in the outcome you lose attachment to it is an emotional mirror Nessa how it works and the laws of dama dama you do the right thing and the right way at the right time for the right reason and what is right well if you find the one Lord corporation which is unconditional love and service to Creation which doesn’t mean you serve yourself at the expense of others are you don’t serve others at the expense of yourself you put yourself on a TV. Kill Squad finish every writer show in lak’ech I’m another yourself you know and I just gave all that I can everything websites for free all my films of my fat free the book all right I gave away free and since I started giving everything for free and anytime I’ve got anything spare I give it to someone for free who needs it I just leave in the side of where everything I need is always there for me it just works and I have a lot of money at all but but what if I needed it just comes the way that beautiful woman come and just gave me everything that I just spent on the last 19 month so it’s been going around the world trying to wake the world up and I just got that straight back to me now you can go home resting place.

You got that that you got the funding to go and do it again next time you want.

NSL works and it’s an emotional mirror some people need to lose stake in the outcome you know if you or the the the rules of dama and the end that are in a side of unconditional love with you throw yourself to the way you can write it and I’m living proof that it works and the more you resisted the more difficult to get that I can tell you in my own personal life every time I try to control a specific aspect or start worrying and stressing out like a crap I’m broke I have no money or crap I’m having this problem this medical issue if it only gets worse from here and I had so many times in my life where I’m just at work out I’ll be fine and just the same thing at alternative media especially early on I didn’t have much money random person came to me right as I had zero and I was like you know it will be fine I’ll be okay first comes up to me as like here’s you know a hundred bucks allows me to eat for the next day which was incredible God had so many moments like that not only what money but like random places like being at the G20 not having a place to stay and then being like know it’s going to be okay it’s going to be fine and literally a hotel manager coming. Give me in the hotel that I’m just having a drinking because I don’t know what else to do tell him hey you want anything you need anyting yours a hotel magic kind of synchronicity and magic magic live to get so much easier once you release a you just like let-go and your line. Find a workout has less stress you put on yourself that use your it is if you want to say it didn’t cut me off anytime because I can talk about this for a while and are now you could throw yourself that when you can draw that you really can you know and people you have if you are having a hard time I can save you stressing out about some universities going to go really have a little bit more I have a little bit more you getting it yet you know so you got to lose attachment to all that United States a beautiful world full of beautiful people and everybody really wants to help each other you know that I really do and if you don’t have a stake in the outcome if you can give to people unconditionally on your phone the universe gives back to you when we gave him we we expect something in return it doesn’t work gif. Give something to you I’m not giving you a debt you never asked for I’m actually giving you a gift there’s nothing attached to that you’re not and people need to be able to do that every was a time is not money you know if we can just open up your heart to yourself and see the beauty and trueness of yourself than you want to give to others it’s a beautiful thing and I and that’s how I live my life that’s why I give everything there’s nothing to go on my website it’s all free I give it all away and the University of scars made out of work should my if we we could adopt that attitude all I believe we could change the world so I quickly we really could you know but the fact we go to Pi to be Lord is always that stress dripping in the back of everyone’s mind so matter how much I try to let go and tell him all this and I just so you know I was never part of that I walked away from the system in in early and school and become a musician so I’ve never been part of it so I know why it’s easy for me and I can see that but I can still say that other people can do this. I’ve met all the people that have done unto mean you’re doing what I mean is it works fine she really was let me know it’s perfect we all have our negative negative sides and we all have our negative traits that we have to fight through and it’s not an easy fight what are the things you said to me that really spoke to me is like when you’re giving a gift you’re not giving someone debt that they never wanted cuz that’s what you people do I give you this now you better do this and this and this and I used to conduct my relationships like this before time to actually do some introspection to meditation have some third-party professional work work with me and be like hey.

