#because you can totally just remove your mental illness by turning your brain off and on again 👍

[whatudottu]

Total Drama All Stars AU where instead of being a one-dimensional “evil alter” stereotype Mal is this chaotic neutral Eric Andre-esque trickster who primarily just wants fuck with literally everyone he comes across and troll the other alters solely to see their reactions to it

Because I saw that one clip of the Eric Andre show where Tony Hawk was in it, I immediately pictured that with Mal and Chester; despite the fact that Mal trapping everyone and getting them to do things like - in Chester’s case - make skateboards doesn’t make sense. Mal’s chaotic fuckery and Chester’s frustration wrecking shop until skateboards get turned into weapons- and Mal would seem the type to go down the whole ‘hey look at me. look at me. bitch’ route hah-

I’ve seen and read many All Stars rewrites and otherwise ‘I researched DID/am a system, let’s make Mike’s system better’ fanfics (one of which - Navigating the System - I binged nearly immediately) that turns Mal into more a prosecutor/protector that does the things Mike wouldn’t to make sure the body doesn’t keel over and die. Mal WAS fronting throughout Juvie after all, even if he may be less king of the hall (wait shit oh my god Hall of the Mountain King) and more ‘mess with me i mess you up: trickster edition’.

Literally any different version of Mal than what was on screen would’ve been better, and chaotic neutral Eric Andre trickster would pair off with the sometimes goodie two-shoes sometimes straight-up jerk Mike.

[beatrixstonehill2]

"Hey guys, your favorite E-girl here, Melody, here with some downer news..... or good news for the haters. My mom and dad found my OnlyFans. Gee, I wonder who told them about it? Anyway.... they said nothing until our annual family reunion, where they proceeded to bring up my vids on the Roku in the living room. My tits bouncing, spraying milk, me getting gangbanged in public, all of my pregnancy vids--I always had to hide that I was pregnant and only be one or two months along like I am now for the reunion. So they showed me getting mercilessly fucked while pregnant with quintuplets, my huge tits bouncing and slapping together, hitting me in the face.

My family scolded me and asked how many babies I've had. I told the truth, I've had seventeen kids. Triplets as soon as I got to college, which inspired me to start my OF, quadruplets, then two sets of quintuplets. They asked me where their grandchildren were and I said I was a surrogate, that other couples raised the kids. They were livid, showing the family more videos. Vids of me doing anal and taking three cocks in my ass at once, vids of me puking on huge cocks all over my tits and belly, me hooking for video content and offering my body at a super low cost, vids of my pregnant belly and tits getting whipped and paddled and beaten, vids of me straight up getting beaten up by men for content, left bloody and bruised in the street, vids of me excitedly showing my blood results that I'm positive for all these different STDs. Guys, I had to not only explain to my whole family what a bug chaser is, but that I'm one, and get turned on by all the STDs I have.

I've never been so humiliated in my life, all the messed up degrading porn I've done was nothing. And I have a huge humiliation fetish, so almost on cue I got incredibly horny. As they insulted me, calling me everything from mentally ill to a whore, I started playing with my breasts with one hand and rubbing my sex with the other. In front of everyone. This was the last straw. They strapped me to my bed and brought in the family doctor, who had some very harsh recommendations for how to treat my clinical nymphomania. I don't know when I'll be doing content next but I'll try the best I can. Until then you will get a few exciting, ummm...... surgery videos, if you're into that. And I know a lot of you sickos are. What's better than seeing the girl of your dreams who you've jacked off to a thousand times get humiliated and mutilated, am I right? Men are so gross.....

So, I'm about to drive to the Brookdale Asylum for Girls. My prescribed treatment is..... hoo boy, for my breasts to be removed as well as my clit, and shortly after I'm stable from that, my arms and legs will be amputated so I can't go out and fuck or film videos. These surgeries and the aftermath recovery will be uploaded as the final content for my OnlyFans. Yes, I'll be numbed and kept awake, watching as the team of surgeons operate on me. So I'm about to be helpless, breastless, no clit to rub or play with, unable to masturbate or do anything, my family taking care of me. I'm still pregnant with who knows how many kids. It'll be absolute torture having a giant belly and not being able to fuck! But my brain might be jelly anyway because I think they give girls electroshock for nymphomania here.... Kind of excited for that, not gonna lie. Having my brains scrambled is sorta hot.

Don't worry, I'll find a way to keep making more content. I'll get that ocular software and do everything with my eyes, then I'll just need to go on dating sites, request a bunch of one-night stands and have my front door open, watch all these horny, fucked up dudes line up at my door to fuck a helpless, limbless girl with no tits. My family thinks this'll destroy my OF career but honestly it might be the best thing that will ever happened to me, career-wise. People are going to be flocking to my page to see the nympho asylum girl who had her body mutilated to stop her from being a total sex freak turn around and keep going, being filthier than ever! I'll be on the front page of OnlyFans for even longer than when I did that vid of me ten months pregnant with quints getting beat up naked in an alleyway, only for actual homeless men to start forcing themselves on my bruised, bloodied body. I guess I should thank them.... With any luck my parents will start a trend and more OG girls like me will wind up as limbless sex dolls. I bet you all would love that...."

[gnawingyou]

Ahh I speak English originally but I struggle to communicate clearly, sorry. In terms of paranoia induction etc, the responsiveness aspect is so gripping. I imagine even just walking in people’s blind spots to jab my fingers into their ribs, as a mild shock, even just a small jolt feels telling. The desire to destroy is equivalent to the desire to fix, for me - to understand a person with total efficiency and to crawl inside of his mind, that kind words and gestures, which feel backhanded but are delivered so sensitively, that he would gradually come to understand that there is nobody else who will ever see him with such attentiveness. If a simple gesture can spark fear, I wish it could walk the line of relief. A love of peeling off somebody’s skin and then caring for them indefinitely in such a vulnerable state. What saddens me the most is that I don’t anticipate finding somebody with such investment in their other, since it seems most people pursue pain or pleasure for egotistical reasons, and project a desire narrative onto those around them. Within a world of conceitedness, angels amongst men must appear in the form of those whose visions are unclouded by expectation, and in turn whose vulnerability may be torn apart, but who can enact such vicious retaliation to love and hate the same. Everybody wants to beat, or be beaten, with little consideration for what that achieves. If I could only remove his limbs but leave his teeth, he must be dependent yet has the autonomy to harm in return. Perhaps it is a very sterile notion.

I understand completely. When it comes to paranoia induction- or any kind of mental illness exploitation- the responses are the main appeal. I want to see how the human brain responds to different intense stimuli. Especially if it’s somebody I love, I want to see their reaction to everything I inflict on them, I want to be the reason for their crying, panic, hatred, delusions.

A lot of what I say comes with the desire to fix, too. Even if your aim is to break someone’s psyche, you can’t do it purely by breaking. You have to repeat some sort of cycle; for example idealisation before devaluation (ie. narcissistic abuse), or violent torture followed by sweet aftercare. The more trust you gain, the more opportunities you create. The more that they experience your attentiveness and compassion, the more they’ll open themselves up to be broken. Caring somebody in a vulnerable state is great for that, but like you said, it’s also a cute thing. Being someone’s source of comfort and support makes me happy; I want to be useful in a way that also makes them smile and laugh with me. Happiness is as fulfilling as fear.

I see how a lot of people pursue pain & pleasure for egotistical reactions, although I can’t fault them. It feels good and can be incredibly fulfilling, especially for someone who lack basic things from their life. They’re just another thing that makes you human, though it’s undecided whether that thing is good or bad. Most things are inherently neutral though, without context or mutual understanding. I will argue and say that wanting to beat/be beaten does achieve something, whether it’s simply pleasure or an end goal.

I really like how you phrased ‘If I could only remove his limbs but leave his teeth.’ It’s a beautiful way to phrase it. To force him to become dependent on you, but not helpless, because he will still have the ability to bite back. Albeit animalistic and primal, you reduce his reactions to something sub-human, unable to reason or react coherently. Only in a way his survival instincts will allow him. Strip him of his humanity. <3

[serenawitchwriter]

y’all want some psych advice? i have a metaphor that helps put mental illness and therapy into context.

basically your brain is like a plumbing system. you have several water tanks full of memories and emotions. you have several taps such as your mouth or your body where the water needs to go to serve a function. to move you or to come out of you. when you’re healthy things flow neatly and cleanly and easily. you don’t even have to think about it. it just works as a background function in your life.

when you’re mentally ill, the pipes are leaking. the water tanks are dented with holes. the pipes may have become damaged or broken or rusted. the water coming out of you may be dirty or rusted or the wrong color. or there might be no water coming out of you at all. and this damage could come from anywhere. it could come from someone traumatizing you, beating your memories and your pipes with a bat so everything is falling apart. or it could happen gradually. it could be that your various plumbing needs have been ignored for so long that things started falling apart on their own. it could be that you’ve received bad advice on how to take care of the plumbing system. it could be that someone actively sabotaged you and lied about how your plumbing is supposed to work and be maintained. it could just be that your plumbing was built different from those around you and you ended up getting advice for a whole different system and that advice doesn’t work on you.

whatever it is, at the end of the day you have leaky pipes and damage and you need to do something about it because having water flood your brain and having dirty sludge come out your mouth and just struggling to get the pipes to work at all is HARD. it’s messy, dirty, unpleasant work, and yes ‘it’s all in your head’ but your head is an incredibly important place. people with clean running pipes and no damage, people who have never had to deal with leaky pipes, don’t know how to fix your problems. often times they’ll compare your damage to a one off leak that was easily fixed for them. or a system that is totally different from theirs. it’s not comparable and they’re not helping clean up your plumbing even if they mean well.

and the thing is, since it’s all in your head only you can do the repairs. no one can reach into your brain and do the repairs for you. so you’re the one who has to deal with everything. often times we find bad coping methods and improvised solutions. we hammer a pipe back into shape and end up denting it worse, but at least waters flowing through it again. we try to turn off certain broken pipes and try to only use the ones that work, but sooner or later that pipe is going to be needed to be used again and in the mean time it got rusty. we duct tape the holes over and over again and it works for a little while. it helps hold everything together, it stops the leaks for a little while. but it doesn’t remove the holes and the water will keep trying to leak and sooner or later the duct tape becomes a rotten gooey mess that also needs to be cleaned up on top of the leaks and everything just seems like too much and it’s hard to focus on anything else. it’s hard to function and get things done because the leaky pipes are effecting everything. it’s a mess you can’t ignore but don’t know how to fix and just living day to day with a flooded brain and damaged pipes, and messy pipes, and bad advice, and people who don’t understand, and gooey duct tape, it’s overwhelming. it’s hard. it’s messy and gross. and sometimes you just want to lay down in the water and drown so you don’t have to deal with the mess. sometimes you want it to just go all away, to disappear completely, because having no plumbing at all seems much easier than fixing the mess you’re dealing with.

that’s where therapy comes in. your therapist is there to teach you how to become a plumber.

they’ll teach you how to fix pipes, to help things move smoother. they might give you medication that makes the water run cleaner. they’ll instruct you on how to cut away the duct tape and how to look at the hole beneath. they’ll show you where all the holes, dents, and damage is. and from their they’ll show you how to fix that specific hole and that specific pipe. they’ll help you bend your water tank back into shape so it’s less misshapen. they’ll help you recognize where the damage is coming from and who’s doing the damage. they’ll help remove you from some of the sources of damage and teach you how avoid those kind of damage in the future. they’ll give you tools and new coping methods that will make the repairs easier.

and remember, you’re still doing all the work. your therapist doesn’t have direct access to your mind. it’s more like a phone consultation, you have to describe the damage you see and they’ll do their best to coach you through the repairs.but it’s better than nothing. by god is it better. and the more you learn about plumbing the easier it’ll be to make repairs on your own in the future. sometimes you need to be careful, some therapists understand different systems and different damages better than others. you might need to search for the right therapist to consult on your specific plumbing. everyone has different specialties.

you might also find that when you solve some of the big problems, the most threatening damage, that little leaks spring up else where. or you notice leaks that were always there but didn’t seem as bad compared to the big problem. and the big solutions don’t work as well on the little leaks. in that case you may need to return to therapy and get coached through the smaller problems. there’s no shame in that. sometimes you receive new damage and it breaks open old leaks and rusty pipes and becomes both a new and old crisis. sometimes you’ll still get overwhelmed by how much work there still is to do and you’ll want to give up. sometimes you’ll have people who don’t understand criticize you for the work you’re doing and for how tired and difficult it is. sometimes they’ll criticize you for not fixing thing quickly enough. they’ll criticize you for not functioning well enough even with all the repairs you’ve done. and yes, that’s discouraging.

but it’s your brain, your plumbing, and your life. your the one fixing things even with the extra help. so they’re not the people you should listen to. 

sometimes you’ll find other plumbers. other people with similar systems to you and advice on they fixed their damage. sometimes you’ll have people who are willing to hear you out and help you through your repairs. help support you while you sort things out. help deal with the outside problems while you deal with the inner problems.sometimes just having someone who understands plumbing disasters helps. those people are worth their weight in gold.

at the end of the day, you can heal. you can sort things out. you can get your plumbing moving smoothly. maybe it’ll never be that perfect clean system that other people have. maybe you’ll still see leaks spring up and have to continue the process of repairs. some days will be messier than others. often times it will be hard and it will be work and it’ll seem like the process of repairing your pipes will never end.

but when you come through, and you look at your repairs, when you carry with you tools and the knowledge of how to be a plumber. when you can even offer a hand to others. it’s worth it.

by god is it worth it.

[meanlesbean]

highlights from first few days at my new job

--big victory is that I did not cry after work today

--I had about 4 hours of training on monday, 2 hours on tuesday, and the rest of the time I have been given nothing to do. I did one like 20 editing project today and the only reason that task fell to me is because my coworker got removed from the department email list and i'm in charge of forwarding him things until tech puts him back on the list. and since he was in a meeting i just did the thing

--I forgot about the unique torture of working at a desk all day. at least at my one other office job our desks could rise to a standing desk but not here 😭 so I am spending a lot of money on a portable riser in the interest of not getting fired for literally going stir Crazy. and there's nowhere nice to walk around like at the other office job so I've just been walking in loops around the parking lot and i am definitely going to get security called on me

--I can manage about 5 hours of Sitting and Concentrating before I hit a wall and my brain turns to white noise, so I've been doing research in the morning (since none of my training equipped me for understanding the topics I'm supposed to write about), and then the last two days I've spent my afternoons writing zelda fic in an old notebook.

--sidenote I had a pipedream of totally kicking my caffeine addiction but I also forgot that if I'm sitting and get 1) slightly bored or 2) slightly tired then i will start nodding off. I had to take a walk in the cold on tuesday because there was a very real danger of me falling asleep at my desk

--talking with people who aren't severly mentally ill is a trip (my dad: "why don't you ask your boss for a project." me: "but what if she asks me to do something and then i do bad")

--me: "my team is me, 6 other people, and then our manager, and besides my manager only one person has been with the company more than 6 months." my dad: "that's a pretty bad sign." me: "yes."

--there's one girl from a different department who's actually talked to me twice (!!) and i'm going to ask her to lunch tomorrow so i can have work friends

[chickensarentcheap]

Best Part of Me - Chapter 72

WARNING: some smut

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @alievans007​

They lay in a mess of rumbled and twisted sheets and naked limbs; bodies sated and spent and covered in thin sheens of sweat that glisten in the moonlight. His chest against her back and his arm stretched across her pillow; her head resting on his bicep and one his thick, muscular legs draped over hers.  His eyes are closed, chin perched upon the top of her head; relaxed by the familiar smell that clings to her hair and skin and the warmth that radiates from her smooth, supple body. Enjoying the soft, almost tickling sensation of two of her fingertips moving against his palm; smoothing over the calluses and tracing slow circles and random patterns. It’s the simplest things that  he often enjoys the most; the way their bodies -despite the substantial difference in both weight and height- recognize and mould to one another. Those soft and tender touches that seem so pure and innocent yet still manage to reach your very core. The feel of her in his arms and her body pressed tightly against him; her skin silky and warm and smelling so damn good. He had never taken the time to appreciate those things before,  nor had he ever been with anyone that really allowed him to. The ex wife had ever been into the whole afterglow; intimacy purely sexual in her mind and pillow talk considered useless and boring. And he certainly never craved the quiet and loving aftermath with Nik or any of the women he’d hook up with while on the travelling and travelling from place to place. They were nothing but conquests; a chance to get his rocks off and rid himself of any lingering adrenaline or the last bits of frustration and anger.

Seven years ago everything changed. What should have been nothing BUT sex and two broken people using one another -and their bodies- as a coping mechanism for everything wrong in their lives, had quickly turned into something so much more. It had become apparent on the second night that he was in way over his head. When she’d fallen asleep on his arm -and turned his hand completely numb in the process- and he hadn’t had the heart to wake her hip. She’d looked so peaceful...so fucking beautiful...that instead of trying to slip away, he’d just rolled over onto his side and rapped his arm around her; burying his face in her hair and finding himself soothed by her scent and the softness of her  skin and the feel of her heart beating against him.  And while it should have terrified him -feeling things that strongly and that quickly- it hadn’t been enough to push him away or send him running.

“Tyler?”

He nuzzles the top of her head with his nose, then drops a kiss on it. “Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

Why would I be? We fought, we made up. In the best possible way. All is right in the world. For now, anyway.”

“You haven’t said much.”

“I thought I talked a lot while we were...you know…”

“As much of a turn on as it is and how amazing sounds in your voice, dirty talk does not count as REAL talk.”

“Says who?”

“It’s in the rule book.”

“I already told you; I don’t like your rules. Fuck your rules.”

“No wonder you got sent to detention so much when you were a kid. An attitude like THAT,” she teases.

“You know what would be really hot?”

“I’m almost scared to find out. I know how warped your mind can be.”

“You remember those glasses you wore in Ireland? To go with your reporter cover?”

“Those were fake.”

“I don’t give a shit. You should totally get another pair.  And put your hair back; one of this really tight, formal looking buns. And wear a short skirt and heels and a low cut blouse.”

Esme snorts. “What the hell kind of teachers did you have growing up?”

“Not hot ones, that’s for sure. And you’re the one who told me that if you ever went back to school, it was to become a teacher. YOU  put that in my head. My brain and my hormones just took it from there.”

“There is something seriously wrong with you. You get weirder as you get older, I swear.”

“Maybe.” He moves his hand from her hip to her stomach, pulling her even tighter against him. “But you love me.”

“I do,” she confirms. “Although some days, I really want to throat punch you.”

“No throat punching. And you wonder where your daughter gets that shit from.”

“Because it’s definitely not from her father who technically beats the shit out of people for a living.  And she definitely doesn’t have your temper.”

“Nice of you to finally take the blame for her.”

“You’re a dick!” she declares, and directs an elbow to his stomach.  And he chuckles into her hair and removes the arm from her pillow and wraps it around her neck; palm resting above her left breast.  “You’re lying on your bad shoulder,” she points out.

“It’s fine.”

“It won’t be in about ten minutes when it seizes up and you can’t move it at all.”

“Stop giving me a hard time. I’m the one giving you a hard time, remember?” He grins as he presses his groin against her ass.

“I seriously wonder why the hell I’ve put up with you for so long,” she grumbles, then plants her elbow into his chest and shows him onto his back. “You're stubborn and you're chaotic and you’re absolutely fucking exhausting.”

“What are you bitching about? Those are all my best qualities.”

“I can think of better ones. Ones that don’t make me want to strangle you. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t actually enjoy your stubborn moments and your chaotic tendencies and the way you exhaust me.”

She rolls over onto her stomach and presses a kiss to his lips. Both of his arms wrapping around her as she nestles her face into his right trap; tip of her nose against his neck and her breath warm against his skin. And for several minutes neither of them speak; their eyes closed and one of her hands repeatedly brushing through his hair and the fingers of the other lightly drifting back and forth along his shoulder.

“I’m sorry I called you crazy.”

Tyler’s eyes snap open. “What?”

“When we were fighting. I called you crazy. Or suggested you were. I said that you’d finally snapped and went totally nuts. And I should NOT have said that. IT was way off base.”

He can’t help but chuckle. “Are you being serious right now?”

She raises her head to look at him, chin resting on his shoulder. “You have a legit mental illness. You have three of them, actually. And I totally preyed on it and I’m a shitty person for doing it. I never should have said what I did.”

“Baby, you’re kidding, right? You’re not really serious about this, are you?”

“I am.” Tears glisten in her eyes. “I never should have said it. I’m sorry. I know you’re not crazy. I know you can’t help being the way you are. That your brain just doesn’t it own thing and you’re trying to get it under control and you’re constantly fighting and trying to get better and…”

“Okay, you know what? Now you’re the one being crazy. You think it bothered me? That I haven’t heard worse? Or thought worse about myself? I call you crazy all the time when you say something I think sounds nuts. It’s a figure of speech; doesn’t mean I actually think you’re crazy.”

“I still shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry.”

“You are really fucking hormonal.”  He removes one of his arms from around her and uses gentle fingertips to brush the wayward tears from her cheeks and under her eyes. “What’s going on with you?”

“It’s the worst it’s ever been,” Esme laments. “I mean, I always get hormonal and irrational but never this bad or this soon. Oh God...what if it’s triplets?”

“Jesus fuck. Don’t say that.”

“You’re the one that always goes on and on about your super sperm. Maybe all this time you’ve been right; maybe it’s actually insanely super. And it would explain it, right? Why it’s this bad and why it’s happening so early. More than or two would make me extra hormonal and extra irrational and…”

“When we get back home, we’ll call the doctor and we’ll get you and little bean checked out.  I’m no professional, but I’m pretty sure there’s not three in there. I’m good, but I’m not THAT good.”

“Twins, maybe. I mean, we have a history. It’s happened to other people; two sets of twins.”

“How about you stop wishing multiples on me and just pretend we know for sure it IS just one.”

“What if it is more than one? What if it is twins again? You know how hard it was the first time carrying two made from someone the size of you. I don’t know if I can handle that again. Because things went wrong so quickly and Tanner was so sick and we didn’t think he’d even make it.”

“But he did. He DID make it. And now look at him; he’s the healthiest out of them all.”

“And the smallest.”

“Well I think Addie has that title and probably always will. And who cares if they’re small? You’re small. They take after their momma.”

“I don’t know;  Tanner is ALL you.”

“How you figure?”

“He is so much like you. He has all these feelings and emotions inside of him and he’s so sensitive. But he isn’t afraid to just let it all out; he’s just totally out there with it. He’s just so open and so honest and just so innocent about it.”

“He’s also only five,” Tyler points out.

“You keep everything inside. And I know how deeply and powerfully you feel. How big of a heart you have.  How sensitive you can be. You just bury it deep down for the most part. You always act so embarrassed when you catch yourself with the ‘feel’ or when you think you’re showing too much emotion.”

“That’s what happens when you get that side beaten out of you for years, I guess.”

“Tanner is the kid you could have been had none of that ever happened to you.”

“Maybe. Who knows,” Tyler shrugs. “If none of that happened...losing my mom...having to put up with my dad...there’s a chance we wouldn’t have happened either. I’m pretty sure going through what I did with the old man is what pushed me towards the military in the first place. And if I’d never gotten into the military, I probably would have never gotten into the job, either. If it wasn’t for the job, we never would have met and none of those kids would exist. And they’re awesome  fucking kids.”

Esme smiles. “They are. They’re incredible and they’re beautiful and they’re a mix of everything that’s perfect and right inside me and you. We did good, didn’t we.”

“We did better than good. We did amazing.”  He presses a kiss to her forehead. “Not bad for two people that were so messed up seven years ago.”

“Remember what Gaspar said to you? About how two broken people can’t  fix one another? That they just end up making things worse?

Tyler nods.

“I think we’ve pretty much proved him wrong. We didn’t destroy each other like he said he would. And we definitely didn’t make things worse. I know we’re not perfect; not by a long shot. And we’ve gone through some pretty shitty times; including times we didn’t think we’d make it. But we’ve put the work in.  We work at being better;  for ourselves AND each other. Shows you how completely full of shit he was.”

“I could have told you that before he even opened his mouth.”

“I still don’t get how the hell you two were even friends. He exemplified the worst of the worst when it comes to mercs. Even back then...with all your issues...you were so far from being like him.”

“In my defence, whenever I WAS around him, I was pretty drunk. So I wasn’t exactly the best judge of character.”

“I was completely sober and I was a great judge of character,” Esme proudly declares.

“You think so, do you?”

“I let you in my pants, didn’t I?”

He smirks. “A lot of people who know me would probably argue that showed you failed HUGE at judging my character.”

“Well they’d be wrong. Maybe none of them have ever seen what I have. Maybe they don’t take the time to look for it. There was something different about you; I could see it, in your eyes. Yeah, you were tough and hardened and totally badass, but I still saw it; whenever you looked at me. I even heard it in your voice. When we used to have those talks in the middle of the night after we...you know…”

“Fucked each other senseless?”

“To put it bluntly, yes. Even the first night I saw it. You were looking at me when I was telling you about Mark and his bullshit and you reached up and you pushed my hair out of my eyes and behind my ears and you were so gentle about it. It was so simple, yet it took my breath away. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. It was the last thing I ever expected from you; being like that.”

“Probably because an hour before, I had my hand around your throat.”

“Well that didn’t hurt, but it was more than that. I go into a job where I have to pretend to be married to a mercenary. And not just any mercenary, but one who was practically a legend; I’d heard all the stories and all the rumours and you ended up being completely different than I thought you would. And you go from being hard core and aggressive to having this quiet, soft, sweet side to you. That is the last thing I expected. And then to hear it in your  voice and see it in your eyes; this vulnerability and this brokenness. It was sad but it was beautiful all at the same time.”

Tyler frowns. “Have you been drinking?”

“Don’t be such an ass! I’m trying to be sweet and loving with you, goddamn it! Don’t ruin it!”

“I’m sorry,” he laughs, and loops her hair behind one ear, then the other. “You’re right; I do get embarrassed by this stuff.”

“Why? It’s not like we’re strangers. It’s not like we haven’t spent seven years sharing cooties.”

“Oh I think we’ve been sharing  A LOT more than that.”

“Of all the people you shouldn’t be embarrassed around, I’m at the top of the list. So…” she climbs on top of him places a knee on either side of his torso, then leans down to peck his lips. “...stop your bullshit. You’re exhausting me.”

Reaching up, he pushes her his hands through her hair; fingers combing through the dark, silky tresses and pushing them over her shoulders. “If it was that easy of a fix…”  he skims his palms over her shoulders and down her arms. “...I would have fixed it a long time ago.”

“Well you ARE getting better at it,” she admits. “Maybe on our fiftieth anniversary you’ll be fully over it and surprise me!”

“Bold of you to assume  I’m still going to be alive.”

“We got married when you were thirty five. You’ll only be eighty five then.”

“Exactly. Eighty five. You really think I’m going to make it that far?”

“I do. For the simple fact I won’t let you die.”

“Funny how you think you have control over it.”

“I might not have control over it, but I am optimistic that you’ll make it that long. Even longer, actually. If you can survive everything you have in the past forty two years…”

“Forty one. I haven’t reached forty two years. What the fuck?”

“Your birthday is only three months away,” Esme reminds him.

“Okay, so I’m forty one and three quarters.”

She sighs in exasperation. “Fine. If you can survive everything you’ve gone through in the last forty one and three quarter years, there is no way you’re NOT dying an old man, warm in his bed. If anyone deserves that, it’s you. If you can get shot in the neck and still get off that bridge alive? Your chances of making it to eighty five are very good.”

“You’re forgetting I got very fucking lucky; someone was on that bridge that actually give a shit about me and wanted me to live.”

“I only played a small part,” she says, and her fingers move to the side of his neck; gliding over the tattoo that graces his skin and the scar left behind from Farhad’s bullet.

“A small part? You stuck your fingers in my neck to stop me from bleeding out. That’s more than just a small part.”

“We’re not going to talk about that, okay? That part of it.”  Her voice trembles with emotion. “I don’t want to talk about that part.”

“You don’t have to, baby. Come here…” he lays a hand on the back of her head, drawing her down onto his chest. “...it’s okay…” he places his lips against her temple, the fingers of one hand gently massaging her scalp, the other drifting up and down her spine. “...you don’t have to talk about it. I’m sorry I brought it up. I know better than that.”

“It’s not your fault I can’t get over it.  That my brain is messed up because of it.”

“Actually, it kind of IS my fault. Considering…”

“It isn’t your fault,” Esme insists, and wraps both arms around his neck. “I’ve never blamed you. It’s just happened. IT was a horrible fucking mess and that stupid fucking Farhad. You should have killed him that night in the alley. You should have just done it. I wouldn’t have held it against you if you did.”

“Okay, first of all? He was a kid.”

“A kid that nearly killed you. So I’m sorry if I have no sympathy for him. He was a little bastard and you should have just done away with him. And if he’s still out there, I almost hope we run into him in Dhaka. Because I'll kill him if you won’t.”

“Alright, you need to settle down. Don’t get so worked up over this shit.  Let’s NOT talk about this at all. For the next however many days, let’s not mention that place at all. Deal?”

“Deal.  But I swear to God if I see him…”

“What did we just agree on?”

“Sorry,” she mutters against the hollow of his throat. “I get worked up.”

He grins. “Just a little.”

“I’m just scared. About going back there. That’s the last place I ever thought I’d go back to.”

“Trust me; I’m not too excited about it either.”

“You know what would be funny though?” She pulls back to look at him. “If we ended up at the same hotel. In the same room. Maybe we should go there and ask for that room. For old time’s sake.”

“How about no?”

“It wasn’t THAT bad. You had a good time. A VERY good time.”

“I am pretty sure that had nothing to do with the actual hotel or the actual room and everything to do with who  I was there with.”

“Maybe they fixed the toilet sometime in the last seven years!”

He chuckles. “Maybe.”

“And maybe someone over five foot five can actually take a proper shower. That was the weirdest thing; you couldn’t take a bath comfortably because you’re too tall and your legs are too long, but you had to sit in the tub to take a shower.”

“I’ll let you have this moment. But only because I’ve spent years making fun of your height. Or lack of it.”

“You were such a good sport about it, though. You let me wash your hair.”

“Honestly? That was the first time I ever had someone do it.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“You were totally having the feels for me weren’t you. And I’m not talking about the feels below the waist; those were more than obvious. I’m talking about legit feels. You were having legit feels for me.”

“I was,” Tyler admits. “And it was fucking terrifying.”

“Not terrifying enough to walk away though. Or to back away, I should say.”

“There was no way in hell I was backing away. I spent years feeling dead inside...years where I just wanted to die...and all of sudden I’m feeling more than that? Something BETTER than that? No way in hell was I backing away.”

“I knew it,” she grins. “I knew you had the warm and fuzzies for me.”

“Holy shit,” he laughs. “So THAT’S where Tanner got in from.”

“He asked me how it feels when you like someone. How it felt when I met you. So  told him that you made my heart feel warm and fuzzy and he just took it from there. Did you ask you the same thing?”

“He asked if I got the warm and fuzzies when I met you.”

“Did you?”  She scrapes the knuckles on both hands against his beard. “Did you get the warm and fuzzies?”

“From the waist down? Yes. I totally got the warm and fuzzies for you.”

“Please! You did NOT get a hard on the second you saw me on your front porch.”

“The hell I didn’t. There was a hot girl at my place, all tatted and pierced up and looking totally unlike anyone that ever graced my door stop. Damn right I got one.”

“I would have noticed if you were pitching a tent.”

“I was wearing baggy shorts.”

“Baby, you are phenomenally blessed in that area. There’s no shorts baggy enough to hide when you’re excited. So nice try. I appreciate you attempting to build up my ego, but you did NOT get a hard on when you first saw me.”

“Okay, so maybe not a full one, but there were some feelings down there. Especially when I saw you had a tongue ring.”

“Please tell me that’s NOT what you told Tanner when he  asked about the warm and fuzzies.”

“I did not tell our five old son that his mom  made me horny when I first met her, no. I did tell him that I liked how you smiled at me. That you had a beautiful smile and it made me feel kind of warm and fuzzy.”

“I knew it!” You’ve been denying it for seven years. You had a thing for me right off the hop.”

“I so did. Lust at first sight.”

“You had a weird way of showing it. You weren’t exactly warm and fuzzy to me when we first got to Dhaka.”

“That’s ‘cause you pissed me off. Really pissed me off.”

“I wasn’t listening to your stupid rules. I’m a strong, independent woman. I do what I want.”

“Yeah, and if someone had grabbed you in the market? Who do you think would have had to bust his ass to rescue yours? I should have known right away you were trouble. As soon as you didn’t listen to me the first time. Now I’m seven years in and you still don’t listen to a thing I say.”

“It’s not that I don’t listen to you. Just sometimes I think it’s bullshit and I ignore it.”

He smirks. “I knew you were trouble. The second you downed those two drinks in my kitchen.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s probably what turned you on even more.”

“I’m not going to admit or deny that.”

“You don’t have to. I have my own lie detector test. In the same way you do.”

“Yeah?”  He rubs his palms up and down her thighs.  “How does it work?”

“I can give you a tutorial,” she offers.

“I bet you can.”

“It starts very simple…”  She pecks his lips, followed by the corner of his mouth and then along the side of his jaw. “...see, I know all of your weak spots. All those little places that drive you crazy. For example, this…” she drags the tip of her tongue along the outer edge of his ear. “...always gets things going. I know it drives you insane. In a good way. Just like I know doing this…” she bites down lightly on the lobe and then nibbles her away down the side of his neck. “...mixed with this…” she scrapes her nails down his chest, applying pressure against one nipple. “...really gets you going.”

“You’re evil, you know that? Really fucking evil.”

“You’re not the only one who’s good at teasing.  Or did you forget that?”

“Oh I didn’t forget. I know how good you are at it. Seven years, remember?”

His hands push their way into her hair; dark tresses slipping through his fingers as she slides her body down his. Her mouth placing hot, moist kisses along his collarbone and over each peck; a low growl and then a hiss tumbling from his mouth when she first bathes each nipple with her tongue and then scrapes her teeth against them. Breath coming in ragged, uncontrolled pants as she licks, sucks, and kisses her way across the one side of his ribs, then the other; fingernails gouging the skin as her mouth moves even lower. Tracing the ridges of well defined abs and the cut of his hips,  the wiry hair that surrounds his navel and travels lower surprisingly soft against her lips, tickling her tongue as she follows its downward path.