Wow I wasn’t sometimes especially earlier on in my life especially my teenage years in my early twenties I wasn’t the kind of detrimental behaviors and we’re all making mistakes but it’s about recognizing them admitting them to to him and not making sure you never do them again because the way in the philosophies that you speak about her very very important a lot of people are adverse to a lot of this a lot of people are adverse to this because they don’t hear it in the mainstream media they don’t hear it in the schools they don’t hear it in society in this is an important message that needs to be spread around because a lot of people are so uncomfortable would even just having free time to think as individuals themselves that they have to drown this out with TVs being on in their rooms all the time that’s a drowned this out with radios being on the on the side with constant constant noise that the jaundice out with constantly being on their phone and never having a free moment to even freely think because of all the horrible thoughts because of the fear they have in themselves to even critically analyze the truth of this. Which are difficult to swallow and that’s why the the 5G industry is becoming as prevalent as they are because people are like well I get faster internet I could Pastor distract myself from life and the realities of life and the harder truth of this life and and the heart or emotions that I have a process and I could just get out of those but just more bull crap and you’re not a part of that system you’re not part of that Paradigm and I always appreciate you Max I always appreciate the time we spent I appreciate everything you say just wanted to say thank you and deep down appreciate you and your energy and and just the person you are cuz this is a message that people need to hear and I had my own Falls I was one of those people people need to understand I was literally so traumatized before I had a hard time not having the TV on constantly because when I was left in my thoughts I said think about traumas or the bigger darker horrible aspects of this world that I didn’t want to process and I just kept medicating myself with the subconscious propaganda as being thrown. Let me buy them that makes me be like oh but I get it in the day shift to Mio but it’s going to be so quick to download on my movies and everything else in a matter of seconds now it is 5G is going to be so great that kind of ideology is perpetrated by the larger ecosystem by this larger problem so I’m going on around nose supposed to be in to be on you but I feel so emotionally attached to this because I was at fault and your words are kind of medicine medical therapeutic nature so appreciate you leave you with the last words because appreciated this video share with your friends and family members but last words Max again preciate you very much and you do it because you want five is from that person you haven’t given him a gift you’ve given him a debt I never asked. I give this poison now you’ve given Sunday to yourself if you can give unconditionally no stake in the outcome and sometimes I didn’t even pay for the the person shopping next to me just because. I look like I need some money so I’ll just run this stuff through the chick at and walk away if I can before they even see me do it you know and that’s so the stuff it it it just attracts good when you did go to the track school so I do good price and believe in yourself because we can all get through this yet his home this whole thing is just an idea that somebody had and it’s time for new idea I think it’s about to be born.

The post 5G Technology Explained By Max Igan. The Future Is Nigh! appeared first on We Are Change.

from We Are Change https://wearechange.org/5g-technology-explained-by-max-igan-the-future-is-nigh/

[vivaciousyellow]

v: merry christmas LOL, personal ramblings, nanette, barakamon

honestly this is just beyond embarrassing at this point but here we go

dear ying,

what do you say to someone whose brother is dying? what do you say when that person is your mother?

in my case, the short answer is… you say nothing.

that sounds so shitty right? and really i’m not sure if i’m trying to justify it to myself by writing it out in this here post but i guess we’ll see where it takes us -- and at some point i’ll write about nanette, which will be the biggest cop-out book club blog post because the only thing i read for that was the subtitles. might also do a bonus cop-out and write about barakamon vol 15 because apparently the only thing i can bring myself to read is manga and even then that was a struggle. i will add a mark when i change topics LOL this will be long :/

so i wrote the first few lines of this post well over two months ago and i’ve been coming back to try and add to it multiple times since then, but each time i just don’t know what to say. i had updates i could use as milestones - my uncle had surgery but they said they couldn’t guarantee they got rid of all the cancer; the cancer metastasizing, leading also to an interesting intergenerational debate in the family about trying chinese medicine (my parents’ generation was all for it, esp since the american doctors basically said there’s nothing else that can be done, but my uncle’s sons - who are in their mid/late 30s and have been in america since high school - sided with the american doctors and were against trying the herbal pills). early last month my two aunts flew in from the east coast and that really shifted something in my understanding of the situation - things felt more real all of a sudden, like they came to say goodbye. things looked real bad on thanksgiving - we spent half the day outside of the ICU after an urgent call from the doctors.

now it’s christmas eve and we visited him yesterday - the cancer is everywhere, the doctors have given up on treatment, and now it’s kinda just maintaining comfort until the end. given all of that, he’s doing okay. but what i’ve been wanting to process and write about is my mom’s role in all of this and also the capacities of grief and empathy.

i think my mom is an amazing person - she took the news hard and i wasn’t there for it. since then she’s become one of the pillars of support for my uncle’s family and taking on the communication “””burden””” of relaying information to the rest of the family. she’s done so much and appears so strong yet sometimes i just want her to cry, dammit. keeping it together and putting on a brave face is fucking difficult difficult lemony difficult and i’d love for her to not have to bottle it up.

the night of burlesque my sister told me how much our mom cried, and when i asked if i should come home she said no - that mom would feel guilty that i’m away from school and not able to focus on my work. and this goes back to what i said earlier - the way i said nothing. and i’ve shown love and support in other ways: massages, more hugs and affection and asking how uncle’s doing, helping her cook the meals she brings to him, being her brain when things are hectic (making sure we bring things like water and snacks and chargers as we hurriedly pack for the hospital on thanksgiving), but i haven’t been brave enough to simply ask ‘are you okay? how are you feeling today? what else can i do for you?’