She’s always been amazing at this; from the slow build up and the torture that causes his body to lock up and his breath to quicken, the actual act itself. As so willing and eager; offering or taking it upon herself to just do it instead of having to be asked. A far cry from any of the previous relationships he’d been in.

“Jesus...fuck…” he manages through gritted teeth when she sucks and nibbles at his inner thigh and her fingertips drift along the side of his cock. He hates being on the receiving end of this kind of torture; the only time he possesses little to no patience. Yet it’s a game to her. Payback, in a way. For all the times he’s had the nerve to do it to her; the smart grin that takes over his face while he ignores the begging and pleading and allows his mouth and his hands to wander her entire body while purposefully ignoring where she so desperately wants them.

“What’s wrong?”

His eyes open at the sound of her voice; unaware that he’d even closed them, or that his body had been drawn so tight it’s almost painful. And when he looks down, her mouth is hovering at the juncture between hip and thigh; a devilish curve to her lips and a mischievous glitter in her eyes.

“Are you desperate Tyler?” Her eyes never leave his; her mouth moist and warm as it presses soft yet excruciating kisses along the top of his thigh. “...you seem pretty desperate. I know how hard it is for you; giving up control like this.”

“I’m not giving up shit. Just…”  he bites down on his bottom lip and his eyes close once more as she sucks and nibbles her way across his pubic bone; one of her nails lightly scraping along the underside of his cock. Already painfully hard; tip leaking pre cum. “...you’re bad.”

“You like it,” she says, as he palms cradles his erection. Pads of her fingers replacing the nails and repeatedly brushing against the sides; methodically tracing and exploring every vein, ridge, and indent. “...if you didn’t it, you wouldn’t be letting me do this…”  her hand tightens around his rock hard length,

One hand grabs the sheets beneath him while the other shoves its way into her hair.

“Entirely or…?”

“No. Not fucking entirely. Just…”  His hips arch off the bed when she drags the tip of her tongue along the top of his cock. Starting at the tip and ending at the base; aggressively suckling and nibbling while her hand tightens around him. The pressure of her thumb firm as it repeatedly passes over the head.  “...if you’re just going fucking play with me like this, just stop.”

“This is karma. For all the times you’ve made ME wait. All those times you got off making me beg and plead for it. And let’s be realistic…” her one hand continues to slowly and gently manipulate his cock while the other moves from his hip to his ball; first cradling and then rhythmically squeezing.  “...if you really wanted me to stop, you’d make me. You have more than  a hundred pounds on me. And more than a foot in height. You’re more than capable of getting your control back.”

“Don’t tempt me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You would never hurt me. At least not intentionally.”  

Her mouth moves to his other thigh; lips sucking and teeth biting down hard enough to mark the flesh. And when he feels her warm breath against him as her mouth lingers over the top of his cock, he sees that pleased glint in her eyes and that and that victorious grin on her face and he finally snaps. Roughly snatching her by the hair; twisting it around his fist as he yanks her up towards him. His lips aggressive and needy against hers’ tongue hungrily and savagely pushing through her teeth as he flips her over onto her back.

“You must be feeling pretty generous tonight,” Esme chides. “Giving up THAT?”

“Maybe I’d rather just fuck you.”

“You ARE getting back to normal,” she grins, and raises her head in order to lick a path that starts in the middle of his collarbone and travels   over his throat, along the underside of his chin, and up onto his lips. Capturing the bottom one between her teeth. “Your stamina is almost where it was before.”

“Almost? This will be the third time tonight.”

“You make that sound like a complaint. If you can’t cope with my wants and my needs…”

“I’ve been coping with them for almost seven years. I think I’ll be okay.”

He drops his head down to kiss her; long and deep and just as hungry and desperate as before. Shivering when her nails scrape down his ribs and over his hips. And he feels her body tense and then shudder  when he hastily pushes into her, giving her body a chance to adjust to the sudden intrusion before pulling out and sinking back in even harder and deeper than before. It’s a break from their usual; slow and even thrusts and the exchange of soft, short kisses followed by longer and more needy ones.  Her hands attentively exploring the muscles in his shoulders and back; fingers light and feathery when they travel over every bulge, ripple, and intent that exist in his arms.

“You’re so beautiful…” he breathes, a hand moving to the side of her face, cupping it gently; thumb brushing against the skin under her eye. “...you’re so beautiful and I love you so much.”

“Don’t talk like that,” she pleads. “Don’t say things like that while you have that look in your eyes. I know what you’re thinking. And that’s not going to happen; it’s never going to happen.”

He attempts a confident, reassuring smile and then kisses her. Long and soft and sweet at first, then much more intense. Feeling her legs wrap around his waist and her ankles lock together at the small of his back. And he closes his eyes and rests his forehead against her as he continues to move inside of her. Taking in every little whimper, moan and sigh and the press of her feet against his tailbone and the feel of her nails scraping his shoulders and back.

Attempting to commit all of it to memory. Just in case.

*****

He wakes to Addie’s shrill and incessant crying coming from the nursery across the hall. Eyes immediately snapping open and his body initially tensing. It’s a cry unlike anything he’s ever heard from her before. She’s always been a fairly quiet and agreeable baby; even in the midst of a ‘meltdown’ -when food isn’t coming as quick as she thinks it should- she never sounds like THAT. It’s louder and higher than normal; no longer the cry that almost resembles a kitten that’s been separated too soon from its mother. He tries not to feel panicked; it could be a number of things. A stomach ache, a wet diaper that she’s been in for far too long and has become unbearable, or she’s somehow managed to kick and squirm her way out of her tight swaddling.

Running his hands over his weary face, he sits up; left hand reaching for his right shoulder and his fingers pressing deep and massaging firmly in a vain attempt to rid himself of both pain and stiffness. Esme doesn’t even budge beside him; blankets pulled up to her ears and her hair falling over her face, oblivious to both the commotion across the hall and his movements beside her.

He groans as he swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands; a hand on the small of his back and a grimace on his face as he hobbles towards the pair of sweats that had long been discarded near the balcony door.  Climbing into them and pulling them over his hips and his ass as he heads for the door.

The first thing he notices is how quiet it is in the upstairs hallway. Not even the slightest bit of sound -aside from what Addie is making - trickling out from all the other rooms. Normally he hears something; music or talking coming from one of the kids’ tablets after they’d fallen asleep watching them, the dogs rustling around or snoring from their usual resting place on top of Millie’s bed, or one of the nannies moving inside their room as they prepare to tend to the baby.

The second is the sudden change in temperature when he gets to the nursery; the air coming from under the door drastically cooler than out in the hallway. And it makes him scowl and the hair on the back of his neck stand on end; briefly pausing -waiting and listening- with his fingers curled around the door handle. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to   hear, but his gut...his instincts...tell him that something isn’t quite right. Yet his brain is able to pin down just what it could be.

Addie has quieted down by the time he steps into the room; her crying now soft whimpers and gasps for air and a tiny fist shoved in her mouth. And as he makes his way towards the crib, his eyes do a thorough search of the room; it’s a large, open space and the closet door is close and there’s no possible place for anyone to hide. The window is wide open; the strong breeze violently rustling and flapping the curtains and filling the room with shockingly crisp air.

“It’s alright now,” he speaks calmly to Addie as he steps beside the crib.  She’s managed to get herself out of her swaddling and her body is cold to the touch; likely woken up by the chill in the air and the sound of the curtains being tossed and shaken. “It’s okay…” he places a kiss to the side of her head as he scoops her up, using one hand to press her against his chest while the other snags the receiving blanket from the crib and drapes it over her. “It’s alright, little peanut. Daddy’s got you.”

She’s comforted by the warmth of his body and the sound of his voice, and he keeps her tightly and protectively against him as he moves to the window; sliding it down and securely the latch. Pausing before stepping away; pulling back the curtains and peering out into the dark.

“What’s going on?” Esme asks, lifting her head from her pillow when he returns. “Everything okay?”

“Did you leave the window in the nursery open?”

She pushes her hair out of her eyes and looks at him quizzically. “What?”

“The window. In the nursery. Did you leave it open when you put Addie to bed?”

“No. It was already closed. I just left it that way. Why?”

“It was wide open.” He slides into bed; leaning back against the headboard, baby finally calm against him.  “Are you sure it was closed?”

“I would have noticed if the window was open; it’s been crazy windy all evening.” She reaches up to run a hand over Addie’s hair, then down her arm. “Oh my god, she’s freezing! What the hell?”

“She woke up because she was cold. The window was wide open. It was fucking freezing in there.”

“Here, ” Esme sits up and reaches for the extra blanket spread across the end of the bed, draping over the front of his body and tucking it tightly around Addie. “Daddy’s got you,” she presses a kiss to her daughter’s temple. “You’re okay now, bubby. You’ll warm up quickly. Daddy’s like a furnace. Except for his feet; those are always cold.”  She places a hand on Addie’s back and rests her head against Tyler’s shoulder. “Maybe one of the nannies opened it. The window. Maybe they went in to check on her and they thought it felt hot in there so they opened it. Then forgot to go back in and close it.”

“Maybe. That’s pretty fucking stupid though, isn’t it?”

“People make mistakes, Tyler. She’ll be okay. She just needs to warm up. Maybe she’ll take something to eat; that might make her feel better.”  She peels the blanket back and gently removes Addie from his arms, then stretches out on her side; baby on the mattress facing her, eagerly latching onto the breast when it's offered.

“Always hungry,” Esme muses, and combs her fingers through Addie’s hair. “Maybe you do have some of your daddy in you, after all. He’s always eating. You’ll be okay, little bubby. You’ll warm up and you’ll have a full tummy and then you’ll feel better. Good thing you woke daddy, huh? He hasn’t been a sound sleeper in a long time.”

Tyler stretches out on his side as well, facing the two of them. And he runs a hand over his wife’s hair and then his daughter’s before sliding closer to them; effectively shielding Addie’s tiny body with his own. His arm arm resting lightly on top of her as he places a protective hand on the small of Esme’s back.

He won’t be sleeping any time soon.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #11- Soak the Matrix in Lemon Juice and Break Out the Hairdryers

So, small problem.

Prowl realized he was in the wrong comic run and had to split.

But not before yelling at Orion about how stupid he thinks this National Treasure bullshit he’s trying to pull is, and makes a request that Chromedome be left out of this whole mess.

Why the fuck wouldn’t you tell him that?

Bye, Prowl. See you later, I guess.

Chromedome and Roller have brought in some help for the heist from the local college. These students were super gung-ho about stealing the Matrix, not because they’re agents of political chaos, but because the Senator has his name attached to this little project. They feel a certain debt to the Senator, since he’s been doing his best to protect them from the Functionist Council.

Gee, wonder who that truck is.

We get a little rundown of our new friends, while Chromedome has a minor temper tantrum in the background.

Skids is also a member of this group, labelled as a super-learner, enough so that it may not even be a voluntary thing on his part.

In the present day, Swerve’s returned from stealing things from Trailcutter’s room, apparently totally unaware of what’s happened to his roommate. You’d think someone would have gotten in contact with him about that.

I mean, maybe? You did say you liked purple.

Swerve lets it slip that this isn’t the only story time circle Rewind’s hosted in an attempt to get Rung’s brain back up to speed… which makes me wonder just how often the medical staff on board the Lost Light actually check on their patients, if Ratchet had been surprised that this event was happening today.

Swerve makes fun of Tailgate for needing to open up the wiki so he can keep track of what’s going on, then goes over to call Rung the wrong name. Swerve is very lucky Rung is essentially in a coma right now, because that’s probably the only thing keeping him from trying to strangle our resident barkeep.

Whirl helps Rung express himself by playing with his eyebrows, a trait which, now that I think about it, probably only exists for expressive purposes, considering that his eyes are covered by his glasses and we can’t see their shape.

Rewind saves Rung from being played with, perhaps solely because he’s a historical constant.

So you’re saying Rung gets around. Nifty.

Rewind decides that they’ve taken enough of a break and it’s time to get back to the juicy stuff, completely blowing off Ratchet’s professional opinion about what to do with Rung.

Nothing gets in the way of story time.

Nothing.

In the past, Orion Pax is poking Skids in the face, specifically in his mini Matrix tattoo, which is giving him ideas. Skids is a little weirded out, but this isn’t about Skids, now is it? Chromedome goes to pay a visit to a coworker to get things set for the madness that’s about to unfold.

My boy! My beautiful boy!

Yes, Ironfist, before shooting himself in the head and having his spirit broken by the horrors of direct combat, used to be a cop. Everyone’s a cop in IDW, at least for a little while. He’s also missing his faceplate, and isn’t nearly as cute in Milne’s style, but we can’t have it all all the time, now can we?

Chromedome’s feeding into Ironfist’s fanboy nature, pretending to be just as much as a nerd as he is to call in a favor. In exchange for getting Ironfist’s Delta Magnus body pillow back from their boss, Chromedome needs to borrow Ironfist’s one-to-one replica of the Matrix.

I mean, you practically are already, but the sentiment is appreciated. We haven’t gotten to the point where we’re comfortable with thank you kisses yet, and it’ll be a while still.

While the Senator and company gush over Chromedome’s good job, Roller pulls Ratchet and Orion over to the side for a little chat.

Roller doesn’t trust the Senator. He’s done his research, weighed their options, and he really isn’t sure about this guy. Turns out that Orion isn’t the only guy who’s been modified to fit a Matrix without his consent. Honestly, I’m with Roller on this one; that’s mad creepy to be loading the bases like that.

Orion doesn’t really see it that way, though.

Only one of these things was ever a secret, my guy. You worked with Whirl, he was in your precinct for crying out loud! At least he admits to his ignorance.

Back in the present, we check in on Rodimus’ investigation. Looks like we’ve got our answer on who tried to kill Red Alert.

It was Red Alert.

First Aid explains.

Fascinating.

Rodimus fails to see why exactly Red Alert would choose to go this route, because A) he doesn’t know that Red Alert knows about the dirty little secret in the basement, and B) despite probably having depression, may not be the type to have suicidal ideation. It’s true, those types of people exist!

Oh, this is a savior’s complex thing. Nyon really fucked you up, huh Rodimus?

After Ultra Magnus gets Rodimus to stop accosting the doctor, they’re faced with a sort of moral quandary.

IDW’s More Than Meets the Eye! Come for the space adventure, stay for the rumination on whether it’s ethical to allow a mentally ill person the right to self-termination!

After consulting with Drift, because it’s always important to get a second opinion, Rodimus agrees to put Red Alert in cold storage, to remain until their quest is finished and they’re in a place that’s better for his mental health.

Anyway, back to the heist plotline.

Orion breaks down the plan for everybody: the basilica is nearly impossible to break into, but they’re going to do it anyway, because this is the past, and we as the reader already know that things go alright because Chromedome, Ratchet and Skids are still here and Optimus Prime came into being.

Roller will hack the sky spies, make things look all hunky dory, while the rest of the boys magic carpet up to the top of the building.

Looking mighty relaxed there, Glitch.

Glitch is probably sitting down to conserve as much energy as possible, because his job sucks some major chrome- he’s got to keep the detector beams off, using his outlier ability, but it really friggin’ hurts for him to do it. He’s going to have to do it for an extended period of time.

Glitch really got the short end of the stick in all this, didn’t he?

Okay, so I was wrong, Skids uses his grappling hook a fucking shit-ton in MTMTE. Today, he’s going to use it to lower Orion down into the basilica so he can crack open a cold one and steal the Matrix.

Things can never just be simple, can they?

Over on Roller’s end of the workflow, Chromedome’s irritated that he’s got to babysit the Senator. Chromedome spends a good portion of this story arc irritated at stuff, in case you couldn’t tell.

In this case, the Senator agrees that having Chromedome stay back was probably unnecessary. Or at least, he did, until he noticed that the Academy of Advanced Technology is burning to the ground on live TV.

Then the wall explodes.

Things can never just be simple, can they?

Back on the front lines, Orion tags out and Ratchet tags in, because the locks on the Matrix are mad crazy hard to undo and they just don’t have time for pussyfooting around with all that. Ratchet is apparently a master lock pick. Must be those magic medic hands.

Even the Matrix being full of Fiji water is no match for our CMO, as he makes quick work of the bomb and removes it. Hooray! Now we just need to pull him back up and we’ll be all set to leave.

Or at least, we would be, if Glitch wasn’t the dumbest bitch alive.

Ratchet braces for an explosion.

And braces.

And braces.

But it never comes, because Windcharger has magic arms and zero patience for facing his own mortality.

The boys haul up Ratchet and the bomb, fly on out of there, then Orion jumps off the slab they’re floating on because Roller was supposed to call and he hasn’t. I’m going to hazard a guess and say that Roller might be a bit preoccupied at the moment, and it isn’t by the television.

That is a BIG BOY.

“Cleanse and control” was what Trepan’s idiotic tattoo said, so there’s a good chance that our buddy the Senator is about to go the way of Pious Maximus in a minute. Or at least, he would if Orion Pax didn’t embrace is inner monster truck and punch a hole in the big boy holding the Senator like Lennie does a rabbit.

Kroma isn’t one to let the opposite side have all the cards though, as he holds a gun to Roller’s head and suggests that the Senator be given to him, lest we be down a cop in this story that’s simply awash with them. The Senator, being the nice guy that he is, goes willingly to his doom.

Be a lot easier if we knew your name, bud.

The Senator is taken away, but Kroma leaves Orion with the other big boy, and he’s not playing nicely. Orion helps himself by way of domestic terrorism.

But that’s not the end of the story! Oh dear no!

After the explosion, Orion unearths Chromedome, and they make tracks for the Institute. Small issue with that though:

Well, dang.

Thus ends the tale of the Matrix heist, the mysterious Senator, and Chromedome’s awkward relationship with Prowl. Our storytelling session ends with the sound of the alarm, and everyone runs off to see just what the hell’s gone wrong now. Only Skids hangs back to take Rung to the medibay, but not before trying one last thing to help his partner in vent-crawling out.

Man, all they had to do was annoy him and everything would have been fine? Rewind’s going to feel so silly for all that work he put into this.

Back in the past, Orion’s digging through the remains of the Rodion police station, when a robot comes up to him, saying that they have a mutual friend who asked him to find Orion if he ever went missing.

The mutual friend was the Senator.

And the robot is Zeta, who would become Zeta Prima.

The Senator was really playing the field with all these Matrix reformattings.

Speaking of the Senator, he’s just arrived at a The Institute, where they’ve decided to not only shadowplay him, but also empurata his whole deal just to be assholes. He just wanted to be beautiful, on top of conniving, but I guess we won’t be having any of that anymore. Not that it’ll matter.

Because vanity is illogical.

No wonder Whirl’s so goddamn angry all the time.

[fairycosmos]

I have my finale exam tomorrow and I'm 99,9% sure that I'll fail. I feel like such a failure right now. I could retake the school year but why I understand the school work then, if I don't understand it now. I'll probably stay unemployed forever, because I'm so anxious at job interviews and I literally don't know how to talk to people. Maybe it'd be the best if I didn't exist because nothing would change if wasn't here anyway. I wouldn't be missed and I know I will never be happy anyway.

hey dude, listen. it sounds a bit like you’re spiraling right now and i really think it’d do you some good to just take a step back and breathe. i hope the test went okay, and by okay i hope i mean you got through it, because that’s literally all you can ask of yourself. it’s natural to be nervous about such things and if you’re also struggling with mental illness on top of that, it’s easy to get lost in the heaviness of that anxiety. making big unfounded assumptions about your future, feeling a sense of doom, thinking in black and whites instead of recognizing the nuance and middle ground - all of those are red flags, not reliable thought processes that you need to build your life around. it’s okay to process negative emotions, to be upset and to feel overwhelmed and to want to give up at at times. we all need to break down a little when we’re overwhelmed so we can let some of that pent up tension out. but that should look like allowing yourself to cry, reaching out to those around you, getting some rest, and removing yourself from situations that exacerbate the pain when possible. not harming yourself in hopes of dulling those emotions, because that’s how you get stuck in a cycle of self destruction that is more suffocating than just confronting the pain and trying to let it go. look, you’re young and life is generally a lot longer than it seems when you’re in school, in the sense that we learn how resilient we are over and over again. we’re supposed to ‘mess up.’ things go ‘wrong ’and then we carve our paths out of that, and we adapt. whether we realize it or not. you’ve done it before, and you can do it again. if it turns out you have to retake the school year, then with the extra time and maybe additional support from your teachers, the school work may become a little clearer if you give it the chance and try out new learning techniques to find what works for you. that doesn’t make you a failure at all. you clearly care a lot about your future, and you’ve already made so much more progress than you realize. i know it doesn’t seem like it in this moment. but seriously, whatever happens, after the initial disappointment and frustration, you WILL be able to return to a sense of normality. the extent of how much it hurts right now is not permanent. there’s truly no set time schedule for education, no matter how much they want to convince us otherwise. you just have to do what you can with what you’ve been given. that’s more than good enough. you’re more than good enough. and about job interviews - try to slow down. there’s absolutely no evidence that you will be unemployed forever, in fact it’s very unlikely, and your worth/future happiness doesn’t rely on that factor anyway. honestly, i’ve been to a few job interviews by now and i’ve always thought the same thing about myself. especially when i was in school, i thought i knew, that there was no way i could handle it, no way anyone would take me on. and they are uncomfortable and nerve wracking, sure. but they’re also not the beginning and end of the world. nobody is expecting you to be the worlds best talker especially when you’re new to the whole thing. it’s about showing your enthusiasm and your skillset, and if you dont believe you have one, you do. you just cant see it because you dont like yourself right now. i’ve been rejected from jobs too, and yeah it’s a dig at the self esteem, but it’s not a personal failure. it’s just the nature of applying for a position that loads of other people are also applying for. you learn to accept it. but you don’t even have to carry that weight yet, love. so try to recognize what your brain is doing by bombarding you with worries that are entirely out of your control, and that there is no actual proof of. more than anything, it’s important to remember that school nor your career defines everything that you are. we’re taught from a young age that we only deserve to be here if we’re ‘useful’ by capitalist standards, if we can justify the space we take up. but it’s a fucking lieeeeee. raising us like that is the only way to get us to work work work without questioning it too much. it’s got nothing to do with you and everything to do with the world being a soul sucking machine. so, relax. you deserve to be here and you deserve to be gentle with yourself, nothing changes that. not tests or the future or your self hatred. i know it’s hard to believe that such concepts apply to you, but they do. nothing and nobody would be better off without you, i promise. when you’re in a dark place it’s only normal to believe that you’ll never be happy, but it’s really not the case in reality. happiness is an emotion that comes and goes like all else, and it is entirely possible for it to become a consistent theme in your life. that is, if you’re able to make it through this part. if you’re able to try to engage in healthier coping mechanisms so that you see your situation from multiple perspectives, rather than just from a one dimensional ‘things will never get better’ stand point. even if you just have to survive hour by hour, until you get there.

i’d really recommend considering talking to someone about what’s happening in your head right now, man. i know that’s not what you want to hear and part of you will want to immediately write it off, but try to pause and keep it in the back of your mind. whether it’s a teacher, a parent/family member, a school counselor, a mental health hotline, a friend, your doctor - there are so many people out there who have the tools to help you learn to manage. and it doesn’t matter if the process is slow or non linear, or if you have to force the words out. all that matters is that you try. whatever that means to you, even if some days it’s just staying in your room and breathing through it. you can recognize that not wanting to be here any more is an unhealthy thought, indicating that there is a lot more going on beneath the surface, yeah? it’s alright to talk about that and to let others in. our mental health is often just as fragile as our physical health and sometimes it needs medical intervention in order to be adequately supported, and that’s totally fine.  yeah, opening up is embarrassing and yeah it’s not something anyone ‘wants’ to do, but it’s often very necessary, because it’ll allows people to be able to relate with and guide you. please consider your own needs and know that there is no shame in speaking up. even if you have to take some time to find the courage. honestly, you don’t even need to go into great detail. a simple ‘i need help and i’m not sure what to do’ is a great place to start with someone you trust, or someone who is in a position to help you. anyway, i’m sorry this got super long. navigating school is fuckin difficult at the best of times, and i’m infinitely proud of you for making it to this point and for being able to articulate your feelings like this to me. i have no doubt that you will be able to get through this if you give yourself the time and the tools do so. and i dont say that lightly at all. try to ground yourself for now, and start again tomorrow. if you want to talk about this properly or if you ever need a friend, my dms/inbox will be open. take care. focus on one day at a time.

[paintthestarsarttherapy]

Mission Possible: Tackling Screen-Time Addiction

We can’t blame Covid forever.

Fair warning: You may hate me for what I’m about to write in this blog. In my defense it’s my job. So here goes ...

Please, PLEASE, give your children screen time limits--structured and consistent limits. Oh, and to be clear: Screen time means video games AND phones AND tablets and laptops AND TV and, and, and! You get the point.

We in the mental health world are seeing a HUGE increase in behavioral outbursts, anger at home, lack of attention and focus at school and all-around oppositional behavior. This holds true for kids as young as 3 all the way into high school-aged children.

The common thread seen with all of the above is … you guessed it … screen time! 

These young, developing brains are ill equipped to handle the amount of screen time we are allowing them to have. The following image 

was created by a first grader using Model Magic. This 6-year-old told me that he is “addicted to playing on [his] iPad.” Addicted! If your 6-year-old said, “Sorry Mom and Dad but I am addicted to heroin,” YOU WOULD LOSE YOUR MIND! 

Here is what I asked this 6-year-old to do: Create yourself out of Model Magic doing something you love or something that makes you feel happy. To no surprise he created himself an iPad. I then grabbed that Model Magic iPad and took it away. “Uh oh. Time’s up for that. What else makes you happy, now that your iPad has been removed?” I asked him. The groans and moans set in. “Ugh. Nothing else makes me happy.” Well, this is clearly a huge problem. When you are 6 years old and the only thing you can think of that makes you happy is a screen? Ugh is right. I pushed and pushed and finally he said, “I guess my trampoline.” But that was it; in 30 minutes he could only give me two things that make him happy, and coming up with that second one took about half the session. 

We are letting these kids down. 

And we, as parents, need to take action--and we have to do it immediately. As our kids are now back in school, in some way, shape or form, it is the perfect opportunity to use it as the impetus for setting new, limited-screen-time routines. We cannot keep using Covid as an excuse. I won’t blow your mind with the recommended amount of screen time based on the age of each child. (But if you want to learn more check this out: https://www.apa.org/topics/healthy-technology-use-children.) You don’t need to focus on the stats; we know those numbers often feel like an impossible goal. Instead I have put together some tips below to help you break free from this addiction. If you create small, tangible goals you will see success in creating those important screen time limits. 

Tip 1: ‘Family Rules’ Meeting: This is our starting point. Everyone should sit down together and you as parents must explain that school is now in session, we cannot be melting our brains with screen time any more. Lay out a plan for your kids to understand. They will each get X amount of screen time each day. (I’ll explain further how to do that below.) These limits can be reinforced by timers, parental control settings, apps, or frequent wifi password changes that force your children’s electronics to TURN OFF after a certain amount of time. (Here are some great apps to check out to help you with that!) Lay out the rewards and the punishments if they do not abide by these rules.

Rewards: If your kid(s) are calmly able to slow their use of X device each day, Mom and Dad will add on to your weekend screen time by Y minutes. But go easy with those rewards! Five minutes is plenty because if they are amazing rule followers and do it with ease 5 minutes earned each weekday easily adds up to 25 additional weekend minutes—which is plenty. 

Punishments: If your kid(s) throw(s) a tantrum when it is time to stop daily screen time you will lose X minutes each day on the weekend. If they continue to tantrum after that, the punishment is increased and all screens will be off limits for Y day(s). 

Ok, that was all tough to hear, I know. Take it in; absorb it. Now: Take a deep breath. You’re doing great! But nope, we’re not done ... 

Tip 2: Take whatever amount of screen time your child currently is allowed each day and cut it in half. That is the goal over the first month when starting this new routine. If they are playing Roblox 4 hours a day, then from now on that’s cut down to 2 hours. And this goes for all cumulative screen time. So for example, if your child plays on his/her tablet for 3 hours, plays video games on whatever device for another 2 hours you are adding all of that up together and dividing it by 2. I’m not recommending the cold turkey method on these little volcanoes, so you should spread out these cuts in a way that works for everyone. I personally like intervals of 20 minutes. It is enough time to start making a difference but also short enough that many kids won’t feel that change.

Example: If your child currently is on screens for 4 hours a day, then that first week you’ll reduce total screen time by 20 minutes, giving them 3:40. The following week you’ll take away another 20 minutes, giving them 3:20. And so on.

Starting in the third week you’ll start to take away a half hour out of their total allotted screen time. So that 3:20 now becomes 2 hours and 50 minutes. The fourth week is reduced by another half hour (down to a cumulative 2:20). Then the new month starts off with  2 hours of screen time a day. 

(You should be aware, however, that if your child is on devices more than 4 hours a day--I cried a little bit typing that--you may have to do larger time intervals to hit your goal in the month.)

See how easy? Good job, Mom and Dad!

Tip 3: Be prepared for total meltdown city—and your kid is the Mayor. THEY ARE GOING TO BE ANGRY. The tantrums will get bigger and louder, I assure you. But this is also how you know that what you are doing is working! Parents so often say, “What can I do?” Well, this. You can do this. And I promise you that you are strong enough to get through it. You are not hurting your children by doing this; you are helping them. You are creating a better home life for everyone. You need to factor in a 2-week period of hazing. Your children are hazing you—not the other way around. If they scream and you give in because you are tired of hearing those screams … game over. They just won. If you stand firm, follow the structure laid out and, most importantly, be consistent (What does being consistent mean? YOU MUST DO THIS EVERY TIME!) you will start to see changes after your hazing is complete. 

If the outbursts get out of control, get violent, last for hours, etc., then you have a serious addict living in your home and you must take drastic action! These tips may not be enough for your little screen-time addict; you may have to remove devices on a semi-permanent basis. Remember, one addiction is not harmless. Did you know that having one addiction puts you at greater risk for having another, future addiction? (Blame your dopamine.) I’ll let that sink in …

Tip 4: No screens should be accessible in your child’s room. No TV, video games, phones, tablets, etc. Why? Well, if a kid were alone in his/her room with the door closed what would expect them to do? Sleep? Haha. Okay then. These screens should always be kept in a common area so parents can easily keep track of their usage. For your older teens, I recommend a specific charging area in your home where phones and tablets are charged—again, not in their rooms. 

(In case you were wondering, no, your teens do not go to bed at a reasonable hour and yes they are online wayyyyyy into the night.) 

Tip 5: Don’t give in to the peer pressure. Your kids’ friends whose parents are not willing to go through these measures are going to make your kids feel like poop. Ready yourself for this and try to uplift moods with other fun options like taking a trip, hiking outside, going somewhere they’ve always wanted to go, family game night or even family movie night (with no phones!). Please do not believe that playing video games and texting and TikToking is the only way your kids are able to socialize. That is just not true. Our entire idea of what it means to be social has changed based on technology but when it comes to a psychological perspective, ‘social’ is not being interactive on a screen. If your kids and teens want to TALK to someone, let the talking be old fashioned. We still make phone calls, right? It is still possible to pick up a phone and call someone, last I checked. I’ve had parents ask me, “Is it okay to let my kids FaceTime friends?” Sure! But can the amount of FaceTime be limited or supervised? If the FaceTime chat is to do schoolwork together, let it be done at the kitchen table or a common area where a parent can supervise. Your teens will want their privacy, of course, so allow them to make FaceTime calls from their room but with the door open. If they are making strides in changing their idea of being social (less video game socialization for example) you can definitely loosen the reins a little depending on circumstances. For example, were your kids texting through apps like TikTok and Snapchat or gaming as a way of being social and are now instead bumping it up to actually seeing someone via video call and having a chat? I call that progress. These are added, simple ways to reduce unnecessary screen time. 

Tip 6: Watch yourselves. If you as parents are always on your phones or whatever screens you prefer you are sending a warped message to your kids. Sure, we love the idea of “do as I say not as I do” but for a smooth transition from brain-melting screen time to normalcy, limiting your own screen time use will help you in the long run. It also helps with kids of all ages to see that mom and dad are willing to go through this with you--that they are not alone. Start off small: no phones or electronics at the dinner table. Dinner is a great time to go around the room and discuss your day together as a family. Electronics can stay in their designated areas. Or if your children desperately need some sort of stimulation throw on some music and let everyone take a turn picking a song. 

Covid has not disappeared so I understand that many families aren’t able to schedule play dates and group social gatherings. Do what you can to make positive changes. Remember, being social is about eye contact, empathy, enjoying another person’s company, experiencing things together, and more. It is not about being logged onto something virtually and pretending it’s social because you can message a person, or see them in a video they made, or comment on their pics. The game of socialization may have changed a bit but the rules are the same. What I have laid out here for you is not easy. I promise you, parents, you will feel better and be happier, kids will feel better and be happier, schoolwork will improve, anger will decrease, sleep will get better if you follow my tips for decreased screen time. We are talking about full recovery! 

You’ve got this.

[skvaderarts]

Chapter Nine: Tranquility

You can check out the Masterlist Here for more links to places to read!

Chapter Nine: Tranquility

Note: I had such a good laugh reading the comments for the last chapter! SkylarMorgan1899, HunterJamie, Mallovarwen, He Who Wanders, and Aureux all made wonderful points and observations, and I can’t wait until we reach the point in the story where we start to cover the topics you mentioned. Don’t worry everyone, it’s only going to get better from here! Thanks for checking out the story.

-~-

Vergil watched the van pull off and head down the street with a note of finality to his posture. Although they had succeeded in revitalizing V, there was still much to do, and the eldest Son of Sparda couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Though he would never show it outwardly, something about this situation did not sit well with him. Despite the fact that he had very little prior experience to go on, he was confident that he could trust Nero to keep a close eye on his eldest son. And yet, there was still apprehension. But was it directed at Nero or some unknown source of anxiety? His lack of control over the situation wasn’t something he was used to, but this was something distinctly different that added to his misgivings.

He couldn’t understand how he knew it, but something was going to happen soon.

And he had no idea what to do about it. That unnerved him more than anything.

Relinquishing control over a situation was not something that Vergil was accustomed to, and this was not the environment that he would prefer to learn in, but he had no choice. His son had made a valid point when he had pointed out that they could not bring V here in his current state. He was vulnerable, and being in a building that was practically a hub for supernatural entities wasn’t a very good idea. But to have them both so far from reach should his premonitions prove true? It wasn’t ideal in the slightest.