and as a psychology major and someone who wants to go into minority mental health, isn’t this what i should be doing? how can i think of being a clinician if i can’t practice what i preach?

but another thing that has been on my mind since thanksgiving is grief and empathy. who is allowed to grieve, at what times, and at what point do others stop empathizing with that sadness and instead become annoyed?

when we were driving to the hospital on thanksgiving, my mom was on the phone with my aunt (the uncle’s wife) who was in tears. she continued to cry as we arrived and would continue to sob heavily for the next hour, then on and off for another couple hours. and that’s understandable, right? your husband seems to be on his deathbed. however, her sobs were quite loud and she hovered and it quickly got crowded in the hospital room with all of the hospital staff, her son and his wife, and more and more relatives coming. the nurses let some of us go to an office and my aunt was led there to be comforted by the nurses, my mom, her daughter in law, and my sister and i.

as the cries continued, some of the things my mom and other aunts said were - don’t cry don’t cry, it makes it harder on him if he hears you crying, it’ll disturb him, etc. though one of my other aunts made the remark (outside of my crying aunt’s earshot) that her sobbing was disruptive and perhaps over the top. and i won’t lie, it really was loud and echoed throughout the hospital halls, so i will shittily admit that i was also kind of self-conscious of the volume. as the hour went on, i felt the agitation of the other family members rise, and it was fueled when my aunt started saying other things (how my uncle has always been so strong and a good person, why did he deserve this, how she’s a worse person why can’t she die instead, how she wishes she would die right now). and that, as you may know, is a huge superstitious no-no.

it’s not the first time she’s expressed suicidal ideations (another huge huge concern) either, and she has apparently also mentioned this in the presence of my uncle. something along the lines of her burden and also how he has been verbally abusive towards her for years. and that’s certainly a beast of an issue already, but for my mom and the relatives, these instances were about not letting my uncle hear because then he will feel like he’s being a burden, etc.

and it’s tough i guess, trying to navigate a space of empathy for someone in rightful distress, of trying to soothe the ill and keep them as at ease as possible, of prioritizing the very limited emotional bandwidth of everyone present. it’s definitely complex and layered and probably no easy or right answer, but it’s been weighing pretty heavily on my mind since then.

ANYWAY i wrote this out not expecting you to have read it all (but thank you regardless of if you did or didn’t) and certainly not expecting you to respond. it was nice to flesh out some of the stuff that’s been happening and to start shaping words out of whatever has been clustering in my mind these past several months. i think i’ve only really told a couple people about my uncle so writing has been helpful. thanks ying for this platform, even if i’m not exactly using it as intended

actually this reminds me - my uncle’s son is named ying. i mean i knew this as soon as i met you, but writing it out in this context feels strange and almost eerie

OKAY MOVING ON TO AN ATTEMPT AT A REVIEW

alright so you suggested i write a review of nanette because i am apparently not capable of reading a book - but really really hoping i can get to it soon. i loved nanette - at the beginning i was kind of like ah okay she’s funny, though i wouldn’t have said she stood out that much, aside from her jokes being more about being gay. but as she went on and got into depth about the process of writing jokes - how to control the room, what is required, what needs to be left out - as well as her own thoughts on staying in the business, i started to see why you and rachel thought it was so good.

hannah talked about how she has been concerned about whether her audience has been laughing with her jokes (and by extension experiences of the lgbt+ community) or at them. and that was a concern i remember dave chapelle saying he struggled with and that was why he left the business for so long. i’m hopeful though because the crowd seemed really supportive of her branching outside of solely comedy within the show - and i think it was beautifully illustrated at the end when (spoiler!!) the overprotective boyfriend of the girl she flirted with realized that hannah was indeed a woman and really did beat her up. her explanation of why the rules of standup require she leave that part out, why she is tired of telling incomplete stories, and why she wants things to change was really amazing and thought provoking. def looking forward to more from her soon!

as for barakamon vol 15 LOL i actually haven’t finished that yet but i did read something so! lmao yo the man is 23 and UMM the anime came out in 2014 aka i was like 19 years old it was freshman year at nu. and now here i am, ALSO 23. back then that felt like ages away like haha handa yeah get ur shit together you’re kinda young sure but ur 23 that’s an adult adult. and now here we are lmao i feel u handa take all the time u need go ahead and raise ur lil island children

and that concludes my three-month overdue post. i really did nothing i was supposed to and i’m so sorry i haven’t been respectful of your time and what we had set to be a fun joint goal. i love you so much thank you for your infinite kindness and patience. merry christmas and i can’t wait to see you this week!! <3 love u babehh

love,

victoria