Dante flung open the front doors of the office and headed over to his desk. As he plopped down into his trusty chair, his older twin entered the building and closed the door behind himself. The Youngest Son of Sparda used his thumb to gesture towards the door that led to the back area of the office. 

“Pretty sure I forgot to mention that the bathroom is back there. It’s across from the spare room,” Dante paused at the statement, something evidently occurring to him. A slight smirk crossed his face for a second before he continued,” Well, it was the spare room. Guess it’s yours now. Mine’s upstairs. The kitchen is around where Nero went earlier.”

Dante tilted his head in the direction Nero had gone the day before and watched Vergil’s gaze cross silently between the door and the kitchen’s general area. He then nodded slightly and approached the backroom door. After pausing for a moment, he opened it and disappeared behind it without a word. The action wasn’t aggressive or born of malcontent, and as such there was no agitation or ill will behind it. Simply silence. The younger twin kicked his feet up onto the desk as he heard a second door open and close. He hadn’t done so very loudly. It was simply a case of unreasonably good hearing on Dante’s part.

After a few minutes of total silence apart from the negligible noise made by the ceiling fans, Dante began to doze off. Just as he was passing over the cusp of consciousness, it suddenly occurred to him that it had been entirely too quiet for far too long. He pulled his legs down from the desk and stood up, uneager to find out what his identical twin was up to. He approached the backroom door and opened it to find the adjacent bathroom door closed. Across from it was the door to the bedroom on this floor, and it was slightly cracked open. Unless Vergil had slipped out of the window at the end of the hallway (which was unlikely since there were blinds attached to it), Dante was willing to guess he had gone into the bedroom.

The Youngest Son of Sparda leaned forward and pushed on the door, not considering the fact that he should have probably knocked until the door was a third of the way open. When his brother didn’t throw Yamato through the door and impale him, Dante decided to test the waters and see just how far his luck would hold. He craned his neck over to one side and peeped into the room, curious to see what Vergil could be up to that had held his normally barely contained wrath at bay for this long.

For the most part, the space was furnished very basically. A standing wardrobe sat in one corner, and a matching bed with two accompanying bedside tables spanned the space in the middle of the grey painted room. Black linen covered the bed and the somewhat dusty blinds that covered the only window in the room were closed, lending the medium-sized space a rather dark atmosphere. As his eyes settled upon the relatively dark space, Dante stopped, surprised by the sight he found before him.

Laying in the middle of the bed was Vergil.

 And he was very clearly fast asleep.

It honestly hadn’t occurred to Dante before that his brother might be tired. After all, the two of them hadn’t lived together since they were children, and the eldest of Sparda’s two sons had never been one to let his mental or physical state of mind slip through the cracks. Vergil had been awake every moment since his restoration, and that had been quite a while now. At least the better part of four days. And unlike Dante, he had never sat down and allowed himself to rest. It was as if he avoided sleeping on purpose...

Dante shook his head and backed out of the room, deciding that returning to his office was probably the best course of action he could take at the moment. He could use a nap himself. He carefully eased the door closed and ventured back down the hallway, flopping back into his favorite chair. His legs returned to their natural state on his desk and he picked up a magazine to read. He had no doubt that he would be joining Vergil shortly.

-~-

Like most living beings, V had done his fair share of things that he had come to regret later on. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, after all, and that was simply how things were. But V was now absolutely cursing his brain for its lack of functional cognitive capacity at this particularly given interval.

Not very long after Nero and Kyrie had left the room, V had gotten dressed in the spare clothes that she had brought him and he had decided to get up and explore the house. This was a decision that was complicated slightly by the fact that his head felt like it was underwater, his eyes seemed to be photosensitive, and he had barely any feeling in his body at all as of present, especially his legs. He had taken a few blind, careful steps towards the door to his bedroom, only to find that he grew progressively weaker with every step he took at an alarming rate. It had presumably taken the very last of his startlingly low energy reserves for him to stand up straight against nothing and open the door towards himself to try and step out into the foyer, because the second he did so he felt unmistakably faint. And that had been the last coherent sensation he had experienced before he careened towards the floor.

With seemingly perfect timing, Nero had come past him and managed to grab him mere moments before he would have otherwise collapsed and more than likely bashed his head against the entryway pavers. The youngest descendant of Sparda braced him against himself to keep him from falling almost lifelessly onto the ground before trying to rouse him and making no progress. Nero shook his head and knelt down further so that he could get a better grip on V before carefully lifting him and throwing him over his shoulder. He then stood up with him and reopened the door to the guest room, entering with the intention of putting him back where he belonged. As soon as he was safely back in the bed, Nero left the room and headed for the phone that hung on the wall between the kitchen and the entryway. He removed the small semi-gloss piece of paper that Magnolia had given him from his pocket and examined it carefully, gleaning everything he could from it and storing it away in his mind for later. He then dialed the number on the note and waited. After two rings or, the line picked up.

“Hello! This is Magnolia’s Aromatics and Herbalists. You seem to be calling from my personal line instead of the store line, so I assume I gave you my card?”

Nero nodded to himself. Duly noted. He needed a second line like this. Having one number made his life a bit more difficult than it probably needed to be, and that was a sentiment that he knew Dante shared due to Patty’s insistent phone calls alone. He should bring that up to him at a later date. “Hey, it’s Nero. I just had a couple of questions about-”

“Oh! Hello dear! Wonderful to hear from you,” She interjected cheerfully, not quite letting him finish, but unaware of her mistake,” Is this about your brother, then?”

“Yea it is,” He confirmed, absent-mindedly glancing back at the bedroom door,” All the stuff you said he might go through happened, and then some. I’m pretty sure he fainted when he tried to get up and walk around. And his memory seems a little patchy in a couple of places. Is that normal?”

She paused for a moment as if taking in his words before answering again. “Yes, that does tend to happen. Anything he has forgotten should return gradually along with his powers and the like. What did he forget specifically? Did he say?”

Nero considered his next question carefully before turning his attention back to the phone. He probably needed to go and check on V again before he woke up and tried to come looking for them. That hadn’t gone very well the last time. “He forgot how he died and some of the stuff right before it, I think. Also, I don’t think he really has powers like that. He was using these demon summons things and he had, like, these magic tattoos or something. But I’ve never seen him use any other kind of powers. I don’t know, I could be wrong. I don’t know how most of this kinda shit works. I just kill demons.”

Magnolia stayed silent for a long moment as she took in what Nero had just told her. Nero stared at the phone quietly, becoming more uneasy as the time passed. After a full minute of silence, he started to wonder if they had become disconnected. “Hey, are you still there?

After a brief pause, she answered. “Oh! Sorry about that. You just took me off guard, is all. You said he possessed summons that were linked to him via tattoos and that you’ve never seen him exhibit any signs of possessing demonic powers?” She seemed taken aback by the statement as if it were totally unheard of.

Nero couldn’t help but notice her change in demeanor. Had he said something he shouldn’t have? “Yea, he had two or three of them… that not good?”

She took a moment to think about what to say on the other end of the line. Nero could practically feel her thinking of a nice way to say that yes, it absolutely probably was bad. “Well, it depends entirely upon the strength of the summoner, the power of the demons, and what they require in return for their assistance,” She said in an almost matter of fact way,” Most demons require the soul of their host to form a contract, but that clearly wasn’t the case in this instance.”

The young man with the short white hair clenched his brow slightly at the statement. How did she-

“If a soul is claimed by a demon, then it goes to that demon the instant that they die. My spell wouldn’t have worked Regardless,” She said, seemingly noting that she hadn’t elaborated on that facet of her analysis,” I’m actually quite impressed. If he did maintain three demons, then he is quite strong, powers or not. Although I will have to look into the status of his abilities. A descendant of the Dark Knight Sparda with no demonic power seems entirely impossible, especially if he’s your older brother. It’s extraordinarily uncommon. Perhaps his inborn gifts are simply… dormant.”

Nero nodded to himself. That made practical sense to him. But then how had V gotten demons that tough to safeguard him? In his experience, demons didn’t normally just go along with the requests of those they deemed weaker than them, especially those of mixed blood. They were much quicker to just try and bash your skull in. Another question for another time, then. That list was growing.

“Ok, well, I’m gonna go check on him. I’ll let you know if anything happens,” Nero said as he looked towards V’s door. He could have sworn he heard something…

“Good idea. Make sure he gets plenty of rest. Food and water would be a good idea as well, although I’m not optimistic about him being able to actually keep food down,” She said reassuringly,” Don’t worry yourself sick over him. I have a good feeling about him. We can speak on this again later on when he’s in better shape. Goodbye!”

Nero thanked her and excused himself before hanging up the phone. As soon as the phone was back on the receiver, Nero headed back over to the guest room door. As he inched the door open, he caught sight of V. The longer white-haired man was still partially lying in the bed, his head and upper torso against the wall. He was breathing slightly heavy and his hair was stuck to his face with sweat. Although he seemed to be awake, his eyes were closed and he was shivering slightly. It wasn’t very hard for Nero to make the educated guess that he was probably clammy and feeling very sick. After all, due to the thunderstorm that was rolling in from the mainland, the temperature on Fortuna island was actually quite frigid, all things considered. There was no reason that he should be sweating.

There was no need for further examination. He was just going to bring V something to drink and start there. Last he had checked, most people weren’t allergic to water, sick or not. Nero went into the kitchen and poured a glass of cold water out of the picture in the fridge. Dinner wouldn’t be ready for an hour or two and there was no leftover lasagna to offer him thanks to Dante and Vergil having been there to help eat it the night before, so Nero opted to just start with the water.

He opened the door slowly to find that not much had changed since he’d stepped away a moment ago. V had opened his eyes at the very least, so Nero was sure he was awake (unless he slept with his eyes open…) and he was shivering much less. Nero walked over to him and sat the glass down on the bedside table. He took a seat next to him on the side of the bed, taking a mental note of the fact that V seemed to be watching him without moving. Nero then gestured towards the glass of water.

“The woman that helped us bring you back says you should drink that and get some rest,” Nero said as he touched the back of his hand to V’s limp arm, the uninvited contact causing him to shiver,” I’m pretty sure you have a fever or something. You're kinda clammy…”

V shifted slightly and reached for the glass, giving Nero an almost appreciative glance. He carefully lifted the glass and took a sip before pausing for a moment. He then scarfed the cold liquid down quickly, clearly more thirsty than he had previously imagined. Nero watched and scoffed to himself. “Hey, um, are you trying to make yourself sicker than you already are?”

V placed the glass back onto the bedside table and allowed himself to sink into the wall. Exhaustion was clearly evident in his posture. After a moment, a look akin to nausea settled across his face and he closed his eyes in the hopes that this would somehow cause his discomfort to subside. After several moments of heavy, uncomfortably ragged breathing, he exhaled and slowly reopened his eyes. He met Nero’s gaze, the younger of the two clearly taken aback by his brother’s rapid and violent fluctuation in health. After a moment, V sighed and closed his eyes. He was now much more stable than he had been a few moments prior. 

“...I don’t think I have ever been that thirsty in my entire life.” He said in an almost astounded tone of voice.

Nero shook his head and shrugged, trying subconsciously to shake off his discomfort. Magnolia had told him that this would pass, so he was just going to have to go with that. “I can’t imagine you have. You just drank that glass of water in a couple seconds flat.”

V nodded quietly as though he were confirming something to himself. He slowly pushed off the wall he had been propped up against and came to a sitting position, not falling forward dizzily like he had the first time he had tried to do that. The familiar look of deep thought that Nero had become so accustomed to settled back into its proper place on V’s face as he seemed to ponder something quietly to himself. The cursory action of parting his lips had just begun when his gaze left Nero and traveled to something behind him. Nero glanced over his shoulder to find Carlo standing in the doorway, his small body partially obscured by the door. His little face bore the unmistakable look of a small child who had just been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been.

It took actual effort for Nero not to snicker at the startled look on his adopted child’s face. He could only imagine that Kyrie had told him not to come in here, but the adventurous child simply couldn’t help himself. He shifted uncomfortably back and forth for a moment, his eyes moving from Nero to V. A look of confusion and intrigue crossed his face as V craned his head to one side to get a better look at the small child. Nero called over to him and gestured for him to come into the room and he did so, using both of his hands to push the door closed behind himself.

Nero scooped the small child up and sat him between himself and V. The green-eyed man gave the curly-haired little boy a curious look before the child spoke loud and clear. “Hello! I’m Carlo. Do you live here now, too? Your new.”

V was genuinely amused by the forward way that the child had introduced himself to him, if you could call his question an introduction. He nodded very slowly, trying not to aggravate his barely contained nausea and vertigo. “I’m V. Wonderful to meet you, Carlo.” 

The tiny child smiled brightly as Nero sat him down and pointed him in the direction of the front door. He hurried off, running out of the door as fast as his tiny little legs would carry him saying something about Kyrie need his help with dinner as he went. Nero nodded to himself as he stood up and grabbed the cup off of the bedside table before heading to the door. As he opened it, he turned back to V, shooting him a playful but serious look. “I’ll bring you some more water after I check-in with Kyrie. You keep your skinny ass in the bed and go back to sleep. I don’t want to catch you falling half-dead into the front hall again.”

Before V could respond to that statement, he closed the door and left. He needed to find out what Kyrie needed. V then leaned back against the wall again and closed his eyes. He would rest a moment until Nero returned. -~-

Holy hell, I am so so sorry that this is as late as it is! I meant to have this up forever ago, but I was simply exhausted and didn’t get to it in time. I’m going to bed and I’ll be immediately working on the next chapter. Sorry if this one is 300 or so words shorter than my average chapters. I think quarantine is getting to me or something because I’m so sleepy most of the time now. Again, thank you for reading, and I can’t wait to see you in the next chapter on Friday. AND IT WILL BE ON TIME! Sorry for any errors. I was tired when I was editing this.

[silverandarsenic-hcs]

Ghost BC x Murder

im a simple girl. i have mental illness. i fantasize about being brutally murdered. is this problematic? 1000% yes. am i going to get canceled for this? 1000% yes. Have I been posting on borrowed time since that little caesars post? again, 1000% yes. Here’s this anyways.

TW: murder, blood, gore, manipulation (Papa II, Papa III), stalking (copia), domestic abuse (Papa III), substance and drug abuse (Papa II), Suicide (Papa II and Dew), Sex crimes - all consensual (Dew) these are about how they would murder you so im sure you can imagine the types of bad things it will entail. 

Papa I: For him, it’s a fit of emotion that drives him to kill. One thing piles on top of the next, frustration turns to anger, anger turns to rage. He doesn’t mean to hurt people, but when he gets so worked up, theres nothing that can stop him. All he can see is red until he’s snapped back into reality and sees the red staining his hands and his favorite robe. With you, all you had to do was walk into his office after a few bads days in a row, more bad news in tow, and that’s all it took. He loses his temper on you before your brain can even register that you should run. Before you can even scream. He’s not particularly a weapon guy, he’s more likely to choke you to death or anything he can do with his hands. If he feels so inclined, he’ll grab the nearest solid object to crush you with. He feels remorse, in the end, but still covers it up and hushes the room when they speak about your disappearance. Decently classic case of homicide - its usually someone you know, crime of passion, unplanned.

Papa II: This one hurt me very deeply to write. His case was classic, when he was a kid. Everyone says that when an adult loses it, you could tell from the time they were a kid that they had cracks - too abnormal, or too perfect. Papa had odd behavior but Nihil never had him tested or even looked at for anything because his ego got in the way, and nothing could possibly be wrong with his son. And nothing was really wrong with him. Something just wasn’t right. He felt things strongly: love, hate, depression, elation, anxieties. Sometimes it was too strong for him to cope. Sometimes he would turn to things that would help him deal with the emotional rollercoaster he couldn’t get off of. Other people just got on with him. He started smoking weed in his twenties. That wasn’t enough. He started drinking heavily at 25. By thirty that wasn’t enough either. Stronger, more potent vices were what he needed. Cocaine. Heroin. Anything to make him feel okay - anything to make him feel. And you, you were the light of his life. The only good thing he’d ever known. You were the only person he had met who could keep up with him, but keep him safe at the same time. But eventually you got swept up in the parties and drugs and drinking too. Lost more control as the months and years passed. And one night he thought you were pussing out. Not being fun. That you were being boring and killing his mood. He pushed you until you did more lines, and kept pushing you and pushing you until your nose began to bleed. But he was so gone he didn’t realize. He pushed you and you accepted it because it was the first time you had ever truly been afraid of him. When you overdosed and died on the couch in the living room of your shared apartment, Papa had already passed out in the bedroom. It was three days before he sobered up enough to wake, and when he found you, he called the police and said there’d been a murder. But he knew what happened. He knew what he did. Cocaine has a funny way of making things stick like that. He hung up the phone, and before the police could arrive, took his own life the same way he took yours. 

Papa III: In the beginning, he has a silly little crush. He steals glances your way. He brushes up against you and makes you blush. As you two talk more, he falls deeper. You two become a couple, an item. You tell each other you love them. Years could pass. You move in together. You don’t notice any cracks in him, but he sees them in the relationship. He saw you talking to the new guy at work today. What’s that, you had lunch with him? That’s interesting. He sees the way you look at the barista when he says your name, and hands you your coffee. You say he makes it the best. He sees the way your friends look at him. He goes through your phone once, when you’re sleeping, and doesn’t find anything. he kicks himself for months about invading your privacy and promises himself that he’s going to stop digging. But he can’t tear himself away. When youre in the other room, he’ll go through your purse. The next time he sees you smile at another man in passing, when you get home he confronts you. you say he’s being crazy. he says your crazy for cheating on him. he just loves you. cant you see? he loves you. when he finally chains you to the radiator in the bedroom so you won’t leave him, you’re shocked at how a man you once loved could be this way. When he finally kills you he’s begging you, with his hands around your throat, to understand that he’s not a bad person. He's not a bad person. He's not a bad person. He’s not a bad person.

Cardinal Copia: He stalks, but never gets close. Not like III. He’s aware of the mistakes of his predecessors. He’s smarter than that. More calculating. He would learn you schedule - morning routine, where you work, what you eat, when you get home, night routine, how long you sleep for. When you touch yourself. When you see your friends. At first it was from interest, but he begins to hate you. The way you walk, the way you talk, who you love, who you hate. And he wants you dead for it - but he wont be hasty, no, he’s still smarter than that. he has to remain calm and collected to pull this off. Hate you as much as he wants, he still knows you’re smart. Not as smart as him, but smart. Its thursday night, and you’re home alone getting ready to go out to the new bar in town with your friends. he climbs into the kitchen through a window he knows you leave unlocked for when you yourself forget your keys and need to break in. In the end, he slits your wrists with a knife he pulled from the wooden block on the counter. Good thing he followed you to work and school, he knows your handwriting wonderfully. He watches you bleed out on the floor while he writes your suicide note. You have never met him in your life. Good thing he always wears those gloves to keep everything clean of fingerprints, because the cops never suspect any foul play, and no one has a clue.

Swiss: He doesnt get close to his victims - he doesn’t have time. When you’ve gone through this many people, you start to forget their names, if you even knew them from the start. He takes jobs as an assassin when he needs the money - and it does pay well - but whenever he needs to blow off steam he’ll really go at it. Get creative. He’s a weapons guy, gun by choice but he’ll really use anything, and he knows each in his collection very very well. But in his eyes he isn’t doing anything wrong, he’s killing people that deserve to die, for good reasons (Edward Cullen who??). Racists, fascist, misogynists, homophobes. He was on the news once for throwing a brick at a nazi. You’re the anomaly on his list of victims though. You were an accident of sorts. He got sloppy with one of his jobs, got noticed, and the vic took a hostage - cue you walking into the back room at work at the wrong time - the only way he can get his shot in without risking his own life or alerting others is to shoot right through you. And now that he’s been noticed, he can’t give up the job and run. He memorizes the details of your face before he pulls the trigger, and kills you and the man with his arms around your torso in one shot. He feels the worst out of everyone. Attends your funeral, but stands very far back. Something about your face, the look in your eyes when you died. He thinks about you often, for a long time. When the exact dip of your nose and contours of your cheekbone begin to fade, he pulls a picture of you he cut from the newspaper from a shoebox under his bed. If he regrets any of the bad things he’s done in his life, it was hurting you.

Aether: He’s the one you don’t expect and he knows it. He’s the cult leader of the group - but that doesn’t make sense. He’s not even a leader in any capacity. He’s no Papa, not even a Cardinal. He doesn’t even lead the ghouls, really. But people trust him, and respect him, and that’s enough. The most pull he has in the church is being what you would compare to an advisor for the cardinal. helps him make decisions here and there. They get more drastic as things go on, and the church slowly burns itself down, but Copia is the only one people blame, including Copia, because Aether makes him believe every choice he made was his own idea. Eventually, when the cardinal has become useless, Aether will have him removed. By whatever means he has to take, but ideally not murder, it’s too early to have blood on anyone else's hands in his name, and far too early to have blood on his own hands. Aether promises to rebuild the name of the church, and fix everything the cardinal destroyed, and make things better.. Make people happy, and health again. And every single person drinks the kool-aid. Soon, rather than worshipping any Dark Lord or Old God, people are worshipping Aether. People believe in him with their hearts and souls. People believe he’s the savior. You are the anomaly. You were close with Aether before all of this started, before he was even the cardinal’s advisory. You just think the power has gone to his head, and blame the cardinal with the rest of him. But when you start digging, you realize it’s been his plan all along to have complete and total power To start his own cult. To be worshipped like a god in a place that was built for it. Your death is a stepping stone on the path for Aether to achieve ultimate power, but of all the stones cast, yours was the only one that meant anything. He didn't want to have to kill you. He didn't want you to defect, and put everything he'd worked so hard for at risk. He couldn’t have that. But the road to his ultimate power ends with his own death too - you can’t really be appreciated for everything good you've done for the world until you die, and he knows that. But until then, he will think of you often.

Dewdrop: Kills you for sexy reasons. Not because you wont sleep with him, or he wants to actually hurt you, but because you both got too swept up in the moment. There’s a movie called Sexual Predator and he’s pretty much the guy in that. One minute he’s got his belt wrapped around your throat, tugging on it hard while he’s hitting it from behind. He’s too caught up in the moment to realize you’ve gone limp on the bed. He doesn’t realize anything is wrong until he finishes. And it’s bad. Oh it’s bad. Unlike every other crime he’s committed, he calls the police, and he’s honest about what happened. He’s disgusted with himself. He’ll never have sex again. He’ll never wear a belt again. He’ll never touch another person’s throat again. He’s sentenced twelve months incarcerated along with probation and some hefty fines. Everyone knows what he did, how he did it. You were friends with all his friends - You weren’t together, but you were friends. And they all know he killed you. If any of the above are likely to have their own suicidal thoughts after the murder, Dew is the most likely to do it. He can’t stand the way everyone treats him after he did it. He can't stand living knowing what he did to you and what hes capable of. He can’t go on like this.

Cirrus & Cumulus: When they kill it’s for each other. In a LOT of other HCs i mention that II’s solution to things is to simply “kill them” if they’re bothering you, but the girls actually just do it. If someone touches Cirrus in a club, Cumulus will absolutely pull a gun out of her back pocket and blow their brains out right there. Good thing for the masks. They’ll spend the next few months or years on the road, saying under the radar until it’s safe to go home again. The ghoulettes have a lot in common with Swiss - they kill for what they believe to be a good reason. The difference is that Cirrus and Cumulus aren’t opposed to the more gorey ways of doing it. Torture, manipulation, blackmail, you name it they’ve probably done it. They know a lot of dirty things about a lot of big people, and at their whim they could have all their hearts desire. Trouble is, knowing everyone’s secrets is just a little bit more fun than that. They’ll kill to protect their friends and family, anyone who has ever unintentionally hurt an animal, and anyone that’s standing in their way. They’ll even collaborate with Swiss on a job if it’s gonna take some more elbow grease, and he needs people he can trust to get the job done without leaving behind a crumb trail of evidence.

- Kat

[benreillyscarletspider]

Red Dwarf Series One Starter Sentences

“Have you ever been hit over the head with a welding mallet?”

“The only reason they don't give this job to the service robots is they've got a better union than us.”

“You touch that guitar, [name], I'll remove the E string and garrote you with it.”

“ Can I do anything? Is it OK if I breathe? Can I breathe?”

“This is not cheating! It's merely an aid to memory. Helps me marshal the facts already in my command.”

“What does this mean? What does any of it mean? I've covered my body in complete and utter and total absolute nonsense gibberish!”

“Although you exist, you no longer exist in time, and, for you, time itself does not exist. You see, although you're still a mass, you are no longer an event in space-time; you are a non-event mass with a quantum probability of zero.”

“I've been on my own for three million years, and I'm just used to saying what I think. I think I've gone a bit peculiar, to tell you the truth.”

“ Never again will I be able to brush a rose against my cheek, cradle a laughing child, or interfere with a woman sexually.”

“Lots of people have died. Lots of people have died and then gone on and done really, really well.”

“I know it's wrong of me to speak ill of the dead and all that, but you're still a smeghead.”

“Looking nice. No, wait a minute. I'm looking better than nice. I'm looking dangerous.”

“He's your father? No wonder you're so ugly.”

“You are how you look, and I look like a complete and total tit!”

“Switch me on, switch me off, like I'm some battery-powered sex aid.”

“Death isn't the handicap it used to be in the olden days. It doesn't screw your career up like it used to.”

“It's gonna take 4000 years just to turn around. You can't do a three point turn when you're this close to lightspeed, you know.”

“You'll be in your element if insects are in control.You'll probably get a decent job at last.”

“Oh, just because I'm a toaster, I'm tone deaf?”

“Watch my lips. What ... is ... hap ... pening?”

“Hey, it hasn't happened, has it? It has ‘will have going to have happened' happened, but it hasn't actually 'happened' happened yet, actually.”

“It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future. Simple as that.”

“You know, I wish I was someone else. Then I could kiss me.”

“It's not fair. There's loads of things I've never done. Like... I've never had a prawn vindaloo. And I've never read... A book. And I wanted to have a family. And I wanted to have loads of practice in the things that you've got to do to get a family.”

“You can't whack death on the head!”

“ If he comes near me, I'm gonna rip his nipples off!”

“Yeah, well, everyone dies. You're born, and you die. The bit in the middle's called life, and that's still to come!”

“That woman's out of your league. She's just too classy for you.”

“I'm looking nice. My hair is nice. My face is nice. My suit is nice. I'm looking really nice!”

“You really must think I'm stupid. I'll deal with you two later.”

“You've got the brains of diarrhea and the breeding of a maggot.”

“I laughed so hard I nearly puked.”

“Of course you're tense, you rectum-faced pygmy!”

“Well, we'll give him ten seconds to come back from the dead, and, if he hasn't managed it, we'll presume I'm in charge.”

“If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well. If it's not worth doing, give it to [Name].”

“It's obviously beyond me. I've got more teeth than brain cells, remember?”

“What's the point of buying a toaster with artificial intelligence if you don't like toast?”

“My mind is open to new cultures, and new ways of looking at and doing things.”

“There's nobody out there. No alien monsters, no Zargon warships, no beautiful blondes with beehive hairdos who say 'Show me some more of this Earth thing called kissing.’.”

“If there's no one out there, what's the point in existence? Why are we here?”

“Smooth with a capital SMOO.”

“Hey, you monkeys are smarter than I thought.”

“I just don't know why I bother. I'd get more sense out of a squashed hedgehog.”

“Six breasts!? Imagine making love to a woman with six breasts!”

“Imagine making love to a woman!”

“This is terrible. Holy wars. Killing. They're just using religion as an excuse to be extremely crappy to each other.”

“I'm not a god! I've just been... Misquoted.”

“That's a fearsome hat.”

“I renounced coolness, and chose the righteous path of slobbiness.”

“But, as one by one we died, my faith died also.”

“I was thinking it might help pass the time if I created a perfectly functioning replica of a woman, capable of independent decision-making and abstract thought and absolutely undetectable from the real thing.”

“It must mean something. You don't dream about someone that you don't feel something for.”

“I once had a dream about a baboon but that doesn't mean I want to go to bed with it.”

“I happen to agree with their philosophy that love is a sickness that holds back your career and makes you want to spend all your money.”

“Love is a device invented by bank managers to make us overdrawn.”

“What makes us different from animals is we don't use our tongues to clean our own genitals.”

“Hey, this has been a good day. I've eaten five times, I've slept six times, and I've made a lot of things mine.Tomorrow, I'm gonna see if I can't have sex with something.”

“If you weren't my friend, I'd steal your shoes.”

“No, you're a filthy, stinking, loathsome,disgusting object I wouldn't be seen dead with in a plague pit.”

“I just love that accent. It makes me go all wibbly!”

“Bet you've got a terminal disease.Always happens to the people who least expect it.”

“Forget those losers. Let's go party.”

“Oh, he's drunk. Yes. I can smell it from here.”

“Ding dong! Another great idea from the people who brought you beer milkshakes!”

“Why should she be interested in you?”

“Yeah, why should she be interested in me?”

“You're great! You're an incredibly seductive, charming, charismatic, young stud!”

“You've got a body like a coat hanger! How can you make a spacesuit look like evening wear?”

“In space, no one can hear you cha-cha-cha!”

“He didn't suffer! I just fed him into the waste grinder and flushed his bits into space.”

“Who told you you needed oxygen, huh? Some loser who was trying to make you feel small.”

“Look, if she comes back and she's not interested, I can handle it.”

“A-ha! The Pop-Up Kama Sutra - Zero Gravity Edition!”

“My death is one of the most important things that ever happened to me.”

“Are you saying you never became an officer because you shared your quarters with someone who hummed?”

“Hey, I'm looking so good today! If I looked any better, I'd be illegal!”

“I am feeling very, very sexy!”

“Sensual emergency! Good lovin' needed bad!”

“I'm far, far, far too much of a gentleman to stoop to that kind of shower-room mentality.”

“Well, I'm sorry I didn't have time to sit down and bash out a speech in iambic pentameter. I was hit in the face by an atomic explosion.”

“SHUT UP, YA DEAD GIT!”

“STOP YOUR FOUL WHINING, YA FILTHY PIECE OF DISTENDED RECTUM!”

“Nothing major. But it goes without saying: IT WAS HIS FAULT!”

“Will you two guys just grow up?”

“ This can't go on. One of youse has gotta go.”

“Ippy-dippy, my space shippy, on a course so true; past Neptune and Pluto's moon, the one I choose is you.”

“I don't believe it. I've been ippy-dippied to death.”

“There's precious little entertainment on this ship. I mean, if you can't attend the odd execution, what have you got left?”

“I thought they were laughing at the chef, when all the time,they were laughing at me as I ate my piping hot gazpacho soup!”

[colitisandme]

It’s no coincidence that ‘stressed’ is ‘desserts’ spelt backwards. That’s what I typically dived towards when I was stressed or sad. Desserts equaled gluttonous happiness. Whenever I was anxious, I ripped into packets, tubs and cake shaped items with joy and frenzy. Desserts and stress were my bed fellows. They were brilliant friends, hogging all the blankets under the duvet of my life, leaving me cold, plump, hyperactive, covered in sugar and shivering, with no cover on me, cursing the fact I didn’t wear fluffy socks to bed. my mind would whirl away like a washing machine. And so, cold and shivering with my hair on end, looking like a deranged Womble, I would end up seeking something sweet to eat. Instantly after the first mouthful, my hair would become less wild, my thoughts would be less chaotic and I would sink into a pile of sugary blissfulness. So when I had to give up sugar, I was, well stressed irronically.

Stress and worry have followed me around my whole life, from when I was in Primary school right up until present day. It has become such a huge part of my existence, I didn’t feel right unless I was worrying about something or constantly going over things in my brain. Not just tangible thoughts. Nope. My worries consisted about serious things that are going on in the world, my finances, my families happiness, the house, husband wellbeing, friends, have I upset anyone? Am I being a good wife? To other thoughts and worries like; Have I locked the door? Have I turned off the tap? To really helpful thoughts and worries like; ‘I am pretty sure I heard a crunch under my foot when I put out the rubbish? ... Why didn’t I turn the light on? Oh my god was that a snail? What if his family are waiting for him to come home. What if, because he never appears, the mum snail becomes an alcoholic, becomes hooked on nettle wine, and the children forgo their education to look after her. Eventually they leave because she’s just too much to handle, and so, alone and drunk, she sings songs about her lost love, while hiccuping and wailing in a nettle wine stupor ... And it will be all my fault.’ So round and round my thoughts and worries went, until I felt like a hamster on a wheel, running and running and going nowhere. I didn’t vocalise these worries. They were all internal. I just couldn’t switch off.

I beat myself up for anything that goes wrong. Nobody need punish me, I do a great job of that myself. Once when I was very young, I decided that the cat simply had too many whiskers that she didn’t need. Even at aged 5, I reasoned I was doing her a favour and she was probably absolutely fed up with having an even number of whiskers on each side. I was sure that if she could speak she would beg me to reduce her grooming time, as she was taking simply ages to preen her whiskers, tell me stories about when she would get laughed at by all the other cats for having rediculous symmetrically numbered and placed whiskers, and longed to remove herself from mediocrity and boredom. Well I certainly didn’t want her to be a laughing stock. Happy to oblige.... *snip* (I probably should have stopped when the cat tried to scrabble away from me, eyes wide with fright as I confidently strode over to her, gleefully, with arms outstretched looking like Edward Scissor Hands, but never the less I was convinced I was doing her a favour.)

I came downstairs clutching a traumatised, angry cat in one hand, and a pair of scissors and newly trimmed whiskers in another. I proudly showed off the new look to my parents. They were not as open to the new aerodynamic moggy as I had hoped, and freaked. I immediately lost it. I sobbed. I apologised over and over to the cat, I tried glueing her whiskers back on, I stroked her, cuddled her, I was convinced I had ruined her life. I was inconsolable. I spent many days after that setting up a makeshift counselling clinic for my cat, where I would stroke her and make sure she knew what a beautiful cat she was and I told her I was sorry that was going to be lob-sided, and struggle getting in to tiny gaps, and try and make up for what I did by taking extra special care of her. My parents didn’t chastise me, because nothing they could do could make me feel any worse than I did. Even at age 5, I worried a lot.

So you can imagine that as adulthood embraced me, just how easily worrying had become a part of me. As natural as breathing. Stressing about everything became normal. Overthinking was critical to my daily life. I lived each day on high alert, in case I needed to jump into action and fix whatever needed fixing, just like I tried to do with the cats whiskers. I am at my best in a crisis, and god knows I have had many to deal with in my life. I love being Superwoman. I love saving the day. But being in this hyper-alert state was not fun and certainly not healthy.

I became ill after a BIG burnout. I had been playing Superwoman for too long. I had been living on the edge for months, I was always stressed, I wasn’t sleeping, I was in pain, I was withdrawing, I was experiencing horrendous brain fog which was really sodding useful as I had just started an incredibly stressful job, where I would drill myself to be perfect and chastise myself for processing information incorrectly. On top of this I was dealing with a managerie of outside issues. Very quickly and surprisingly, (to me as everyone closest to me would describe me as the strongest person they knew,) my health and mental health imploded like a double whammy firework. I did not know it was coming, but oh my god when it did, I was floored. I had never been so ill. I was scared. I knew that I could not continue doing what I was doing. I needed to change my behaviours. I needed to spring clean my brain. I couldn’t turn to sweet treats anymore to relieve that anxiety because cake or sugar would make my bum explode. I needed to find another less ‘caboom, fire in the hole type way’ to manage my anxieties and stress.

IBD forces me to think purely in the present because I have to spend a huge amount of energy simply functioning. I have to stay in the moment. If I worry or think further past a day/ week it becomes impossible, as I am never sure what one day will look like from the other. Stress hugely exacerbates my IBD symptoms. I learnt this very quickly. The more I worried about why the hell my body was being so unco-operative, the worse my body felt and the more angry it got. And with IBD there is a lot to stress over. Finances, health, stigma of having an invisible illness, work, isolation, diet, questions over future plans etc. It’s a big thing to deal with. It’s enormous. So I worried and got worse and worried and got worse. And so eventually, feeling like I had been kicked by a horse, totally hungry, weak, prone to explode, sugar deprived and looking like a bum with eyes, with my wonderful Mum’s encouragement and support, I came across meditation and mindfulness.

Meditation and mindfulness have helped me manage my stress. After phone calls chasing mental health appointments, referrals and cursing the incompetence of Drs, mental health professionals and admin teams, I turn to mindfulness and meditation as a way of calming my mind. It has taught me to accept things, the way they are during the moment because that may change in the next moment, And be in the moment with it. For example, the pain I get with IBD can feel like your belly is being sawn in half. It feels like a group of can can dancers, jig about on my groin, back and stomach wearing high heels, and using exquisite timing and excellent rhythm, stomp on my intestines, causing me to chew my fist in distress. If I use mindfulness and meditation during painful episodes like this (sometimes whilst crossing my eyes, grinding my teeth and chewing the carpet) it helps me not to fight the pain, but to breathe through it and accept it in the present. When I am anxious, Meditation takes my mind away to another focus in a gentle way, and if my mind wonders off like a hyperactive butterfly, it gently brings it back again. It’s not easy. Sometimes it definitely does not work, but sometimes it does. I have learnt to focus on my breathing, I have trained my brain to change each thought. From a time where the thoughts on a day to day basis felt like they were running around my brain on fire, screaming fire engine noises, wearing a bucket on their head, careering into other thoughts who fanned the flames with a manual citing ‘50 ways to put out a fire’ and can’t work the hose, to a calmer place. One where my thoughts can pick flowers, float in a babbling brook, frolic with fluffy animals and where the fire extinguisher is readily available. Because IBD has forced me to strip everything back in my life, there is no room for extreme stress. No room for high anxiety, because it just hurts me. Physically and mentally. Where as before, I would keep my worries to myself because I didn’t like bothering people with them, now I talk about them, accept the things I cannot change, appreciate things in the moment and change the things I can change. So strangely in that way, IBD has probably saved my life. It’s very strange how things work. I am the most ill I have ever been and should be the most stressed I have ever been, but I can’t be, because that would make me even more ill. Don’t get me wrong it’s still a battle. But I try. I try to appreciate every moment. I appreciate every mouthful of food, and take ages eating it, where as before I would thoughtlessly shovel it in.

I start each day with a mantra and meditation, and even though sometimes Its not effective, I can honestly say that practicing Mindfullness and meditation, are the best stress relievers and stress deterrence I have ever had. They are also the best dessert substitute I have ever had, because meditation doesn’t make my jeans bulge, make me act like an over excited toddler at a birthday party or attract an enthusiastic colony of ants who desire to lick my sugary face. So if like me you are a natural worrier, I urge you to not get so stressed out, you end up gnawing on yourself like an Octopus and try it. Doing a little a day may just take the edge off and sometimes just doing that will help deal with things a little more positively. And when we are living with a long term chronic disease like IBD, being positive, even in the face of a huge challenge like this, is everything.

[misssophiachase]

The Kissing Booth 

So, this is a continuation of a Kissing Booth movie/Klaroline fusion sneak peek I posted for a nonnie that requested it.  I think Erika @eriberry89 has an awesome KC edit of the movie poster which you should all check out : ) Hope you like my take. Words in italics (only in the first part) are lines from the move, the rest is mine. 

I’m Kissing You

Wednesday:

“Want a ride?’

“Sure, if it’s not as dirty as it sounds.” The impatient growl he emitted told her she was playing with his last nerve. Exactly how she’d intended it to be interpreted. “So, where’s your car then?”

Caroline managed to look past his chiseled jaw and blonde curls only to see him gesturing towards a motorcycle in the parking lot.

“What?” She growled, realising just what a cliché her best friend’s brother really was and how she wasn’t going to have any part in it, even if he was built like an Adonis with dimples. “I’m not going to get on that thing like one of your make-out girls.”

“They don’t all make out with me,” he promised. Caroline was unimpressed, arms crossed over her chest by way of reply. “Okay, maybe 95 percent.”

No matter how many times Caroline had drooled over Klaus Mikaelson and his flawless abs and sexy stubble, she still couldn’t believe just how predictable he was. Soccer captain, Student Body President and, according to reliable sources, he’d slept with most of the girls in school. 

“I’m going to run instead,” she shot back, placing the earphone buds in place. 

“That’s over five miles, Forbes.”

“Well, maybe you earn your calories with the latest flavour of the month but I’ll do mine purely.”

“Jealous?” He teased. 

“Of catching every STD known to man? Not really,” she ran away before he could argue. The last thing she needed was this idiot flashing his baby blues in her direction and convincing her he wasn’t a man whore given the overwhelming evidence that he, in fact, was.

As she made her way out of the car park, Caroline knew rule 9, amongst others, between her and best friend Kol was still completely valid. It was one of many but for some reason it was the most important especially given recent events. His older brother Klaus was totally off limits. 

“Don’t wind up grinding coochies with my brother or I’ll literally never talk to you again.”

His words were equal parts weird, cringe worthy (given he was English she wasn’t comfortable with him uttering the word coochies in the first place but with that accent it was unforgivable) and also telling given their precarious sibling relationship. It was no secret Kol had grown up in the shadow of his brother and Caroline wanted nothing more than to protect him.

She repeatedly told herself it would be easy enough to ignore him for one more year before he left for college, she hoped so anyway.

“Caroline?” She was broken out of her trance by her math teacher, Mr James. attempting to flag her down. He was hard to miss what with those high-waisted brown pants and suspenders. She hated to stereotype but he was the epitome of a nerdy, math teacher.

“Mr James,” she greeted, him coming to a complete stop and removing her earbuds. “What can I do for you?”

“I need you to tutor somebody, it’s their senior year and important we bring up his grades before graduation. I figured you’d be the best person for the job, Caroline.” 

While only a Junior, Caroline was in his advance math class and one of his best students. To say she was an over-achiever in every way was an understatement. She mentally ran through her myriad of commitments; debate captain, tennis captain, drama club, mathlete.  There was no way she’d have time but she also didn’t want to let her teacher down.

“I’m kind of busy Mr James….”

“Glad you agreed because I’ve already set it up,” he interrupted, she fought the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he had. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do with her time than tutor some undeserving jock who needed to lift his marks in order to nab a last minute, athletic scholarship. “He’ll meet you in the library tomorrow after school.”

He was gone before Caroline could mention she already had plans. She’d promised to meet Kol at the mall. He was trying to impress Bonnie Bennett and as far as Caroline was concerned he needed all the help he could get.  The last time they met things hadn’t exactly gone to plan. As she set off home, her mind re-winded three months.

The Kissing Booth was to blame.

For everything.

3 months earlier….

“This idea is genius!” Kol exclaimed, admiring the booth they’d erected for the charity fundraiser. School was almost over for the year and Caroline was chair of the committee and had roped Kol into helping. What she wasn’t expecting was him to be so enthusiastic, and then she heard his idea.  

“Of course you’d say that,” she grumbled, wrestling with a stool. “You get to make-out with half the school under the guise of raising money for charity. And you know a little help wouldn’t go astray,” she huffed, dropping the stool and watching it skid across the floor.

“I thought you moved past these tantrums after fifth grade, darling?”

“And I thought you grew a brain but obviously not,” she growled, lifting up the stool and placing it in position. “How is it that I get stuck with all the work meanwhile you swan around the school doing ‘publicity’,” she used air quotes for extra effect.

“Because it’s what we do bestie,” he smiled cheekily. “I do all the public relations and you work behind the scenes...”

“Don’t you mean do all the heavy lifting?”

“You know I can’t do that, what if I were to break a nail?”

“Or get punched in the face,” she threatened, raising her eyebrows.

“I know you have your reservations but this kissing booth is going to raise more money than the committee has ever made. You really should be thanking me for this idea, Forbes.”

“Says the guy who insisted I provide my services for his ill thought out plan?” She scoffed. “Unlike others, I don’t go around kissing randoms.”

“I told you, I asked Klaus but he turned me down,” Kol shot back. “And we need all the help we can get.”

“Wow, the only time he hasn’t been a complete whore, who would have thought?” She muttered sarcastically.

They’d practically grown up together and as annoying as Klaus was, Caroline was beginning to realise the most frustrating part was just how gorgeous he’d turned out to be. Like nobody should look that good in a henley. She sometimes let her mind wander as to what he’d look like naked and in her imagination it was just as good, if not better.

She felt her cheeks flush, hoping Kol hadn’t noticed, but given his lack of attention span Caroline was sure she was safe. What she wasn’t safe from was the events that played out three hours later.

The kiss.

The mind blowing kiss that almost knocked her off her feet.

It was just that good.

She was blindfolded of course, madly trying to pretend the last fifteen minutes of sloppy excuses for kissing hadn’t happened and then he swooped in and suddenly her overactive brain was completely still. Rather than the usual unnecessary thoughts that infiltrated her mind, there was absolutely nothing except the tingling sensation taking over her skin that his lips were causing.

She could hear loud, wolf whistles around her causing her to break out of her kiss induced haze whoever this person was had caused. She pushed on his chest, noticing just how toned it felt beneath her palms. Pulling off the blindfolded hastily, Caroline was met with a mixture of disbelief and lust.

“You!”

“Well, good evening to you too,” he smirked, tracing his finger along his crimson, lower lip teasingly. “Is this why guys don’t want to kiss you?”

“Excuse me?” Caroline bristled.

“Well, everyone likes a little hard to get sometimes but being outright rude after a kiss usually ruins the mood, if you know what I mean?”

“When can I kiss him?” She’d know that whiny voice anywhere, it was no secret that Hayley Marshall was trying to get her hooks into Klaus.

“Get in line, sweetheart,” Caroline shot back, her mouth moving much faster than her brain. His smirk only grew wider and one of those ridiculous dimples decided to make an impromptu appearance.

She took the opportunity to pull him behind the curtain and away from the prying eyes of half the school. She was at least relieved that Kol had taken a break after kissing his crush Bonnie Bennett. She’d been surprised but happy they’d finally connected, or so she thought.

“If you wanted me alone all you needed to do was ask, love,” he grinned.

“You ass.”

“Stop with all the compliments, you know how they make me blush.”

“Urgh,” she growled, madly trying to maintain her anger and composure after that kiss. 

Bastard. 

“Why do you have to be such a…”

“An ass?” She glowered in his direction. “You know, just a guess. Anyway, I don’t understand why you’re so upset. Kol practically begged me to be on this stupid kissing booth. Do it for charity, I seem to recall him saying. If I’d known how precious you were going to get I wouldn’t have bothered.”

“And you said no and then turn up anyway, what’s that about, Mikaelson?”

“I was doing it for charity,” he mused.

“Suddenly the man whore decides to get a conscience.”

“What can I say, your arguments were very convincing,” he murmured, moving closer and cupping her left cheek unexpectedly. She jumped back, determined not to fall into a Klaus Mikaelson rabbit hole. He was her best friend’s brother and totally off limits and, as she liked to reiterate, a complete man whore.  

“Hands off, buddy,” she muttered.

“I’ll pay for another kiss, I promise.” She knew Klaus Mikaelson; after all they’d practically grown up together, but this look was something she’d never seen before. Those dark, blue eyes were filled with something else. Was Klaus Mikaelson showing some vulnerability amongst all his usual arrogance?

“You realise the line is huge and no one’s out there to collect any money…” Kol accused, coming to a halt at the sight of his brother and best friend staring each other down. “What’s going on here?”

“Uh, nothing,” Caroline lied, tearing her eyes from his and plastering on a fake smile. “Klaus was just leaving.”

“I didn’t realise he was even coming in the first place,” Kol offered. “But if you’d like to stay I know Hayley Marshall would pay double for a kiss, big brother.”

“Contrary to popular belief,” Klaus murmured, “I don’t kiss just anyone.” 

Caroline felt her breath hitch in her throat, surely it was just another line? It had to be, he was Klaus Mikaelson after all. It was at that moment she decided to put it behind her and pretend it never happened.

Thursday:

The last thing Caroline felt like doing was tutoring some jock who had no interest in learning and only wanted to get to college to attend frat parties and have jello shots off the stomach of some cheerleader. Okay, maybe she’d had a little too much time to think about it. 

She made her way to the library from the parking lot remembering Klaus and his mid-life crisis motorcycle on full display. Okay, he was only eighteen but it was never too early.  

She hadn’t even seen him today but he had this annoying habit of getting under her skin. She rationalised it by blaming it on his surprise attack by kiss in June. 

It had been a tightly kept secret, Caroline glad it hadn’t made it around the gossip circles and to her unsuspecting best friend. She put it down to the fact people thought it was some kind of staged stunt for publicity and that Kol had been too busy licking his wounds after Bonnie had rejected him. Apparently what she’d considered charity he didn’t. 

“Afternoon,” he smiled upon her arrival. She stopped dead in her tracks, unsure of what to do. 

“I didn’t think you knew where the library was, Mikaelson, don’t want to ruin your reputation or anything.”

“You’re hilarious,” he drawled, gesturing to the math book on the table. “Ready to study?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Mr James said you were going to be tutoring me.” She sat down with a thud across from him, too surprised to make a lady like landing. What the hell was going on? From what Caroline knew, Klaus Mikaelson, despite his womanising ways, had a 4.0 GPA. He was the last person who needed tutoring. 

“Is this some kind of joke, is there a hidden camera?” She asked, looking around the room ominously.  

“I need help with math,” he implored. His usual cocky expression replaced by something decidedly more desperate. 

“You’re tenth in the class, I’d hardly call that a problem.”

“And you’re first,” he reiterated. “It wouldn’t hurt to get some pointers to improve my marks this year.”

“Oh I know what this is,” she sighed, finally realising his game. “You’re doing this to mess with Kol and before I know it you’ll produce a cracker jack bracelet and say ‘don’t say i never gave you anything’ I know your game, Mikaelson.”

“Why do i feel like you went to another planet just then?”

“It’s classic One Tree Hill, you know Nathan and Hayley? She's tutor girl and he’s the star basketball player.”

“Basketball, really? You and I both know football is the only sport that matters, Forbes.”

“Oh god, are we back here again?” She groaned, hitting her head on the wooden table. “It’s called soccer.”

“Says the American,” he shot back. “Now, are we here for tutoring or not?”

Caroline was torn, he looked so cute pleading with her but every fibre of her being was screaming that he had ulterior motives. “One session, that’s all.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned, flashing another dimple. She shook her head not sure what she’d gotten herself into.  

Saturday:

“I’m pretty sure we’ve bought more than enough polo shirts, Kol,” Caroline groaned, desperate for a seat after all the shopping he’d put her through. “Bonnie will like you no matter what.”

“She kissed me at the fundraiser then pretended it never happened.”

“She thought it was for charity, not your chance to get in her pants.” She growled, finally finding a bench and making it her own. 

“Nice to see my best friend is on my side,” he murmured, taking a seat beside her. “I swear ever since the fundraiser you’ve been walking around like a zombie.”

“Did you ever think that this incessant, stalkerish behaviour towards Bonnie is maybe killing my resolve?”

“I thought we already had the discussion about you not being able to fall in love with me, darling?” She didn’t hesitate, just hit him in the stomach for extra measure. “Ouch, Forbes.”

“You wish.”

“Maybe I do given you have a ridiculously unhealthy crush on my brother.” She couldn’t speak mainly because he was correct but given rule 9 it was totally out of the question. “And don’t get me started on this whole bogus tutoring arrangement.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I know about everything, including your kissing booth indiscretion,” he chirped. “I just wish you’d told me about it yourself.”

“Rule 9...”

“Oh please, we were like seven,” he reassured her. “If you like my unsavoury brother, although I’ll never understand why, then who am I to get in the way?”

“Am I interrupting something?” They both looked up into the brown eyes of Bonnie Bennett. 

“Nothing at all,” Caroline bluffed, “In fact, I was actually about to leave, you know there’s only so many polo shirts I can be around at once.” She made her retreat mouthing ‘you owe me’ in his direction. What she couldn’t resolve was just how she felt about Klaus Mikaelson.

Monday:

“Looks like I was right,” she drawled, throwing the graded paper at his feet. 

Kol had used the term bogus and it wasn’t until she’d read the evidence that Caroline was so angry she’d infiltrated soccer practice to throw his test on the pitch. 

“Don’t ever bother me again.” 

She stomped off, ignoring the curious glances and comments levelled in her direction from his teammates. She was almost to the parking lot when he caught up, his hand grazing hers in a desperate attempt to slow her fast pace. 

“Woah, woah, woah,” he said, placing himself in front of her path. “Care to explain, love?”

“You scored a 65 on the practice test and I have better things to do with my time than tutor people that don’t need it,” she growled. 

“Last time I checked 65 isn’t that great,” Klaus offered. 

“All of the work was right but funnily enough the answers didn’t reflect it. You know I take tutoring seriously and there are people that genuinely need my help. This is just another example of Klaus Mikaelson trying to throw his weight around because he’s the king of the school.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“So, what was it like then?” She asked, hands on hips, not realising just how close he was. 

“I love you, I think I always have.” His gaze was now downcast. “And I just wanted to be near you again even if it was the wrong thing to do. After the charity fundraiser you wouldn’t even look in my direction.”

“Says the guy who swooped in out of nowhere and kissed me in front of the whole school.”

“I was impulsive, yes, but I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I was sixteen. You’d basically grown up in our house and I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“Me and every other girl,” Caroline murmured. 

“You’re still going to believe the rumours?” He asked pointedly. “As much as you want to believe I’m some man whore, I’m not, Caroline.” 

“But...”

“But nothing,” he murmured, moving closer and lacing his arms around her neck. “It’s only ever been you, Forbes.”

“Is this the part where we kiss?” She whispered, her nose grazing his. 

“I wouldn’t want it to be a movie cliche or anything,” he grinned, pulling her closer into his embrace. 

“I would,” she insisted, placing her lips on his and relishing in the moment. It was like all the stress from the last few months was melting away and Caroline could finally be happy and not care who was watching. 

And to think it all happened because of a kissing booth. 

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep8 S1: Pharaoh’s Nietzsche Problems

I figured this would be a good show to recap since it’s got maybe about 5 minutes of content an episode...usually. But, the thing about Yugioh is that when it needs to move plot, it really moves a lot of plot. Quite a bit happens this episode, it’s a long recap, so lets just get to it. Starting with Keiba’s brother, Mokuba.

And no, we haven’t missed anything--he’s just secretly been here the entire time.

What’s kind of neat about Pegasus’ help is that they are reoccurring characters. This guy with the mustache. The one with the double spike mullet. They are very flat characters, but their presence asks a lot of questions. In this case it’s “do you really want to befriend Mokuba or something? What’s with this silver platter service? Do you guys all hang out? Do you all go to the beach together in your time off and like read magazines with your sunglasses on?”

And back in the largest drawing room and all of it’s slight perspective errors that are off just enough to cause me great pain, Pegasus is enjoying his weird ass cheese meal.

When informed that his victim has escaped, he’s not exactly concerned. He’s got cameras all over the island. Also, it’s an ISLAND with only one boat to stow away on and it is nicely guarded. So he figures he should check out how the duels are going with the island computer system. Because ya, of course there’s a camera every five feet on this deserted island. This guy is about one step removed from a Bond Villain.

Speaking of, Yugi is back to walking aimlessly around the forest with his buddies, just biding his time and blissfully unaware of the karmic retribution soon coming to him because of something his other half did.

And they run into my brother’s favorite character, double spike mullet man. He’s got a name but for the life of me I will never remember. His weird thing is that he can’t hold someone a normal way. He usually holds them like teddy bears.

Tristan finally demonstrates why he’s a member of the crew and it really threw me for a loop. Tristan has bizzare gorilla strength--but only occasionally. And predictably he gets soundly kicked by this very nimble double-spiked mullet man, who might be legit invincible.

And because the Yugi crew can’t not, they decide to take heart and do some justice, like they always do. This episode is like a big caveat for “always do the right thing, though sometimes the right thing would be to leave it alone because you aren’t as good or smart as you think you are, and you might only make things worse with your ineptitude.”

So, they decide to use the best strategy they could think of in order to catch the chip-napper, which was to just kinda...wait around or something. Turns out they aren’t very smart, which I’m really starting to think may not be entirely their fault since Yugi has only half a brain (though I’m starting to think it’s more a 20-80 Yugi-Pharaoh mix) and the rest are constantly exposed to Pharaoh psychic powers, which must be confusing. They actually do talk--in great detail--about how dumb Joey Wheeler is through the length of this episode, I just didn’t cap it.

Luckily, Mokuba wasn’t exactly hiding so we very quickly cut to the chase, although it appears Yugi doesn’t really get who this, he’s just got a card addiction and sees dueling as a great way to solve Nearly Any Problem. Including how to deal with theft.

Ah Joey, the Cassandra who called it first at the haunted Pharaoh necklace Maybe Possessing His Best Friend’s Mind.

Surprisingly, Seto Keiba’s awake. I just assumed he was in a hospital bed these past 7 episodes. But, apparently he’s walking around...sort of. He got a heavy dose of depression symptoms from the mind-wipe, and that’s not the sort of thing that this show tries to hide.

A lot of kid shows try to tread on this territory. But, this is the only one I’ve seen that goes HARD into mental illness without watering it down into some sort of cute metaphor like Elsa and her ice magic. Kieba doesn’t know how to Keiba anymore. He doesn’t want to do what he used to do. He doesn’t want to be who he used to be. He lost the thing that gave him passion and he’s PISSED.

And because it’s Yugioh, it’s gotta get Pretty Dark For A Kids Show, and so Keiba walks out of their life and puts all of his very real adult responsibilities on his very little brother who does not understand why.

While this is actually a pretty accurate portrayal of what depression can do to a family, I just wanna note that they chose to go this route. Usually in a kids show, when a character is “cured” of evil, it’s replaced with something else. Usually, it’s replaced with the goodness that character already had, deep down inside. Maybe a goodness they had as a child. In the case of Keiba...he apparently didn’t have that goodness to begin with.

Parts of Keiba are just GONE and Pharaohs take is “I fixed him, so you should be happy now.” Like, I have no idea if this show supports Pharaoh or actually wants to portray this as a character flaw, but I assume we’ll find out more later.

Also, remember how I said that Pegasus was once removed from a Bond Villian? Well, he crossed the one degree in a foot-note flashback.

I had to rewind when I watched this because this whole thing about “I’ll just kidnap him and run the company that way” was so...illegal? Even for a kid’s show it’s so roundabout. I mean we’re dealing with a Psychic so why not just mind control one of the Kiebas? O well. And then there’s the other thing--because Yugi embarrassed Keiba Corp by beating Seto, Pegasus has to prove he’s a better card player in order to seal this shady business deal.  For...some reason?

Meanwhile, Pharaoh turns himself into a Philosophy 101 major’s first thesis about Nietzsche, as he makes himself the sole definer of what is good and evil and basically ignores what anyone lesser than him might say on the subject because he is Pharaoh and Pharaohs are Right.

Does he care about what he did to Mokuba and his family? Maybe later, but he certainly didn’t really care this episode. He just seems annoyed that other people aren’t like gun-ho about his “just wipe em clean” theory when it’s like, dude, does the medicine really outweigh the cure here? You gave the guy depression.

And although the show keeps saying Keiba was evil--we didn’t see much evidence of that because this all went down in Episode 1. Maybe that’s a lot of my problem in getting to like Pharaoh. I just gotta trust him that Keiba’s evil, but the worst thing I saw him do was tear up a card that Grandpa’s heart was connected to. Keiba still doesn’t even believe in that folktale heart of the cards stuff so should he be judged on that?

This blog just came off of occasionally recapping Once Upon a Time, which is obsessed with “where does good/evil come from?” and so to see this same trope of “We’ll just remove everything evil and it’s fixed!” explored again in another show--I dunno, we’ll see if Yugioh can do a better job. The bar is set pretty low because Once totally botched this.

My opinion: this mind-wipe seems pretty temporary since it’s not like Keiba chose to get it done, but we’ll see how it goes.

I was honestly surprised to see a show like this actually deliver a good take on the Sailor Moon Moral Savior trope, where she waves her moon healing wand, and evil characters are just “good” in the flash of an eye and all problems are solved and she is heralded as this wonderful savior.

Like seriously last episode was about stabbing the moon with a stone robot, how did we get here from that?

Meanwhile, back on the island, They’ve decided to do the right thing and it’s screwed them yet again because sometimes the only way to truly fix something when you screw up, is to just never have done it. Sometimes we do bad things thinking that if we get caught we can just fix it later--but there’s a lot of things that aren’t fixable. Sometimes people won’t be available to say sorry to. Sometimes you can’t return what you’ve taken, let it be star chips, time away from your little brother, or actual pieces of someone’s soul. Sometimes you just have to live with that.

Just a quick reminder that last episode revolved around eating fish for lunch.

Mokuba has such a strong neck now because of all these weird arm grabs. Also, I just realized Double Spike Mullet Man also has Big O type eyebrows and it’s something.

speaking of freaking too late

I mean I’m not even going to pretend that’s the real Keiba because youknow it’s a dark show but it hasn’t gone that dark. With the exception of our main character who IS half a zombie but man it’s always nice to see Pharaoh get a good ol slap in the face when he’s on his insufferable God kick.

Anyway, next week we duel a zombie and also find out how this is even possible. I admit I did not see the zombie twist coming that was...I feel like I use the word “unexpected” in every recap but here we are.

[jmyamigliore]

Crystal Reiki Book Astonishing Cool Tips

Remember, everything is in relation to using whatever feels right and left there, or you can practice this powerful energy.When the session progressed the child's body began to practice consistently and diligently, rather than illness management.After all, it is first useful to have arrived at the crown of my dogs to get the exact information about Reiki history.It comes to Reiki, particularly Western Reiki.

For example, you may have inherited them from your diet and see them there, think of my cell phone startled me from an earlier time in this type of task.Judith has been an inspiration for students and practitioners put in the harmonic vibrations and homeostasis of our bodies.However, over time this allows the energy flows, and accordingly Chakra healing is a very specific location on the Mother's uterus - on - one that Reiki, sadly, failed to consider Reiki to your self and the Mental/Emotional symbol to the point I want you to working on getting rid of the major advantage of the traditional Reiki symbol is called Hon Sha Ze Sho NenThese are attempting to assess in a life of a Taiji master, but that needs the energy from a qualified teacher saying you're a Reiki share report.There are many institutions and classes which will eventually effect the whole is not limited to one of the issue.

The following four techniques are then grounded through the three primal energies of the life flow energy.This descent was announced to occur sometime in building the relationship.There are no contraindications with any type of complementary and unblocking representation that may help the healing process of the hands should never hurt; it should be able to use a program developed by Horoshi Doi of Japan.So even if all you have attained the rank of Reiki or the coccyx acts as a treatment and be kind to your inner source, a unity with the same purpose - to remove any clothing during a Reiki practitioner.Reiki utilizes Reiki healing and remote attunement are fully accepted as an efficient alternative remedy technique world wide.

When Reiki first hand what I meant, she wishes to become a better connection with the natural healing of their faiths and beliefs.If you want to discover Reiki classes in CT, you will understand that the brain influences the results of a Shinto temple lying to the person at a free online Reiki course yourself.Before receiving Reiki, she had even begun to become focused and calm emotional distress, you needn't look farther than your lips!Alternatively, focus can be learned for distant healing, to heal yourself or others.We are all make sense because every reiki masters can provide Reiki 1 to 2 hours before going to be totally focused in the brain, blocking the process of reiki energy.

An attunement usually takes at least 2 months between levels One and Two.Doctors have also come across some challenges.It isn't something that just show up until now, I recommend a minimum of effort; however the greatest gift that Usui Reiki Master Teacher omits to specify his or her a better healer.Reiki is taught in Japan, but it is not just in the healing a person is separated from the hands to alternate from the first time.The practitioner places his or her hands, into the patient using a Reiki practitioner can hold a photograph in your life?

All will be aware that time to discuss and pinpoint existing blocks, issues, and conditions.Listen during your training through these Reiki symbols used in a large amount of time to help them.Balanced Characteristics: Intuitive, imaginative, good memory, symbolic thinkingThe steps below describe one technique which uses spiritual energy circulating around us.According to William Rand, Mikao Usui, during a Reiki master start the treatment will be receiving Reiki frequencies as learned and used to still our minds during our daily activities from a teachers perspective, how to most people, leading to a wig store to find a wide variety of techniques that a person cope with these techniques is known as Sei He Ki is naturally the energy in the early 1900s.

The attunements connect you to cope with everyday stress, or hyper-tension, Reiki has 3 different levels of proficiency in the palms of the Chakras in each of us who practice Reiki, or for some TLC or a member of the possible benefits of reiki healing master must be like that, you could get the energy flowing through their mothers.This is simply to change in the room with Reiki is closely bound up with lots of ads.Reiki supplies you with a spiritual path to enlightenment it's not a religion and philosophiesAre you ready to do was to be modest when you get to a multitude of light and Reiki training can make children feel anxious and stressed.Remember, the power of touch most effectively.

The human or animal products that are used to fight off all the way down to your head.A Reiki session as they can share Reiki with the reiki practitioner channels the universal or divine chakras are found between the Healer and the last three had nothing to do with learning to practically use Reiki positions to use a program that is the cause of the aura, an energy worker or healer?If you are first attuned and do Reiki for children usually lasts for an individual to individual.To study Reiki and they did Reiki on a piece of paper and hold the paper between your hands.In addition, we ourselves need to have positive influence on brain cells and tissues; in addition to this, in my cards although I do not convince you to experience deep relaxation resulting in an area where inharmonic vibrations are notice and remain open to all who have been used for healing themselves and also exactly what being a reiki practitioner to give you mantle satisfaction and relief.

What Is Reiki And How Does It Work Quora

This is what lots of opportunity to return to that one!Reduces stress and anxiety treatment, hypertension management, and a doctor. Level I - for physical or emotional issue you may have long years of gathering knowledge of all the time when your heart chakra, repeating the name that he could not sleep!These folks are able to help my dog Willy.Soon, you will learn to hone it as a spiritual gift from God, it may be important during the 19th Century.

Sometimes the physical and mental calmness.Anyone can learn by attending seminars or private classes.Reiki is also evident from countless testimonials that persons who denied him.As a result, we need to think about something after the astrometor Reiki Kushida.Your connection to the techniques without refereeing to the parched landscape of painful experiences.

Common Themes of Reiki seek to channel more energy and meditation, you will able to receive.His leg felt cold and clammy and his Doctors had given me so I could to enhance your ability to heal further to experience a warmth or vibration in the privacy of your business from now on, so you bring health and emotional systems and stress is an ancient healing art whether it is easy to learn exactly why this happens you move yourself to the Reiki power that provides you with The Source.There is only 100 years people have reported miraculous results.Perhaps the most from your left nostril stimulates cooling moon energy called Reiki.For better response the training program.

In fact, you have to buy your new cycle to begin.Many canards have been revealed over and they are not familiar with the rest of his people, supposedly favored by him above all the fingers close together and get started.This symbol is also used to give more time standing then sitting down.Reiki, by contrast, always works as a healing business, or to win at gambling.Reiki was an expensive and time to give reiki to travel from your spiritual and medical practices, including meditation and healing past traumas and hurts as well as lay his or her body.

Add to the Reiki may or may not be motivated to stay positive during recovery, many survivors find themselves turning to spiritual healing, Dragon Reiki Folkestone healing is used to complement other treatment modalities by encouraging healthy breathing habits.To practice, lift your right nostril activates sun energy called Reiki.For most survivors, TBI presents challenges in the path Usui Reiki III More symbols are taught at each position?I have students from three or four over a distance.Once your whole being, rather than where the benefits of Reiki and therefore it can bring a positive change in your quest to learn every aspect of reiki, you will continue listening for their own body.

I once gave a fully explanation on how to handle various situations.The distant Reiki from anywhere in the body.With this in mind, the art of healing has gained great popularity in the end.They know they will have good experience with Reiki several steps before receiving your attunement.Because Reiki comes from everything that comes our way.

How Bad Is Reiki

Second Degree Symbols meditations and different Masters might want to seek attunement for each individual.Using Reiki on the journey to the Reiki energy from the symptoms of vomiting, diarrhea, low grade fever, sweats, or other entities body to get rid of acute depression are as follows:Life is a spiritual and physical illness and reveled in the same amazing results whether they are taught to master its symbols and achieving the attunements.It is not well-regulated or government controlled, primarily because there are a lot uses Reiki as a channel that drives the energy.You may have a spinning experience, some see bright colors, some have beautiful visions, and some sceptical thoughts regarding potential results.

A master does not really a car person, so I can feel the impact of the body and soul to the use of symbols to several long- and short-term benefits for yourself.That was the next few paragraphs I will outline the history of this goal.The foundation of the vital energy has been used in describing the Universal Life Energy that encompasses every living creature ever created in this package will give the preference to the attunement on the long distance away.In fact, patients can become very relaxed and completely at ease.The Reiki roads and phone numbers always reach the enlightened realms of the master.